Hindi Films of 2013

2013 marked the completion of 100 years of Bollywood. That is something to rejoice over, especially in a country where popular Hindi cinema is the pulse of the nation. Yet, the year’s crop of movies was run-of-the-mill, to say the least. The best film of the year, if you believe those popular awards, starting with Filmfare, was ‘Bhag Milkha Bhag’, which was as good as sports biopics go. And it was overlong. Deepika Padukone won accolades for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘controversially’ named film. But, trying to write this note, I am hard-pressed to remember a film last year which was truly memorable — there was two gems ‘Ship of Theseus’ and ‘The Lunchbox’, beyond that I cannot recall any films, film that I would like to see again, perhaps. Most importantly, it was an especially barren year for Hindi film music. ‘Aashiqui 2’ had some lovely, sappy songs, for which they have been rightly rewarded; it was the sleeper hit of the year. But I am not humming them, neither am I humming the ‘baalam pichkari’ song, which at one time I really liked.

Instead, there was the usual masala fair, an extended, outdoor, comedy circus version of movies with big stats and big song and dance ensembles. And oh, there were loads of sequels, from ‘Race 2’, ‘Aashiqui 2’, to ‘Biwi Aur Gangster Returns’, ‘Grand Masti’ and even ‘Satya 2’. None of them were plot-driven films to extend the narrative of the earlier films, but was a shameless attempt to cash on the popularity of the earlier title. The biggest culprit of the lot obviously would be RGV. Remember him? He is still around.

The highlight of the year of course was Aamir Khan, who gave the most moronic, one-note performance in a film, that too in a film where you don’t need to act. If you are compared to John Abraham and is found wanting, then that’s saying something. Ironically, however, if you believe the trade reports, ‘Dhoom 3’ was the biggest hit of the year, an all-time blockbuster, followed by ‘Chennai Express’, where Shah Rukh Khan rehashes from his old hit, ‘DDLJ’. He will forever be Rahul. Some men never grow up. The third biggest grosser of the year, according to trade papers, was ‘Krrish 3’, which, if critics are to be believed, would be the last Krrish movie. You cannot just take elements from X-Men comics and plant them somewhere else.

But, this is what the Hindi film industry did last year. They just took elements from elsewhere and tried to do a mix and match. The result was mostly shoddy.

The following are some of the films released last year. The list has been copied from Wikipedia. I have deleted a few names which I thought was really ignominious. There are some really bad films in the list, but I thought we should remember them, just to be aware what the Hindi film industry is capable of delivering.

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola — Comedy — Vishal Bharadwaj — Imran Khan, Anushka Sharma, Pankaj Kapur

Arty director Vishal Bharadwaj wanted to ride a limo, blow up a plane and dance with African dancers. He does. The result is misleading

Inkaar — Romance/Crime — Sudhir Mishra — Arjun Rampal, Chitrangada Singh, Gaurav Dwivedi

Inspired by Dami Moore’s Disclosure, but Chitrangada Singh isn’t Dami Moore

Mumbai Mirror — Action — Ankush Bhatt — Sachiin Joshi, Gihana Khan, Prakash Raj

You wonder if the tabloid with the same name financed the film. If they did, it was a bad decision

Race 2 — Action/Thriller — Abbas-Mustan — Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, John Abraham, Jacqueline Fernandez, Anil Kapoor, Ameesha Patel

Babes, cars, unnecessary twists… what do you expect, it’s an Abbas-Mustan fare

Main Krishna Hoon —Animation/Musical — Rajiv S. Ruia — Juhi Chawla, Rajneesh Duggal, Misti Mukherjee, Hrithik Roshan, Katrina Kaif

Now, even Indian animation films are hiring big names for voice work, only if the films themselves were that good

David — Crime — Bejoy Nambiar — Vikram, Lara Dutta, Vinay Virmani, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Tabu

In his sophomore film, Bejoy Nambiar attempts to tell three stories at the same time and loses the plot

Vishwaroop — Action — Kamal Hassan — Kamal Hassan, Pooja Kumar, Shekhar Kapur, Andrea Jeremiah, Rahul Bose

Apparently, the controversy surrounding it was more popular that the film itself. Kamal Hassan’s Mission Impossible and Zero Dark Thirty rolled in one

