Mohenjo Daro tops the list.
Holding on to bad memories is not my thing. But it’s an annual tradition to recall the worst of the year at the movies.
So here are 10 Hindi films I took exception to and continue to do so just as strongly long after their release.
1. Mohenjo Daro
Read the review here: 'History in Mohenjo Daro is tokenism at best. I don’t find that shocking. The trailer was an unsubtle disclaimer. What I refuse to forgive is that the makers don’t even have the decency to have fun with it.
Eventually as the film progresses, or should I say drags, it’s obvious the crocodile is the only bit of thrill Mohenjo Daro has to offer.
In this giant bore which squanders three fourth of its duration over a cloying romance, an antiquated screenplay is the only thing that comes close to ancient.'
Recap: Sindhu Ma still weeps at the memory of this monstrosity. As do I who still cannot get over how someone as levelheaded as Ashutosh Gowariker could’ve been so blindsided by his ambition not to realise the extent of absurdity it has reached.
2. Housefull 3
Read the review here: 'Ever seen dogs lift their leg to pee against a lamppost, tyre or tree?
Incredible how Housefull 3 finds creative inspiration in that most unbecoming of sights and choreographs an entire song and dance devoted to this act in Taang uthake.'
Housefull's tradition of lowbrow humour is faithfully carried on through Housefull 3's relentless stock of sexist and racist jokes.
African guy appears on screen -- hilarious.
Insinuate a black housemaid slept with a desi who couldn't tell because it was dark -- sidesplitting.
Recap: My sarcasm-laden views exist purely to convey what Roger Ebert so categorically wrote in his polemical review of North: I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.
3. Mirzya
Read the review here: 'Opulent Leh battles, seductive Rajasthan ballet, picture perfect frames of postured passion peppered in flared lens to the tune of a soundtrack that’s miles ahead of its scenery involving people we never care about in life or after -- Mehra’s Mirzya sacrifices sense for style and that is its real tragedy.'
Recap: What is art in the absence of soul, passion or intelligence? Hollow, lifeless and all the gorgeousness in the world cannot rescue the fancy but flat Mirzya.
4. Befikre
Read the review here: 'The problem is not so much in Befikre's recycled imagery as it is in Aditya Chopra's hypocrisy of making it look as though he's busting long cherished myths, one he only created, like the Palat philosophy, when the upshot is unfailingly, unchangingly the same -- Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
If Befikre's sole objective is to prove Chopra's not a prude, he only embarrasses himself by going overboard with two sexually explicit characters who might even be more fond of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge than he is.'
Recap: There’s nothing remotely funny or fizzy about this idiotic movie that expects its audience to actually invest in the relationship of two fickle-minded twerps.
5. Rock on 2
Read the review here: 'It's a good-looking film featuring several long shots of people blessed with ridiculously gorgeous balcony views but its deadpan emotionality renders it bland. Soulless.
Emotions are treated like window-shopping in Rock On 2.
What's worse it doesn't even feel like it's about the same guys any more in a script marked by contrivances not progression.'
Recap: Rock On 2 tries to weave Northeast alienation in its dreary script about a rock band inching towards middle age so desperately, it’s almost phony. Correction, it IS phony.
6. Azhar
Read the review here: 'What happens when a masala love triangle akin to soppy 1980s melodramas Pati Patni Aur Woh, where it’s incidental that the man caught between a girl-next-door housewife and sizzling movie star happens to be a professional cricketer is promoted as the biopic of a controversial Indian skipper?
Azhar is a badly bungled-up example of the same.'
Recap: In cricket terminology -- out for a duck.
7. Fitoor
Read the review here: Fitoor starts with promise while its young leads are still young and Tabu looks human. Twenty minutes later, they grow up to be a nonplussed Aditya Roy Kapoor and wooden Katrina Kaif while Tabu has started to resemble a kabuki mask. The upshot is yet another one of 2016’s terrific looking terrible films.
Recap: The only thing classic about this distorted Great Expectations is a classic case of lost in translation.
8. Baar Baar Dekho
Read the review here: Pretty people fall in love. Pretty people decide to get married. Pretty people travel to and fro in time to gain perspective about what happens in a marriage. The upshot is so inane; it’s criminal that it’s not even unintentionally hilarious.
Recap: It’s hard to tell if Baar Baar Dekho is a two and an hour-long metaphor for pre-wedding jitters fashioned in the mold of A Christmas Carol and Groundhog Day or just an utterly daft film about pretty people with seriously great stylists.
9. Tera Suroor
Read the review here: 'Reshammiya plays a businessman but dresses up like Jean-Claude Van Damme in the 1980s and wears the same shade of pink lipstick as his girlfriend (Farah Karimaee). He cheats on her, citing occupational hazard.
Reshammiya's newly acquired buff takes up most of the screen space. During a lovemaking scene -- if you want to call it that, I've seen more passion in pigeons on my balcony ledge -- it's hard to tell his pecs from a butt crack.
True to his reputation, Himesh Reshammiya -- the only valid reason for Teraa Surroor's existence, does not show any expression. Not even one. Not even a quarter.'
Recap: There’s predictably bad and there’s SO bad it will haunt you for as long as you live. Tera Surroor falls in the latter category.
Also, films like these make people around me finally realise it’s not a ‘fun job.’
10. Sarbjit
Read the review here: 'Omung Kumar’s access to inspiring individuals is the only noteworthy aspect of his filmmaking.
His preoccupation at milking a tragedy not only clouds his judgment but reveals a complete lack of one. What remains is so affected and superficial, it’s all a sham. And a shame.'
Recap: Few things bug me as much as baloney assuming the face of hard-hitting reality just because its inspired by true people. Bollywood’s exploitative tendency to use real accomplishments to paint itself in the same shade of virtue is visible in every single frame of Sarbjit.
