Gunday

The one area where Bollywood has achieved excellence and perfection is publicity / promotion. The art of pre release promotion has taught them how to sell their even average / substandard productions at good profits. The much awaited, hyped and promoted "Gunday" is finally out in the theaters and yet again, net result is "Total Disappointment". The movie from head to toe lacks attraction in any field (Story, Music, Direction & even Acting).The handsome combo of Ranvir and Kapoor proved insufficient. Irfan Khan selected a B Grade movie and disappointed his fans. PC is continuously on the way to destruction with another flop appearance. The charisma of YRF and embodied cast could not bring desired results. Although film may achieve a good business (May touch the magical Figure of 100 Crores Club)but it can not be termed a movie to watch. The idea of late 80s once again failed. It is a wake up call. I mean how long audience can be fooled by exaggerated promos and publicity. At last, it will fall. So Wake Up!!!!

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.

I, as a Bangladeshi, strongly protest the film story. I know most of the film are fictional but we can't deny that movie do express a lot rather than anything. Whenever a fictional movie/series is made it comes with a disclaimer. This movie has mocked our liberation war which is the pride of our nation. As, a Bangladeshi I am still thankful to India that they helped us during the war, but that never give them any right to express it as their own battle. I wonder how the banner approved the movie! It should have been judged by a moral view. It insults our nation, our pride, our survival during the war. I protest it.

This film start with misleading and wrong information.

****Yashraj productions shouldn't allow such a script, it will loose its respect, if it doesn't do anything about it.

***** Irfan khan is a respected actor, he should not read those dialogues !!!!!

"at some point one of the actor says, Bangladeshis consider themselves indians that is not true. Bangladeshis are proud to be Bangladeshis. They have respect for themselves and they have respect for indians. I wish and request Indian people will have the same. Indian army helped in the liberation war of 1971, that is true, and Bangladeshis are grateful and they highly appreciate that help. but what writer tried to show in the film was "Bangladesh was created from the war between Pakistan and India !!!!!! writer tried to humiliate Bangladeshis by showing that army officer was gay and "Bangladeshi refugees" and many others.

Bollywood films have much bigger audience, please take some responsibilities and don't write anything without research, specially topic like "liberation history" which is very sensitive and very close to their heart.

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