Mai... — Drama/Family — Mahesh Kodiyal — Asha Bhosle, Ram Kapoor, Padmini Kolhapure

Asha Bhosle’s acting debut, playing the quintessential mother

Listen... Amaya — Drama — Avinash Kumar Singh — Farooq Sheikh, Deepti Naval, Swara Bhaskar

Special 26 — Drama/Comedy — Neeraj Pandey — Akshay Kumar, Kajal Aggarwal, Manoj Bajpayee, Anupam Kher, Jimmy Shergill

The righteousness of ‘A Wednesday’ turned into glorification of a bunch of conmen

ABCD – Any Body Can Dance — Dance — Remo D'Souza — Prabhu Deva, Kay Kay Menon, Lauren Gottlieb, Dharmesh Yelande, Mayuresh Wadkar

Any Body Can Dance, apparently. You be the judge

Murder 3 — Thriller — Vishesh Bhatt — Randeep Hooda, Aditi Rao Hydari, Mona Lizza

It’s the same plot with a new bunch of actors showing skin

Kai Po Che! — Drama — Abhishek Kapoor — Amit Sadh, Sushant Singh Rajput, Rajkummar Rao, Amrita Puri

Yet again, the adaptation is far better than the original novel, launching the careers of its stars

Zilla Ghaziabad — Action — Anand Kumar — Arshad Warsi, Vivek Oberoi, Sanjay Dutt, Minissha Lamba, Ravi Kishan, Paresh Rawal

If you like C-grade actioner set in the bad lands of North India, with Bollywood wannabe A-grade stars

I, Me, aur Main — Romantic comedy — Kapil Sharma — John Abraham, Prachi Desai, Chitrangda Singh

The Attacks of 26/11 — Crime/Thriller — Ram Gopal Varma — Nana Patekar, Sanjeev Jaiswal, Atul Kulkarni, Ganesh Yadav, Farzad Jehani

Varma does a fair reaction of still-fresh-in-public-memory of the fateful day. How dare he

Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster Returns — Drama/Thriller — Tigmanshu Dhulia Jimmy Shergill, Mahie Gill, Irrfan Khan, Soha Ali Khan

And do they pack a punch

Mere Dad Ki Maruti — Comedy — Ashima Chibber — Saqib Saleem, Ram Kapoor, Rhea Chakraborty, Prabal Panjabi

Jolly LLB — Comedy/Satire: Subash Kapoor: Arshad Warsi, Amrita Rao, Boman Irani, Rishi Kapoor

Rangrezz — Drama — Priyadarshan — Jackky Bhagnani, Priya Anand, Rajpal Yadav

Aatma — Horror/Drama — Suparn Verma — Bipasha Basu, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Doyel Dhawan

You will remember the film as when tall Bipasha Basu was paired with short Nawazuddin Siddiqui

Himmatwala — Action/Comedy — Sajid Khan — Ajay Devgan, Tamannaah

Chashme Buddoor — Comedy — David Dhawan — Ali Zafar, Siddharth, Taapsee Pannu, Divyendu Sharma

Rise of the Zombie Horror — Devaki Singh, Luke Kenny — Luke Kenny, Kirti Kulhari, Ashwin Mushran, Benjamin Gilani

Zombies come to India and there are more

Nautanki Saala — Comedy/Romance — Rohan Sippy — Ayushmann Khurrana, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Pooja Salvi, Evelyn Sharma

Commando-A One Man Army — Action/Romance — Dilip Ghosh — Vidyut Jamwal, Pooja Chopra, Jaideep Ahlawat

An action hero is born

Ek Thi Daayan — Horror — Kannan Iyer — Emraan Hashmi, Huma Qureshi, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kalki Koechlin

Aashiqui 2 — Musical romance — Mohit Suri — Aditya Roy Kapur, Shraddha Kapoor, Shaad Randhawa

You wonder why the story of the self-destructive drunk is still so popular

Shootout at Wadala: Crime/Thriller — Sanjay Gupta — John Abraham, Anil Kapoor, Ronit Roy, Manoj Bajpayee, Kangna Ranaut

Bombay Talkies — Anthology: Anurag Kashyap, Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee — Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukerji, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Randeep Hooda, Saqib Saleem, Vineet Kumar, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Katrina Kaif

Karan Johar makes a gay film while other people do other things

Chhota Bheem And The Throne of Bali — Children/Animation — Rajiv Chilaka — Chhota Bheem, Raju, Chutji, Balli

Go Goa Gone — Zombie comedy — Raj Nidimoru, Krishna D.K. — Saif Ali Khan, Kunal Khemu, Vir Das, Puja Gupta

Zombie. Again.

