Box Office: Aligarh gets poor opening

The hits and misses of the week.

Manoj Bajpayee-starrer Aligarh may have been hugely praised by critics but cine-goers chose to ignore it.

Tere Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive failed to cash in on the brand, and did not perform as well as the first film.

The other releases -- Bollywood Diaries, Love Shagun, Rhythm, Jab Tum Kaho and Dhara 302 -- add to list of the year's disasters.

Trade analyst Vinod Mirani gives us the box office verdict.

 

Aligarh

Cast: Manoj Bajpai, Rajkummar Rao, Ashish Vidyarthi.

Director: Hansal Mehta.

What works: Story, screenplay, direction, performance.

What doesn't: A bit slow at times.

Number of weeks: New

BO verdict: Poor opening.

Read the review here

 

Tere Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive

Cast:  Manish Paul, Sikandar Kher, Pradhuman Singh, Mia Uyeda, Piyush Mishra.

Director: Abhishek Sharma.

What works: Good performances from Pradhuman Singh and Sikandar Kher.

What doesn't: The second half bores.

Number of weeks: New

BO verdict: Flop.

Read the review here

 

Bollywood Diaries

Cast: Raima Sen, Salim Diwan, Ashish Vidyarthi.

Director: K D Satyam.

What works: Performances by the lead cast.

What doesn't: Too slow and predictable.

Number of weeks: New

BO verdict: Flop.

Read the review here

 

Neerja

Cast: Sonam Kapoor, Shabana Azmi.

Director: Ram Madhvani.

What works: Performances, cinematography and narrative is superb.

What doesn't: Nothing.

Number of weeks: 1.

BO verdict: Hit.

Read the reviews here: Raja Sen / Sukanya Verma

 

Loveshhuda

Cast: Girish Kumar, Navneet Kaur Dhillon.

Director: Vaibhav Misra.

What works: Good music.

What doesn't: Bad script, shoddy editing.

Number of weeks: 1.

BO verdict: Flop.

 

Ishq Forever

Cast: Ruhi Singh, Krishna Chaturvedi, Lisa Ray and Jaaved Jaaferi.

Director: Sameer Sippy.

What works: Beautiful locales.

What doesn't: Bad acting and script.

Number of weeks: 1

BO verdict: Flop.

Read the review here

 

Direct Ishq

Cast: Arjun Bijlani, Rajneesh Duggal, Nidhi Subbaiah.

Director: Rajiv S Ruia.

What works: Rajneesh's performance.

What doesn't: Poor production values and predictable story.

Number of weeks: 1.

BO verdict: Flop.

 

Sanam Re

Cast: Pulkit Samrat, Yami Gautam, Urvashi Rautela.

Director: Divya Khosla Kumar.

What works: Beautiful locales and music.

What doesn't: Script and shabby direction.

Number of weeks: 2

BO Verdict: Below Average.

Read the review

 

Fitoor

Cast: Katrina Kaif, Aditya Roy Kapur, Tabu.

Director: Abishek Kapoor.

What works: Opulent production design and cinematography.

What doesn't: The lead pair.

Number of weeks: 2

BO verdict: Flop

Read the review here

 

Ghayal Once Again

Cast: Sunny Deol, Soha Ali Khan, Om Puri, Narendra Jha.

Director: Sunny Deol.

What works: Sunny Deol.

What doesn't: Old fashioned story, haywire second half!

Number of weeks: 3

BO verdict: Flop

Read the review here