Gunday

As many of my readers have probably noticed, I have a strange affinity for bad films. Sure, I also enjoy foreign, independent and classic Hollywood films--but sometimes I enjoy a film so awesomely bad that it makes me laugh. Because of this, I periodically peruse IMDb's infamous Bottom 100 List to see which films are the lowest rated films of all time. And, aside from a few foreign language pictures which aren't available in the US, I have done a pretty good job of finding and watching these turkeys. A few of these incredibly low rated films are actually not that bad, though most are truly terrible--and many of also unintentionally funny--and these are my favorites. Birdemic, Prince of Space and Eegah are particularly funny examples from the list.

Imagine my surprise recently when I noticed something VERY unusual. A new film managed to not only make the list but vault all the way to #1. Coming from out of nowhere is the Indian film Gunday--a 2014 offering from director/writer Ali Abbas Zafar. And, considering my recent articles for Influx about my love for Indian movies as well as for bad films, I realized that this was a definite must-see. After all, if I praised Bollywood movies for their fun and originality, I have some obligation to mention the bad along with the good. So I wondered, since the movie is ranked as the worst film of all time on IMDb, is it really THAT bad?! Is the movie worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space or is it a case where folks are jumping all over a film that really isn't THAT bad (such is the case with Glitter or Gigli)?

When Gunday began, I could see that it was completely unlike most of the Bottom 100. Most of these films are ultra-cheap films with tiny budgets and few were ever considered prestige films. However, Gunday clearly is a big-budget Bollywood film--with all the trappings you'd expect from such a film. It has handsome actors, huge song and dance numbers and tons of style.

The story is about two orphans who grew up in war-torn Bangladesh, Bikram and Bala. The two are starving and so gravitating towards a life of crime is understandable--and this sort of plot is VERY common in Indian films. They are in some ways like Robin Hood--big-time mobsters who have a heart for the poor and are their benefactors. Because of this and their toughness, no one would ever consider testifying against them and they have become the top crime lords in Calcutta. However, a policeman (the exceptionally talented Irrfan Khan) has made it his job to take down these criminals. And, in addition, the partner's strong bromance is threatened by a pretty young lady who both of them have fallen for big time.

The first portion of the film which shows the pair as children is actually very good. It is a compelling story and you feel for them as kids. They face hunger, sexual abuse and many other obstacles and the audience naturally pulls for them--even though they do begin engaging in criminal activities in order to survive. A bit later, however, the film jumps way ahead in time. Now the pair (played by Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor) are grown up and are becoming the top criminals in the city. They also have become incredibly silly--with extremely well-coiffed hair, rakish good looks, shirts ALWAYS strategically unbuttoned and STYLE, STYLE, STYLE! In fact, they look much more like models in a Vidal Sassoon advertisement than mobsters! And, to make it worse, they act much like Sacha Baron Cohen in Brüno or Ben Stiller in Zooolander-- though these two American films were intended as comedies, not dramatic musicals like Gunday! It's a strange contrast to see their terrible performances alongside Irrfan Khan--who, as usual, is terrific. Now I am not saying that Singh and Kapoor will always be bad actors--but the sorts of performances the director elicited from them are absolutely terrible.

Does all this bad acting and nonsense rise to the level of awfulness that merits the film being on the Bottom 100 List? Not really. While the film is pretty dumb at times (mostly, I feel due to the direction and performances by Singh and Kapoor), the film does have a few things going for it. The songs are terrific and catchy. Zafar can direct music videos--just not people acting like real people. And, as I mentioned above, Irrfan Khan is excellent in his role and this Indian actor has been getting a lot of well deserved attention in breakout films like Slumdog Millionaire, The Lunchbox and Life of Pi. Plus, parts of the story are interesting (though historically inaccurate)-- though I must admit that the film certainly does become tiresome after a while.

So why is this poor but not terrible film rated #1 in the badness scale? I can only assume because it was so well publicized, marketed and designed to be a mega-blockbuster. Like the examples I gave above (Gigli and Glitter), this is a case where the public really LOVES getting on the bandwagon to trash a mega-film. But unlike these two films, Gunday actually made a ton of money...yet people hated it! Perhaps this makes this movie the one that Indians love to hate! All I know is that if Zafar can make more 'failures' like this one, he'll become an incredibly rich man!!

By the way, if you're curious and would like to see the list, it's available at http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom?ref_=nv_sr_1

The story starts with a fake history that is told in cinema. In starting it is said that there was a war between India and Pakistan. And by which a nation was born that is Bangladesh.

But in reality and truth it is totally different. As it was a sacrifice of 3M people of Bangladesh. Though India helped Bangladesh but the war was between East Pakistan vs West Pakistan for the independence. Bangladeshi people's fought and gave their bloods to achieve the independence. Anyone can use wiki or google to know about the history of 1971's war in Bangladesh and how Bangladesh born. So the movie has a full fake starting with a wrong history.

It has misrepresented the history of 1971 liberation war which happened between freedom fighters of then east Pakistan who wanted a country of their own and Pakistan army where freedom fighters won the battle and BANGLADESH was born. Pakistan army killed 3 million people in Bangladesh. Of course then Indian govt. helped freedom fighters a lot and at the very end of the war, they sent their army to help freedom fighters on request of govt. of Bangladesh. But that doesn't mean the war was between India & Pakistan.

Production house like Yash Raj Films should be more careful about this type of misrepresentation of well established history.

I would like to introduce myself as one of the Bangladeshi movie lovers. Probably Gunday is getting great response in India. But this film has started disaster in Bangladesh. Does the director understand that this project has humiliated the Bangladeshis? Hopefully the mistakes were done unintentionally. Let's have a look at the mistakes done this film.

At the very beginning of your film,they are telling the viewers that it was an India-Pakistan war happened in 1971. I think their script writer was plastered while writing the script. If their information happens to be correct,what were our freedom fighters doing then? India joined the war on 3rd of December 1971. And the war started on 25th of March the same year. India didn't give birth to Bangladesh,rather the bloodshed of our 3 million martyrs did. Director can not but correct the mistake and apologize to us.

2.The story of the film humiliates us on several scenes. they showed that people of Bangladesh were involved in various criminal activities during the liberation war. Two lads of our country become thief and vicious criminal going to your land in their film. It's tremendously humiliating for us (All Bangladeshis).

3.According this story,Bangladeshis consider themselves Indian. How humorous! They can do anything to get Indian citizenship. Extremely humorous!

One of the worst movie of recent times, with very rubbish historic info. Scriptwriter, director and production should be ashamed to so laughable scripts. How come they make this comedy and give all wrong information to public.

You should not pay for this garbage and also should not waste your valuable time.

This film was not only pathetically terrible, but also a story line that made no sense. The usual sarcastic one liners fell flat.

I have to give this at least 1 star only cause I'm not allowed to give it less.