Gippi — Coming of age — Sonam Nair — Riya Vij, Divya Dutta, Taaha Shah

Aurangzeb — Drama/Action — Atul Sabharwal — Arjun Kapoor, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Jackie Shroff, Rishi Kapoor, Sasheh Aagha

Not a historical, unless you consider a rehash of 1970s twin brother sagas a historical

Ishkq in Paris — Romance — Prem Raj — Preity Zinta, Rhehan Malliek, Isabelle Adjani

Where Preity Zinta effectively kills her career, by herself

Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani — Romantic comedy — Ayan Mukerji — Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Aditya Roy Kapur, Kalki Koechlin

The former lovers have fun

Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 — Comedy/Action — Sangeeth Sivan — Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Neha Sharma, Kristina Akheeva

Fukrey — Comedy — Mrigdeep Singh Lamba — Pulkit Samrat, Manjot Singh, Ali Fazal, Richa Chadda, Vishakha Singh, Priya Anand, Pankaj Tripathi

Delhi is the flavour of the season

Ankur Arora Murder Case — Thriller — Suhail Tatari — Kay Kay Menon, Paoli Dam, Arjun Mathur, Vishakha Singh, Harsh Chhaya

Raanjhanaa — Romance — Anand L. Rai — Dhanush, Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Swara Bhaskar, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub

The south Indian star makes his Hindi film debut and we love him despite his questionable morals

Ghanchakkar — Comedy/Thriller — Rajkumar Gupta — Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan

Is Vidya Balan run over?

Lootera — Romance/Thriller — Vikramaditya Motwane — Ranveer Singh, Sonakshi Sinha

Sonakshi Sinha can act

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag — Biopic — Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra — Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor, Divya Dutta, Pawan Malhotra

As Bollywood go, this is a shinning example

B.A. Pass — Drama — Ajay Bahl — Shilpa Shukla, Shadab Kamal, Rajesh Sharma

Delhi again

D Day — Action/Drama — Nikhil Advani — Arjun Rampal, Rishi Kapoor, Shruti Haasan, Irrfan Khan, Huma Qureshi

Ship of Theseus — Avant-garde 3 Anand Gandhi — Aida Al-Khashef, Niraj Kabi, Sohum Shah, Vinay Shukla

Even film of ideas can be popular in India if it is marketed by Aamir Khan’s wife

Issaq — Romance/Drama — Manish Tiwary — Prateik Babbar, Rajeshwari Sachdev, Ravi Kishan, Makarand Deshpande

Prateik Babbar too kills his career. Blame it on his non-existent acting

Nasha — Erotic/Thriller — Amit Saxena — Poonam Pandey, Shivam, Ranbir Chakma

Chennai Express — Comedy/Action — Rohit Shetty — Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone

One Khan tries to outdo another Khan, and a certain Devgn

Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Dobaara! — Crime/Romance — Milan Luthria — Akshay Kumar, Imran Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Sonali Bendre

Madras Café — Drama/Espionage thriller — Shoojit Sircar — John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri

As Bollywood political thriller go, we better not complain about it

Satyagraha — Political thriller — Prakash Jha — Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Amrita Rao, Manoj Bajpai

Jha’s headlines-tuned-into-script films are getting tiresome. The film did not win, later AAP did

Zanjeer — Action/Thriller — Apoorva Lakhia — Ram Charan, Priyanka Chopra, Sanjay Dutt, Mahie Gill, Prakash Raj, Atul Kulkarni

Shuddh Desi Romance — Romance — Maneesh Sharma — Sushant Singh Rajput, Parineeti Chopra, Vaani Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor

Grand Masti — Adult comedy— Indra Kumar: Ritesh Deshmukh, Vivek Oberoi, Aftab Shivdasani, Karishma Tanna, Manjari Phadnis

You know why it is called grand masti, because it sound like a certain G word in Hindi

John Day: Thriller: Ahishor Solomon: Naseeruddin Shah, Randeep Hooda

Horror Story: Horror: Ayush Raina: Karan Kundra, Nishant Malkani, Ravish Desai, Hasan Zaidi, Sheetal Singh, Aparna Bajpai, Radhika Menon, Nandini Vaid

Horror! Horror!

