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Tag: Bareilly Ki Barfi

  • Films’ miscalculated releases & no face or value

    Films’ miscalculated releases & no face or value

    Four films releasing in one week, all lacking in face value with no star who can pull the audience and worst of all, the wrong period to release, bang on the day the Ganesh Festival started.

    Ganesh festival has never been the right time to release a film and expect people to flock to cinema halls. This festival which was celebrated as a public event in Maharashtra mainly with some influence till Surat in Gujarat, and Baroda and Indore both having considerable Maharashtrian population being erstwhile Maratha states and, a part of Karnataka.

    Now, the festivities are almost pan India and catching up. Entire Maharashtra celebrates this festival and, now, the celebrations have spread equally across entire Gujarat, MP, Karnataka and heading towards other parts of India.

    To add to the miscalculated release, the Ram Rahim court ruling made matters worse as it just about ruled out people in the two states of Haryana and Punjab as well as the parts of Delhi venturing out to watch a movie.
    Considering the quantum of punishment to the accused baba, there is little hope of moviegoers stepping out in the affected areas. Then, there are flood situations in parts of East to contend with.

    Here is the gory picture:

    *A Gentleman, an unlikely title which failed to convey anything what the film was about, backfired. If you don’t have enough imagination to name your film, why go ahead and make one at all? Don’t know who uses this word gentleman anymore!

    The film opened badly and remained almost stagnant on day two, Saturday. The film showed a marginal increase on Sunday to end its opening weekend with Rs 113 million.

    *Babumoshai Bandookbaaz, an odd title for an all-India audience, again shows lack of imagination. The film goes haywire within minutes after its start. It starts with the Vividh Bharati signature tune playing and Kishore Kumar songs on the air but, soon, shifts to the mobile phone era! Nobody ages in this film and you don’t know where it is all happening.

    A total bankruptcy of ideas, the film managed to cross the Rs 10 million on the opening day, nothing changed on day two and day three as the film collected Rs 35 million for its opening weekend.

    *The fact that the company with a sound background and pedigree, Yash Raj Films should release its all new star cast, Qaidi Band, during the Ganpati Festival, showed a lack of acumen. The film had nothing going for it anyways so why this hasty release? The fact that the film carried the dreams of many newcomers, it deserved a better exploitation.

    The film hovered around Rs 3-million figure over its first weekend and can be called the worst failure from Yash Raj Films who, when they make such economical films, are known to cash in from various sources while also creating a library.

    *Sniff is poor as collections remained poor at about Rs 4 million for the first weekend.

    *Bareilly Ki Barfi falls short of its target as the poor opening took its toll and the film showed only a marginal improvement over its first weekend even as the collections started diminishing as the new week began. The film ended its first week with Rs 165 million.

    *Partition: 1947 (Hindi-Dubbed) meets with a disastrous outcome managing to collect just about Rs 7 million in its opening week.

    *Toilet Ek Prem Katha adds a handsome Rs 266 million in its second week taking its two-week tally to Rs 1.2 billion.

    *Mubarakan collected Rs 11 million in its fourth week taking its four-week total to Rs 564 million.

  • Akshay Kumar’s versatility saves holiday week from dullness

    Akshay Kumar’s versatility saves holiday week from dullness

    The flow of new films seems to have tapered down. In the weeks when new films are not meant to be released like during IPL or exams etc, a bunch of small, inconsequential films swarm the cinemas. Even if one or two of them had a merit, they stood no chance because of high admission rates, odd show timings that they were meted out, and the lack of face value of such films.

    Now, when the playtime is open and available, the exhibitors were able to get one Bareilly Ki Barfi besides the other release, Partition: 1947 (Hindi-Dubbed), which failed to get the footfalls and faced a no audience, no show situation.

    The starving cinema halls had some relief with Akshay Kumar’s Toilet: Ek Prem Katha with an extended Independence Day weekend coinciding. The film raced to the Rs 900 million-figure during these holidays. The film has to meet the target of Rs 1.25 billion and, looking at the weak opposition in the new release, Bareilly Ki Barfi, the Akshay-starrer should sail safe eventually.

    *Bareilly Ki Barfi had some renowned names riding with it. The film boasts of Nitesh Tiwari who wrote and directed the recent blockbuster Dangal, as the writer while Ashwini Iyer Tiwary, who made Nil Battey Sannata, as the director. Both the writer and the director failed to live up to their earlier glory as Bareilly Ki Barfi has none of that spontaneity or laughter expected of their work.

    The film opened with a low Ra 20 million. The Saturday improvement was fair but still on the lower side while Sunday was much better with double the Friday figures. The film ended its opening weekend with a total of Rs 108 million.

