BAAGHI

This is the franchise no one asked for. Yet here we are bracing ourselves for the next Baaghi film. The first three films in the whack-thwack-boom-bang franchise — featuring Tiger Shroff as Ronnie, a bargain-basement version of Rocky-meets-Rambo and an unvanquishable one-man army — were official remakes of south Indian films — Telugu film Varsham was made into Baaghi; Kshanam (Telugu) became Baaghi 2; and the Tamil action film Vettai found its Hindi remake in Baaghi 3. All the three films were creatively bankrupt, but cashing in on Tiger's young fan base, sleek action and popular music, they were box-office hits. The presence of Shraddha Kapoor in the first and third films did lend it some much-needed dignity.

But Baaghi 4 is a different monster altogether. Though not an official remake, it has Ranbir Kapoor's Animal and the Malayalam film Marco written all over it. From moment one, all we see in the teaser of this slaughter fest are limbs flying, eyes being gouged out, brains being crushed and spines being sliced, with enough body parts being hacked to spur a prosthetics crisis in the country. This is not a film that anyone should even think of watching if not under duress, leave alone celebrating. It is time Bollywood retired the Baaghi franchise. To quote the teaser of Part 4, naa yeh "zaroori" hain, na humein iski "zaroorat" hain.

HOUSEFULL

In an interview, Akshay Kumar had referred to his film franchises as his “blank cheques in which I can fill (in) any figure because I have quite a few super-successful franchises to my credit and they have been going strong for over a decade. I will always have something to fall back on, whether it is Housefull, Kesari, Hera Pheri or Jolly LLB.”

While Hera Pheri is cult, Jolly LLB is watchable and even the two Kesari films have had their moments, the five Housefull films have been nothing but cash cows (aka the Khiladi's "blank cheques") that have ensured that producer Sajid Nadiadwala — who also happens to be the man behind the Baaghi films — laughs all the way to the bank.

A chaotic mess of physical comedy, implausible plots and mostly crude dialogues, the Housefull films — save for some scenes and some characters in some films — have been an assault on the senses.

The repeat offender has seen its worst in Housefull 5, that released in June, and attempted to make up for its lack of plot with sexist lines and crass comedy. It was a success, but that it is nothing but a money-making franchise has been proved by the fact that the fifth film was released in two versions, with two different endings. Both were bad, but that's just in keeping with the DNA of this franchise which just needs to go away... now!

RACE

The first two films in this curveball-a-second action heist thriller were fun to watch — in a twisted meta way — with their music (Pritam, Salim Sulaiman) contributing to their popularity. But that was until Race 3 came along, with Remo D'Souza taking over the directorial reins from Abbas-Mustan and Salman Khan stepped in to show us the "two pehlus" of the film, both of which were unwatchable. It has been seven years since Race 3 was unleashed upon us, but we still bear the scars of watching Salman 'fly' over the Dubai horizon in a batsuit.

Though news has it that Saif Ali Khan marks a return to 'Race 4', it is best to say goodbye. Even if the makers of Race hurl their favourite line — "Our business is our business, none of your business" — at us in defense.

STUDENT OF THE YEAR

Hopefully we won't have any more Student of the Year films — unless a few nepo kids need to be (re)launched. Bollywood's masala version of a high-school musical may have given us bona fide talents like Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Sidharth Malhotra and even Ananya Panday, but the films themselves haven't been anything but vacuous and vanity song 'n' dance projects, with plots that would put even the thinnest layer of graphene to shame. We don't need more.

DABANGG

In the autumn of 2010, Bollywood got its desi version of a spaghetti Western and a deliciously fun hero/antihero in Chulbul Pandey, played with wacky machismo by Salman Khan. Dabangg had just the right dose of masala madness, spurring a franchise we rooted for. The second film — that saw Salman's brother Arbaaz take over as director — retained quite a bit of the original's irreverence, with its leading man powering it to box-office success. But ennui set in by the time we came to Dabangg 3. With Prabhu Deva stepping in as director and Salman penning the script, the milieu, the masala and the main character had reached its expiry date. The final straw was Salman, then 53, romancing 18-year-old Saiee Manjrekar.

CHHORII

This isn't a franchise in the big league, but given that Chhorii 2 was a rather poor follow-up to the far more intriguing Chhorii — a film that used horror to shed light on the horror of female foeticide — it is time to retire the films. Unless the makers can come up with a third film that packs in genuine spooks and scares and not some banal balderdash masquerading as chills and thrills.

SON OF SARDAAR

The second film in this apology of a comedy franchise has proved beyond doubt that the Son of Sardaar films are a serious assault on all six (and more) senses. One big reason to say bye bye? Let's not get to a point where Ajay Devgn starts 'dancing' with his eyeballs!

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