As I was watching the movie, I was immediately reminded of our desi wolf “Harshad Mehta”. He certainly was a mighty wolf of “Dalal street” and had an equally (in)famous life as Belfort and his life inspired a movie as well, “Gafla” released in 2006. I have watched that one too. If I were to compare the two, I’d rate “Gafla” as the better one. Sure it lacked glamor, starcast, F Words, drugs and nudity but it scored where it mattered the most, the script and acting. And “Vinod Sharawat” the lead actor was splendid. But “Gafla” bombed at the box office. It couldn’t even earn three crores at the box office in spite of having a good script and actors that could act well. Because it didn’t have popular actors, there was no publicity and marketing and the movie didn’t belong to a branded production house.
The problem with Indian cinema is that no Indian Leonardo DiCaprio(A Shah Rukh or Akshay Kumar or Ajay Devgn) is willing to do a “Gafla”. The problem with Indian Cinema is that no Indian “Paramount Pictures” (A Mukta Arts or a UTV Motion) is willing to do “Gafla”. The problem with Indian cinema is that no one wishes to market a movie like “Gafla”. And hence directors of such movies keep biting the dust and the actors just vanish into the darkness of anonymity.
80% of our movies are packed with absurd comic punches, physics defying stunts and absolutely senseless unidirectional stories. The direction and screenplay are pathetic and the acting is either insipid or over dramatic. The rest 20% keep trying but they don’t have funds, they don’t have stars and they all have a family to feed. And hence they are dying a slow death. The top grossers of Bollywood are as follows:
- Dhoom 3
- Chennai Express
- Krrish 3
- 3 Idiots
- Ek Tha Tiger
- Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani
- Dabangg 2
- Bodyguard
- Dabangg
- Jab Tak Hai Jaan
And yes in that order. Take three idiots out of that list and see what a sad list we are left with. And now look at this list:
- Udaan
- Gangs of Wasseypur
- Pan Singh Tomar
- Gulaal
- Black Friday
- Shaurya
- A Wednesay
- Dor
- Lunchbox
- Stanley Ka Dabba
- Raincoat
- Iqbal
- Bheja Fry
- Matrubhoomi
- I Am
These are the recent ones that I believe deserve more than what they got. All of them combined can’t beat the box office collection of the last movie in the previous list. The problem with Indian Cinema is that even if our directors try giving us good movies, we still go ahead and watch the pathetic ones that have a better star cast(not in terms of acting prowess) and are marketed well.
We as audience need to evolve. There are Tarantinos and Kubricks and Scorceses and Spielbergs in India. There are DiCaprios and Pacinos and DeNiros and Pitts in India. We just need to identify and support them. We need to get out of the “the one that earns more is a better movie” mindset. Remember “Spiderman-3” earned more than “No Country for Old men” and we all know how pathetic Spidey was in his third version.
