10 Biggest Disasters of 2008

9. Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic

Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic will no doubt achieve historical significance as the movie that showed the absolute pits to which the Yash Raj studio had sank before the old man returned to restore its fortunes. It also provided a wake-up call to Saif Ai Khan who was beginning to get ideas above his station (mind you, I'm not sure you can get much above the station of being a young Nawab) – but the one you have to feel really sorry for is Rani Mukerji. This is a woman who can act. This is a woman who had a glowing career. This is the woman who made the mistake of being sucked into the Black Hole of Aditya Chopra's ego. The film has all the magic of a plate of mashed potato. Where it's meant to be sweet, it turns out sickly. Where poignant, it is posed. Where heartwarming, heartbreaking. I have friends who have made it their life's ambition to track down every surviving print of the movie and to burn them on a giant bonfire outside Yash Raj Studios. Quite frankly, I'd rather watch a Julie Andrews season on the box than have to sit through this goo again.

With an overall investment of 40cr, the box office takings of 35cr make this a borderline flop financially – although it will probably break into profit on DVD sales and downloads.

8. Chamku

Priyanka Chopra really must learn to choose her friends more carefully. She has always been grateful to Bobby Deol for giving her some breaks early in her career and this has led her to always supporting his projects, no matter how retrograde and facile they may be. Chamku was one such project. Through a careful and dedicated process of self-hypnosis, I had managed to erase all memory of this unintentional paean to the lost decade of Bollywood film-making - until sorting through my collection of DVDs the other day when I caught sight of the cover and the whole horrific mess came flooding back to me. The film is about as original as a politician telling lies. I may require intensive therapy for weeks.

Although made on a small budget, the film's income of just 2cr makes this one of Priyanka's worst ever movies and a box-office disaster.

7. Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam

Next to Priyanka, probably the biggest bringer of disappointments this year must have been Mallika Sherawat and one of those was the film Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam . Clearly she was working hard at this stage to at least beat Priyanka at something – even if it was the biggest number of turkeys in a year. Once again, the problem with this movie was that an excellent one-line concept had not been supported by a script that requires a decent structure for a 150-minute movie. I suspect that Mallika sees an outline proposal that says 'Lead actress looks sexy' and she leaps up and says, 'That's it! That's me! I must have that role! This is going to be such a great movie – because it has me in it looking sexy!' The minimum rules are actually fairly simple for a Bollywood movie – five acts, a plot and two sub-plots, protagonist and antagonist, the CART imperative (Comedy, Action, Romance and Tragedy in equal amounts), each act must end with a twist or a cliffhanger, six songs, no new significant characters after halfway – and the tension builds in the final act to a breathtaking climax. Not so hard is it? So how come the writers of this tosh seemed to fail on almost all of these accounts. Mallika's acting by the way, was again first-class, in her usual sexy, sultry way, though as the film progressed, she appeared to become increasingly desperate – perhaps she'd noticed her contract had a 'no escape' clause. What was Rahul Bose doing here by the way? He certainly wasn't acting – perhaps he just popped in to offer some moral support.

A relatively small budget movie, this was nevertheless a box-office disaster taking less than 2 cr at the box office.


6. Ugly Aur Pagli

Mallika's run of bad luck also included Ugly Aur Pagli. This girl has such a great character that she deserves to have some really big successes but 2008 was not her year. Ugly Aur Pagli should have been a great movie. Mallika performed with the greatest of gusto and Ranvir Shorey provided the perfect whipping boy - so what went wrong? It's hard to say really. The lead performances were both fine and the concept, based on the Korean movie My Sassy Girl, was also strong - but the script really amounted to nothing more than a series of scenes with little forward momentum and the film seemed to be going nowhere fast. The audience seemed to agree. I tell you what, though, it would be no.1 in my list of Top Ten Movie Posters this year!

On a relatively low budget, the box office takings of about 7cr should push this into profit once DVD sales and download distribution rights are added.

5. Tashan

Tashan was a movie which the critics claimed was all style and no substance. However, I think many of these critics were striking a pose because the movie is not nearly as bad as they make out. It was unfortunate that what is essentially a fairly decent road movie bombed at the box office so badly. This was partly due to the reports from the critics - but also for business reasons. The movie did have some finer points - Kareena Kapoor with blonde hair in vinyl, for example – something that other Bollywood actresses might wish to explore in the future! The A-list cast of Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor all put in solid performances - Akshay was outstanding - and whilst the plot is a little straightforward for a Bollywood movie - boy meets girl; boy&girl steal money from mafia boss and then go on the run - it rockets along at a fair old pace, with a few interesting twists and turns - and the direction has more than a few hints of Tarantino and Rodriguez to keep it interesting. The real reason the movie did badly at the box office was a revenue dispute between Yash Raj and the major multiplexes which crippled the day 1 screening that is so vital to modern cinema. Yash Raj was all over the place at the beginning of the year. I hope the accounting troll at Yash Raj who made this blunder has been forced to walk. Grab this on DVD, buy some popcorn and have a good night's entertainment with your girl. You won't regret it.

