Winning formula and the bhed chal in Bollywood

With the success of ‘Wanted’ in 2009, it seemed Salman Khan found a hit formula. His immediately family went on to encash the formula by putting in a systematic round robin policy. One member after another got in the queue and started producing movies with amazing pace and similarity. So we had ‘Dabanng’ in 2010 by Arbaaz Khan, ‘Ready’ in 2011 by Sohail Khan, ‘Bodyguard’ in 2011 by Alvira Khan. Arbaaz Khan’s turn came back in 2012 with the sequel of ‘Dabangg’ as ‘Dabangg 2’. Sohail Khan is now making ‘Mental’ for next year and last I heard Atul Agnihotri (Alvira’s husband and Salman’s brother in law) is working on his next film with Salman titled ‘O Teri’. The strength of the formula can be judged simply by the fact that none of these producers had produced a hit film before.

Well Bollywood as we have known has had a “bhed chaal”. They are always in the lookout of one such winning formula. And then all they have to do is create carbon copies. Not to be left behind, other actors quickly got in the line. So we had Ajay Devgn with ‘Singham’, ‘Son of Sardar’ and the latest ‘Himmatwala’, while the original Khiladi Kumar came back from his earlier series of disasters with ‘Rowdy Rathore’ and uniquely and very innovatively titled ‘Khiladi 786’. 

After all they were the original action heroes before Mr. Dabangg Khan took their position away.

The Producers and directors put together an assembly line production.
All movies were openly (and at least this time honestly) inspired by the south Indian movie industry. Needless to say in such assembly line scenarios, the story is the least important part. Mr. Javed and Mr. Gulzar can keep fighting for their royalty rights at the Film Writers Association but who needs a script these days to make money.

At the end of the day aren’t all movies just about good vs evil and in the end the good one triumphs. The importance in this assembly line was to have a strong and vicious evil guy (or a group of them depending upon the budget of producer) and to match the capability of the evilness, create a hero so powerful who with his breath can blow them away. The hero here need not be the all goody goody but just one level better than the evil one. So in the spare time, when he is not kicking or creating holes in the evil guys, he is freely allowed to eve-tease, take bribe, slap his brother or father, and so on.

He obviously is a merry guy and needs to sing and dance. The dance is inspired by day to day activities. So if the buckle of your belt doesn’t fit and you have to adjust it up and down, it can become a classical dance step. If you have itch down there and an itch guard has not been effective, we can still hide it away by declaring it another dance step. An item number was must which can then be sponsored by the likes of Zandus or the Fevicols. After all, Bollywood is an equal opportunity employer and hence an opportunity must be given to other “actresses” in bollywood, sometimes to members of our own family (read Malaika Arora Khan). In all this jamboree, the real actress need not have any role except flutter her eyelashes and be saved by the superhero. Well if you are paid well, I guess the roles can always take a back seat. No wonder we had usually the likes of Sonakshi and Asin as actress in most of these movies, who otherwise might not have even got an item number.

A side kick was irrelevant because we have the all encompassing hero who can fill that gap as well. The dialogues were a mix of one-liners with little relevance in the movie but to be remembered by the audience after they leave the theatre and use it in their colleges or in their next round of eve teasing. So we had some good ones like “Mujh par ek ehsan karna ki mujh par koi ehsan na karna” or “Zindagi mein teen cheez kabhi underestimate mat karna. I, ME & Myself” and some not so good ones like “mein kutta hun or yeh meri kuttiya hai..."

The stunts were so strong and realistic that the likes of Einstein and Newtons might be turning up in their graves wondering about the 2.0 version of their laws on Relativity and gravity. Even our own Rajnikanth was in real danger of his throne of “The Superpower and Almighty” being snatched away. The punch had power which was inspired by Sunny Deol’s “dhai kilo ka haath” and Complan energy drinks (I am still wondering why none of the energy drinks have filed a RTI to know the strength behind such heros). With heros like these, who needs movies like Superman, Spiderman and Batman.

Well the good news is or at least was that all these assembly line movies went on to become major blockbusters, the new so – called “100 crore club”. Well there are so many "zeroes" in this club, who wouldn’t get excited?

Usually such formula movies last till the first flop and hopefully this bhed chaal will break now that we have one flop in Mr. Know It All Sajid Khan’s Himmatwala.

By the way the very fact that this trend lasted for 4 years with so many block busters speaks volumes about the expectation of audience these days from our movies.

Ready - watch at your own risk

There are comedies, there are loud comedies and then there are “Anees” comedies. With every passing movie, Anees Bazmee tries to outdo himself (or should I say lower himself). “Ready” belongs to this genre. It takes Indian cinemas to the days when double entendres were considered cool. When theatres were not fitted with good quality dolby digital sound systems; hence every actor used to shout at the pitch of his voice so that he could be heard over others. Where comedies meant you keep your brains and minds and intelligence and so on along with the Rs 500 bucks that you just paid at the ticket counter. The brain might get refunded back but with a deduction of a 3hrs interest. Where the following things were considered comical: actors farting, actors peeing in the open to water the dry plants, kids peeing in their pants, kids peeing on the villains (on second thought I think there was a lot of peeing in the film, no wonder the interval says pee break), actors using “choo”, “maa ki”, “kamini” and so on in almost every alternate sentence, dances being choreographed where actors and even little kids are using actions that you might think twice before showing them to your own kids...or actors speaking garbled dialogues. Sample this: Salman speaking to Asin’s aunty and introducing himself "mein kutta hun or yeh meri kuttiya hai..."

Ready is a brainless, illogical, non-sensical comedy.. in short an Anees Bazmee movie. Needless to say it doesn’t have a story.

Having said that, I don’t want to be over critical (you must be wondering what my first para was all about in that case). The movie does have some witty moments. I could hear lots of laughter around me so I assume there are people who liked the movie as well. Salman Khan is “Salman”. Asin looks a bit better in this movie. Other talented actors like Paresh Rawal and Mahesh Manjrekar were totally wasted. The songs are ok. While most of the songs have become popular, I think the best is still “Character Dheela” though howsoever hard she tries, Zareen still looks fat.

The backdrop locations are fabulous especially in song sequences. Overall, watch the movie at your own risk.