Why the Era! And Why Now?

I think it’s because Indian Film Industry is getting its revenge from Hollywood of not getting the money they deserved for a very long time.

In recent years, Indian Cinema has changed, good or bad is for you to decide. I’m just here to make an opinion. As Always!

The change came with a director who made larger than life movies, “The Modern Master Sir S.S. Rajamouli”. He made Bahubali which became the biggest grosser of Indian movies then. Why was the movie a hit? He amalgamated fictional mythology (not totally), amazing music, and unmatchable cinematography skills.

But what that movie sparked was the thought of shaking hands with different film industries (Bollywood and Tollywood) to make all movies Pan-India. While I understand the reason of them shaking hands as to restrict anyone from making a remake in Bollywood (as if they could!). But they wanted to make a Pan-India movie that can be released in multiple languages and make it popular worldwide. And now, we all remember the famous dialogues and songs of Bahubali! So, now all movies started becoming Pan-India and I think that is where it went all crazy.

In the effort of maximizing the audience and avoid selling remake rights, every movie now has actors from different parts of the nation. This sounds so good and inclusive in today’s world! Well, the filmmakers didn’t do anything wrong, but when you’re trying to cater everyone, you end up fucking it up. For example, you can’t expect an American to love burgers served in McDonalds for dinner. Sure, they might love it for a few days, but it’s not something they would like to do each day. The point, I’m trying to make here is, that when you’re trying to do something to make everyone happy, you end up screwing up the sauce –

For some it may be too sweet, too sour, too hot, or too bland.

So, following the patterns of “The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell”, the era of commercial movies tipped. Now, any Indian movie from a big banner has actors that may not speak the language to cater that to a particular state’s audience, but their voice is dubbed for the larger masses. Or better, release the movie in 6 different languages. The audience’s brain wires are entangled in reading subtitles suddenly in the middle of the movie or trying to do an audio-video sync for dubbed dialogues. These movies have famous actresses from different regions who hardly speak the language, but they have a screen time of 15 minutes where the total movie run-time is over 200 minutes. Also, the movie has trippy songs that can go viral months before the movie is released and die right after the release of the movie. And, what all these movies have in common? VFX!!!!! Read these last 3 letters a million times and think of all the movies that you have watched recently and had shitty VFX or let’s say unnecessary VFX that spoiled the movie and cinematography. So, all these things are making the movies Super-Hit across the world and the average collection goes to 200-300 Crores INR. But then why is it bad? I mean actors are making good money, movies are hit, giving Indian Cinema worldwide recognition, creating more jobs than ever, and receiving Golden Globe and Academy Awards. So, what went wrong? Well, here is what I think –

In the wake of making commercial and larger than life movies, the reason for which anyone watches a movie went to SHITS! Yeah, STORYLINE went down the drain. How? Let’s see..

A movie like Jawan starring King Khan was a mix of at least 5-6 Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi movies, but didn’t have a definite story. It had essence of Lion King, story of Tagore / Gabbar, action scenes from stupid Hindi and Telugu films, and a stretched storyline. The movie made the highest gross Hindi film of all-time. They had an actress from Southern India who had a good screen time, however had no impact in the movie. They had the villain from Southern India again, and I think he was the only person who did justice to acting or story line (whatever story was left). The movie had groovy music, expected Indian emotions and hitting nostalgia, but the story was missing. Why? Because Shah Rukh Khan felt the need to cater the audience in Southern India (as if he wasn’t already doing that), so he hired a Tamil director and Southern Indian actors, who did their jobs well, there were subtle VFX in the movie, but he forgot about the dead and repetitive story. And honestly, he didn’t need to cater to anyone, he’s one of the best actors in the world and doesn’t need to prove it to anyone. But you know, the pressure of making it “Larger than Life.” By the way he got the best actor award for the movie when there were people like Vicky Kaushal, Ranbir Kapoor, Vijay Sethupathi, Vikrant Massey, Ranvir Singh, and many more actors who made an impact with their work.

Similar example and the last one, I guess because I want you to keep reading.

KALKI 2898 AD, more like “KALKI AD” or after my death. YUCK! I spent $30 to watch this nonsense. The movie starred the legendary actor Sir Amitabh Bachchan, who was the only one who acted in the movie and everyone else in the movie was mere props. And as Arshad Varsi said indirectly about Prabhas. Prabhas’s character was like a Hero who didn’t know who he loves, who he wants to protect, who he wants to kill, or who he wants to act like. He wanted to be the Chris Patt of Guardians of Galaxy but ended up being the Ben Stiller of Night at the Museum in the real world. I don’t remember any notable song, which says a lot about the death of music in commercial movies just after few months of the movie release. Movie broke all records of Indian movies gross collection. The audience loved it, I don’t know which and why (I mean, I know the audience)! But yeah, you can’t say bad about the movie in an Indian café, or you can expect spit floating in your coffee mug. So, why was the movie commercial or baseless? They went on for 3 hours to make a sequel. Just for that! There was no story or excitement in the movie until the end climax (literally the last 20 minutes of the movie). Not forgetting to mention the no-acting or role actress Deepika, who didn’t have dialogs or screen-time. But they must cater to the Pan-India audience. I can’t resist to add a few more movies to this list that rambled on for 200 minutes or so, just to make a sequel or only to ruin the original movie with the sequel – Devara, Indian 2, Pushpa 2, Bhool Bhulaiya 2, Singham^Nth, Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba, and the list is endless.

Now, there are many other examples of bad casting or bad story lines, like Rashmika in Animal, Nayantara in Jawan, Alia in RRR, Kiara in Bhool Bhulaiya 2, all women of course because male actors don’t have boobs you see! Bad music in some, poor VFX in others, poor lip sync, and the rushed climax. I think the directors / writers lose patience after a point and just end it abruptly because the production and cast can’t wait for them. I mean they have to act in other commercial movies too, right? And who cares about the story and climax?

There are other movies on the other hand that have actors who are yet to be commercialized, doesn’t mean they won’t eventually not go and do a commercial film. One example is Stree 2, the movie was a little stretched, but packed with hilarious punches, beautiful story, subtle messages of the life and state of women, and all of this without actors from 20 different industries and bad music. Few others – 12th Fail, Lucky Bhaskar, Laapata Ladies, Maharaj, Maharaja, Shaitaan, Merry Christamas, and thankfully there are a few more like these.

I understand that Indian Cinema is at a point where now actors are famous worldwide, they are becoming one of the highest paid actors, and now at least getting worldwide recognition. Now that I’m writing about it, I am thinking that it took Indian Cinema (yeah, not just Bollywood) long 75 years to get a Golden Globe and Academy for best song award and it was only possible because of high investment, amazing VFX in the movie, collaboration with different industries. So, may be that is the way for Indian Cinema to get worldwide recognition. And of course, the so-called western people consider India still a third world country. But I am scared thinking about the day when these fan-following, whistling, howling, confetti, and stampede audience will eventually stop paying to go for these baseless storyline box office hits. Because they will be bored of similar VFX and viral TikTok and Reels, Memes, Dialogs, and dance moves. Once it completes its time.

But hey, I’m just a person who loves movies way too much, so I may still end up watching some of them. I’ll not be howling or whistling, or throwing confetti, but I hope our writers and directors understand that people watch movies for fun, but also expect some reasoning, story, or sense in it.

And for y’all, the good thing is that there is not going to be a sequel for this long and opinionated article.. Ha!

Yours fearless,

The Shameless Indian