With an overall investment of 80cr in production and distribution, the box office revenue of 35cr suggests that Tashan will not recover its cost by about 10 cr assuming the usual pattern of non-box office revenues being about equal to box office. That makes it a bit of a flop.

4. God Tussi Great Ho

In Dante's Inferno, in the ninth circle of Hell, sinners meet with Satan himself. He stands in an icy tomb, weeping tears of blood from his six eyes, consoling himself by consuming the sinners below for breakfast, dinner and tea. If there were a tenth circle of Hell, you can bet the sinners would be forced to watch God Tussi Great Ho, laughingly called a comedy film, on an eternal loop. Now, by all accounts, Salman Khan is a decent enough fellow, generous of heart, charming, a talented painter, prone to being a bit emotional perhaps, but certainly kind to attractive young newcomers. However, I can only imagine his agent must really hate him and Salman hasn't cottoned on to the fact as yet. Try to think through his last dozen or so movies – how many were the kind of hit you would expect from an A-list star? I rest my case. This ludicrous remake of Bruce Almighty was an insult to all concerned – poor Priyanka. I wonder if she has the same agent as Salman?

With a huge investment in production and distribution of 80cr, the box office takings of just 16cr make this another huge flop for Priyanka and Salman.

3. Love Story 2050

Love Story 2050 also had a beautiful woman with colour-washed hair - perhaps there's a pattern developing here? This time it was Priyanka Chopra who looked gorgeous in red hair which no doubt helped to cover up her red face - red with embarrassment, having found herself in a movie without a decent script once again. Certainly, Priyanka herself had nothing to be embarrassed about - her performance was more than competent. Her beau, Harman Baweja, on the other hand appeared to be all over the place with his performance, looking and acting like his ambition was to be a second-string body double for Hrithik Roshan - and then there was that irritating little teddy bear robot. Ugghh! The plot? Okay, let's not go there. It's so stupid and full of holes anyway. Enough to say it's a kind of smorgasbord of Flash Gordon, The Time Machine, Buck Rogers and Somewhere in Time. There are a couple of interesting mysteries linked to the film, however. The first is how come such an experienced and competent professional as Boman Irani ever got himself involved in the project in the first place and the second is how come Harry Baweja managed to sell the DVD rights for such a high price - even after the movie had already bombed at the box office? A total investment of around 100cr in production and distribution netted a miserable 12cr at the box office.

2. Karzzzz

The 1975 movie, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, was a BMW of a movie – a fascinating if slightly heavy plot that caught the imagination of the audience of the time, competently acted, directed and promoted – quality through and through. The 1980 Rishi Kapoor Bollywood version, Karz, was a Jaguar of a movie, grabbing you by the throat, roaring away with your emotions, providing great drama (and even greater melodrama), superb acting, fascinating cameos and a first-class turbo-charged final act. The 2008 Himesh Reshammiya version, Karzzzz (the extra 'z's indicate the extra sleep you'll achieve when watching it) is a Tata Nano of a movie – and that's being unfair to Tata which is a very progressive and well-managed car company. Karzzzz is a blob of a movie. It chugs alone sedately, safely, with no thrills and definitely no unwelcome surprises. Himesh chose an expression at the beginning of the movie and then proceeded to wear it in every scene to make things easier for the audience presumably. "Anyway," he seems to be saying, "The movie's not important – you already know the plot – everyone's seen the Rishi Kapoor film.Good, wasn't it? Just listen to my music instead, man." The film did have Shweta Kumar, however. She deserves to be reincarnated into a better role in the future.

Taking only 12cr at the box office on the back of a jumbo-sized budget and multiple prints, Karzzzz is our choice as the second-biggest disaster of the year.

1. Drona

Talking of Priyanka, as we always do - how lucky we are to have had her around this year - this column might otherwise have been a lot shorter. Because of course there was Drona - the first in a promised new fantasy series (oh no! no! no!). The film starred a noticeably overweight Abhishek Bachchan as the hero and Priyanka as his warrior-woman sidekick. Once again, Priyanka looked good enough to fuel a few fantasies of her own and her acting was pretty decent - and in fact Abhi's acting was okay too - but, oh dear the plot was so hackneyed. When will Bollywood scriptwriters learn that just having a good idea for a movie is not really enough to fill three hours of a Saturday afternoon. This movie has a one-line plot and even that has been stolen from just about every second-rate fantasy-based computer game that has ever hit the stands and teased the thumbs of torpid teenagers in the last generation. Give it a miss and spend the time doing something more worthwhile like spray-painting your cat instead.

At a production cost of around 50cr, which including distribution would add up to a total investment of about 100cr, the income from revenue of just 11cr makes this one of the absolute disaster movies of all time.

We can only hope that these actors, directors and producers can learn from their mistakes in 2008 and go on to make good movies in 2009, so they don't end up on our list again! We will be waiting and watching to see what happens next year!

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