Chun Chun Ke Badla Is Back

The trailer of The Power(yes that’s the name  of  the film) shows  anything but the power  of a trailer to draw audiences into movie theatres. Luckily for the makers  of this seeming monstrosity  audiences don’t  need  to be  invited  into movie theatres.  But I doubt even on the OTT platform at home, they would want to watch something so abysmally humdrum and so self-consciously pedestrian . Lamentably there is not an iota  of self-parody in  the  torrent of triteness  in  the trailer.

It is all dead serious.  What came  to me  as a surprise  was  to know that this junket of  juveniliawas  directed by my  friend Mahesh Manjrekar. Seriously Mahesh? What  didn’t come as   asurprise  was to  know that the  leading man of The Power, Vidyut Jamwal apparently doesn’t want to promote the  film.

 Understandable. Isn’t  it enough that he actually agreed,in a fit of  madness, to be part of something do  unabashedly banal?To actually hear  Vidyut mouth action-hero Dharmendra’s favourite line “Chun chun ke badla lunga” was to be transported to the  1980s,  quite easily the worst decade  for  Hindi cinema.

I  have   some advice  for  filmmakers offering content to  the OTT platform: Please don’t treat the platform as a dumpling ground.