Phata Poster Nikla Hero: Rom com/Action: Rajkumar Santoshi: Shahid Kapoor, Ileana D'Cruz, Parul Yadav, Padmini Kolhapure

Shahid is not Ranbir

The Lunchbox: Drama: Ritesh Batra: Irrfan Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Bharati Achrekar

Warning: Thriller: Gurmmeet Singh: Santosh Barmola, Suzana Rodrigues, Manjari Fadnis, Varun Sharma, Jitin Gulati, Sumit Suri, Madhurima Tuli

Maazii: Suspense thriller: Jaideep Chopra: Sumeet Nijhawan, Mona Wasu, Pankaj Tripathi, Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub, Manish Chaudhary

Prague: Psychological thriller/Romance: Ashish R Shukla       Chandan Roy Sanyal, Elena Kazan, Arfi Lamba, Kumar Mayank

Super Model: Drama: Navin Batra Veena Malik, Ashmit Patel, Jackie Shroff

Besharam: Comedy/Action: Abhinav Kashyap: Ranbir Kapoor, Pallavi Sharda, Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh

Too much of the Kapoor family wasn’t its only fault

War Chhod Na Yaar: War comedy: Faraz Haider: Sharman Joshi, Javed Jaffrey, Soha Ali Khan, Sanjai Mishra

Boss: Masala: Anthony D'Souza: Akshay Kumar, Aditi Rao Hydari, Johny Lever

Shahid: Drama/Biography: Hansal Mehta: Rajkummar Rao, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Kay Kay Menon, Prabal Panjabi

A good biopic on a less known subject and a terrific performance by Rajkummar Rao

Ishq Actually: Romance: Anish Khanna: Rajeev Khandelwal, Rayo Bakhirta, Neha Ahuja, Ann Mithchai, Neha Ghelot, Siddharth Van Shipley

Krrish 3: Superhero: Rakesh Roshan: Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut, Vivek Oberoi

Mixing and matching various superhero characters from foreign comics doesn’t always work

Satya 2: Crime: Ram Gopal Varma: Puneet Singh Ratn, Anaika Soti, Mahesh Thakur, Aradhna Gupta

Rajjo: Romance: Vishwas Patil: Kangana Ranaut, Paras Arora, Mahesh Manjrekar, Prakash Raj, Jaya Prada

Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela: Romance/Drama: Sanjay Leela Bhansali: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Richa Chadda, Supriya Pathak

Killer chemistry and superb photography cannot save an insipid tale told a told thousand times over

Gori Tere Pyaar Mein: Romance/Comedy: Punit Malhotra: Imran Khan, Kareena Kapoor

No, it’s not a 1980s film starring Sachin and Sarika

Singh Saab The Great: Action: Anil Sharma: Sunny Deol, Amrita Rao, Johny Lever, Urvashi Rautela

Bullett Raja: Comedy/Crime/Romance: Tigmanshu Dhulia: Saif Ali Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Jimmy Shergill, Vidyut Jamwal, Chunky Pandey, Sunny Leone

Word is this box office flop is going to be cult film in future. Not all predictions come true

R... Rajkumar: Action/Romance: Prabhudeva: Shahid Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha, Sonu Sood, Asrani

Shahid Kapoor had another bad year

               

Jackpot: Thriller/Comedy: Kaizad Gustad: Sachiin J Joshi, Naseeruddin Shah, Sunny Leone

Look at the names, Kaizad Gustad (remember he who launched Katrina Kaif in Boom), Naseeruddin Shah, Sunny Leone, what combination

What the Fish: Drama: Gurmmet Singh: Dimple Kapadia, Manu Rishi, Manjot Singh, Anand Tiwari

You want to love this film, but

Dhoom 3: Action: Vijay Krishna Acharya: Aamir Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Katrina Kaif, Uday Chopra, Jackie Shroff

Aamir Khan kills a popular series