2007 was a good year for Hindi Cinema & just as i was about to make up my mind as my favorite movies this year comes aamir khan with Taare Zameen Pe. This has really been an year when bollywood explored a lot of avenues and broke new ground , there were debutants who came up with amazing movies while the old masters failed to recreate the fire. The year in whole belongs to the debutants.
I probably watched more movies this year in cinema halls than i have done ever before (and it burns the pockets.. damn those multiplexes) It is very hard for me to put one movie as my favourite movie out of the lot for the year as we really had some amazing releases.
But i have made up my mind , its a movie by a debutant director and in a genre where very few movies have been made which genuinely work with me on a viewer level - Bheja Fry by Sagar Ballary. Comedy movies are an absolute rarity, particularly contemporary comedy which is genuinely funny without the need of loud music , outlandish clothes and over the top dialogues. Bheja Fry had me in splits throughout , and i found the movie very in with the times , the dialogue writing was very good, the acting was top notch as well & vinay pathak is one the most brilliant actors we have in the industry. There was simply nothing wrong with the movie & i expect they bring out a sequel or at least another movie with the same cast & crew.
Besides the obvious choices , there were some really good movies which went unnoticed either due to lack of publicity or due to the fact that they carried no star value.
One of such movies is 1971 , another movie by a debutant Amrit Sagar. Movies with patriotic theme are probably more bastardized into nothing more than jingoistic anti pak pieces which have no points to prove. 1971 not only had nothing of that but it also has been one of the most realistic representations of army personnel , the whole movie looked real , there was nothing that went over the top or looked unbelievable and the whole cast here was spectacular with special honours to Manoj Bajpai & Piyush Mishra (Another actor who has never got his due, I have watched Black Friday’s Extra’s DVD innumerable times only to see his role as thapa which was unfortunately cut in the final cut of the movie) 1971 went unnoticed & unappreciated by the Indian audiences for the most part.
Manorama Six Feet Under - Another debutante director Navdeep Singh , movie was layered, the mystery was intriguing & and the movie was a amazing blend of style & substance. Bollywood’s first noir flick , it earned a lot of praise from all quarters & a place on my dvd rack.
Cheeni Kum - Another debutante R. Balki , Being a fan of Mr Bacchan , I was looking forward to him doing something good … almost to the extent of redeeming himself after the dismayal over the top BLACK , and here he is in all his suaveness. The movie was again funny where it wanted to be & serious when it had to, there were a few things that could have been done away with and probably the second half wasnt as good as the first half but overall i would give the movie a thumbs up in terms of performances of the leads & the chemistry between them, Balki really had no worries in terms of performances all he had to do was work on the script & dialogue writing wherein he was more or less successfull.
Johnny Gaddar - The slickest movie this year , I was wondering where Raghavan had disappeared after Ek Hasina Thi , Johnny Gaddar was pretty good, it had a lot of trivia pertaining to the 70’s in it , gotta love that. Well made film , fast paced thriller , thoroughly enjoyable , cant wait for raghavan’s next.
PART II comming up soon ……
