2017 Flashback:One Of The Worst Years For Indian  Cinema

Without Padmavati on  release, nothing seemed  to work for Bollywood except Akshay Kumar, Baahubali Returns , Golmaal Returns and Judwaa Returns.

So okay, the sequels’ ​were  not ​ title​d  the I am saying. But the ‘returns’, that is  the profits, proved that the sequels and spinsoff had a ball at the boxoffice.The  rest, had to take  a chillpill

Chill-maar non-starters queued up to be disgraced at the box office this year.The year started with Aditya Roy Kapoor and Shradha Kapoor getting together in Shaad Ali’s Ok Jaanu to deliver a super-flop after the super-hit Aashiqui. The flow of flops  never dimmed thereafter. The  big Republic Day clash between Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan in Raees and Kaabil proved to be  a bit of a damp squib with both films under performing  at the box office, though neither was an outright flop.

Still,  after Raees and later during the year, Imtiaz Ali’s atrociouslyselfindulgent  Jab Harry Met Sejal, Shah Rukh needs a very big hit to resurrect his towering  superstardom.Akshay Kumar  continued to revel in soci​o​

-political relevancy . Jolly LLB 2 was about the loopholes in the legal system while Toilet: Ek Prem Katha took on  hygiene and toilet amenities  for women.  These are brave choices and  they worked at the boxoffice. We must salute Akshay Kumar as the hero of 2017 in a year desperately in search  of heroes.

Renowned filmmakers  like Vishal Bhardwaj and Imtiaz Ali ​should be ashamed  of themselves for wasting producers’ money and our time with their crappy creativity. Bhardawaj’s Rangoon invites a thesis  on  HOW NOT TO MAKE A  MOVIE. It was an overblown piece off kinetic travesty  best left  to the trashcans of obscurity.

 But who will compensate  the producers who believe in the creative dreams of  filmmakers and repeatedly​ get​ kicked in their butts for their misplaced trust all the way to near-bankruptcy?

While Baahubali The Conclusion made us conclude—wrongly—that costume dramas were  back in fashion, films starring female  heroes, or ladies’ pictures as the CBFC picturesquely  described them, continued  to bomb one after another. Vidya Balan had two major female-oriented disasters Begum Jaan and Tumhari Sulu(the latter performing relatively better).Sonakshi’s Noor, Raveena Tandon’sMaatr and Manisha Koirala’s absolutely enchanting Dear Maya sank without a trace.

The ‘ladies pictures’ that did well were  the Sridevi-driven Mom and the quirky sexy ensemble comedy Lipstick Under My Burkha, the latter benefiting primarily from all the publicity it got from its skirmish with the censorboard.

Wait. It got worse with the Sushant Singh Rajput–Kriti Sanonreincarnation  dud Raabta(just goes to prove once again that audiences get bored with real-life couples  on  screen).Big Stars  like Ranbir Kapoor and​ Katrina Kaif delivered a dud like Jagga Jasoos, a criminal waste of  resources that should have never been  allowed.

It took a small film with a big message  called Hindi Medium  to turn the tides . This Irrfan Khan –Saba Qamar starrer about a young  couple’s  struggle to get their daughter into an English-medium school, touched ​a chord​  in​ the nation.

 Moral Of  The Story: Message maro,  lekin pyar se.No doubt Irrfanwas  the star of the year.  He had another relative success  QaribQarib Singlle towards year-end.The other Khan​, the far bigger star Salman, delivered  a thundering flop  with Tubelight, one of the biggest debacles  of the year . No doubt Salmanwill recover lost ground with Tiger Zinda Hai before the  year closes.

 Advait Chandan’s Secret Superstar, R S Prasanna’s Shubh MangalSavdhaan , Amit Masurkar’s  Newton, Ratna  Sinha’s Hamari ShadiMein Zaroor Aana  and  Ashwini Iyer Tiwari’s  Bareilly Ki Barfi were the  other  little films with big hearts that raked in the profits.

In  the meanwhile there is more heartening  news  with MrigdeepSingh Lamba’s Fukrey Returns making rich profits at year-end.

 What did I tell you about this being the year of ‘returns’?