    *The other major release, UK-based Gurinder Chadha’s Partition: 1947 (Hindi-Dubbed), an attempt to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the Partition, had little relevance for today’s Indian viewers. A futile attempt, it finds no takers as the film fared poorly at the box office.

    *Toilet Ek Prem Katha thrived on the holiday week. The week had a holiday on Monday in many parts being Janmashtami, a national holiday on Tuesday being the Independence Day and the Parsi New Year holiday on Thursday in Maharashtra and Gujarat.

    The film had opened with fairly decent collections and picked up steam on Saturday and Sunday with the holidays adding handsomely to take the collections on the verge of Rs one billion, the mark it will easily cross during its second weekend. 

    With an opening weekend of Rs 511 million, the film added another Rs 415 million to take its first week tally to Rs 936 crore million.

    *Jab Harry Met Sejal added Rs 41.5 million in its second week to take its two-week total to Rs 616.5 million.

    *Mubarakan is struggling to sustain, despite being a fairly entertaining film, and keeps holding out hope in its subsequent weeks which will help cut down its losses. The film collected a decent Rs 54 million taking its four week total to Rs 553 million.

  • Bareilly Ki Barfi — Insipid

    Bareilly Ki Barfi — Insipid

    Small town Uttar Pradesh love stories are the in thing, quite a few having worked at the box office to varied degrees of success. Last week’s release Toilet- Ek Prem Katha, was one such film. The advantage with basing a film in this region is that the subject can take all the liberties it wants, the making is economical and, the major attraction is the subsidy doled out to films shot in the state of UP.

    Bareilly Ki Barfi is inspired from a French movie, translated in English as The Ingredients Of Love. It raises some expectations as it comes from the pen of Nitesh Tiwary, who wrote and directed the much acclaimed film Chillar Party; and the blockbuster, Dangal. The director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwary, herself has the film, Nil Battey Sannata to her credit.

    Despite these names on the roster, Bareilly Ki Barfi is a typical love story, rather a love triangle, created by the protagonist Ayushmann Khurrana, with evil designs to win the love of a girl, Kriti Sanon, whom he could have won over easily anyway.

    Kriti is a tomboy kind of girl in the laidback town of Bareilly, the only daughter of Pankaj Tripathi and Seema Pahwa. Pankaj, a sweet shop owner, has always treated her as the son he wished for. He borrows a cigarette from her when he needs one, lets her be on her own, and has full faith in her decisions.

    Kriti is romantic, loves break dance and English movies. She just seems to have been born in a wrong place. However, that does not deter her from living life by her own rules. But her lifestyle carries a price tag. She is rejected by all suitors when it comes to marriage proposals.

    Fed up of rejections by her suitors and taunts of her mother, Kriti decides to run away from home when, at the railway station, looking for a cheap read, she picks up a book titled Bareilly Ki Barfi. To her surprise, the girl described as barfi is her alter ego, with the same traits and characteristics. Thinking that the girl in the book is her, Kriti gives up eloping and returns home to look for the book’s author.

    The book, as it turns out, is the offshoot of Ayushmann’s failed love. He loved a girl who had all the fun with him but when it came marrying, she went along with her parents’ choice. Devastated, he writes the book but, fearing the backlash of his family, picks on a weakling, Rajkumar Rao, to credit as the author.

    Kriti wants to now meet Rajkumar who has so aptly scripted her life in a book. Ayushmann, who has fallen for Kriti but cannot confess to being the author of the book, agrees to be her conduit delivering Kriti’s letters to Rajkumar and his replies to her.

    Ultimately, Ayushmann decides to call Rajkumar back, plans to discredit him in the eyes of Kriti so that she is out of his spell.

    Whatever interest the film generates is in the second half after the entry of Rajkumar on the scene. The love triangle so developed turns into a battle of wits between Ayushmann and Rajkumar. But, Kriti is the one who rolls the dice.

    Looking at the film, save for the background of Bareilly, it has nothing small town about it. All the characters are well versed with the life as it is lived in metros. They dress, think and act like any other city dweller. The screenplay is okay. The direction remains in the parameters set by the writing. Production values are average while technically, the film is just about passable. Musically, the film has one popular number in Sweety tera drama….. The film has no high moments as it maintains its set mediocre narration throughout.

    The film scores on casting; Pankaj Tripathi, Rajkumar Rao excel while Seema Pahwa makes her presence felt. Ayushmann Khurrana is good.

    Bareilly Ki Barfi is a contrived romcom that fails to tickle.

    Producers: Vineet Jain, Renu Ravi Chopra.

    Director: Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari.

    Cast: Rajkumar Rao, Ayushmann Khurrana, Kriti Sanon, Pankaj Tripathi, Seema Pahwa