Box Office: Kangana Fails To Lift Revolver Rani; Kaanchi Lacks Ghai’s Golden Touch

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Box Office: Kangana Fails To Lift Revolver Rani; Kaanchi Lacks Ghai’s Golden Touch
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Female protagonists are ruling Bollywood nowadays and we were definitely looking forward to some spectacular showing when Kangana Ranaut-Vir Das-starrer comedy-drama Revolver Rani and Subhash Ghai-directed Kaanchi: The Unbreakable, yet another woman-centric movie, were released on April 25. Samrat & Co., a whodunit movie directed and co-written by Kaushik Ghatak, was the third release of the week.

Going by the numbers, it was an extremely poor weekend at the domestic box office and the Monday business did not look up either, predicting more gloom and doom. After her stellar performance in Queen (it has netted around Rs 60 crore at home and grossed nearly Rs 93 crore worldwide), Kangana-led Revolver Rani has turned out to be a surprise slow-starter at the box office in spite of an intriguing storyline. Sure, it had the best start among the three but netted around Rs 6 crore at home after the first three days in spite of hype and the positive word of mouth. Debut day occupancy was as low as 15% although the movie has hit around 1,500 screens, nearly double the number of Queen.

Interestingly, Queen, too, picked up pace pretty late, but managed to nett around Rs 9 crore after the first three days. For Revolver Rani, the crucial Day 4 (Monday, April 28) business was equally dismal and the movie collected around Rs 1.4 crore at home. It has an estimated budget of Rs 24 crore.

However, Kaanchi, directed by Subhash Ghai, suffered a worse fate. This one looks like a clear box office bomb and collected a paltry Rs 75 lakh on the opening Friday. Weekend earnings remained extremely disappointing and the romance-cum-revenge drama could only manage Rs 3 crore in the first three days. Monday collections stood at an estimated Rs 1.1 crore. With the budget of the movie projected to be Rs 30 crore-plus, industry experts are already calling it another disastrous outing by Ghai. Kaanchi has opened in 1,150-1,200 theatres at home, but the occupancy was less than 15%, especially at single screens. In fact, Kaanchi is the lowest debut-day grosser among Ghai’s recent flops including Yaadein (Rs 1.6 crore on opening Friday), Kisna (Rs 1.5 crore) and Yuvraaj (Rs 2.9 crore).

Samrat and Co., a detective thriller starring Rajeev Khandelwal, Madalasa Sharma and Gopal Datt, hit around 500 screens at home and was immediately declared a flop. First day collections at the domestic box office were an appalling Rs 25 lakh and total earnings in the first three days stood at Rs 1.45 crore, as per trade figures. Interestingly, first Monday (Day 4) collections were better than the opening day, amounting to Rs 60 lakh. But keeping the film’s budget in mind – in the zone of Rs 18 crore or so – this rahasya (mystery) ride won’t be going anywhere in terms of box office performance.
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Box Office: Kangana Fails To Lift Revolver Rani; Kaanchi Lacks Ghai’s Golden Touch

If you are still wondering what has led to the wholesale box office debacle, a close look at all the three flicks may help decode the failures. Directed by Sai Kabir Shrivastav (he also did the story and the screenplay) Revolver Rani narrates the story of Alka Singh (Kangana Ranaut), a dacoit-turned-politician in the thick of power game and in love with Bollywood aspirant Rohan Mehra (Vir Das). Kangana plays the Chambal girl to perfection – raw, raunchy, power-loving and trigger-happy. But one must not write it off as another one of the Bandit Queen saga. The ground realities, the ingrained satire and the layers of turbulence unfold well in the movie, but the story fails at times – losing the smooth flow and meandering during the second half. Overall, it has loads of merit, but it’s hardly a feel-good movie and that could be one of the key reasons behind the slow business pick-up. As film critic Anupama Chopra so rightly said, “If you can enjoy bad people doing bad things, then Revolver Rani will be fun.”

Kaanchi, on the other hand, simply drags on and loses all the suspense of a revenge drama that it later turns out to be. The movie features two newcomers in lead roles, Kartik Tiwari (aka Kartik Aaryan) and Hindi movie debutante Indrani Chakraborty (aka Mishti), while the ‘big baddies’ are played by Rishi Kapoor and Mithun Chakraborty. The naïve rural beauty Kaanchi fights against power and corruption as her love Binda, her land and her life are at stake. But as is the Bollywood norm, the twists and turns get too filmy to be convincing, the characters become stereotypes and the dialogues are mere lip service. At the end, we are looking at a mere shell instead of a strong script, powerful performances and the ‘gale’ of change.

Samrat and Co. does no better in terms of cinematic art. Rajeev Khandelwal (private investigator Samrat Tilakdhari) lacks the earlier sparkle of Table No. 21. And if you are expecting Rajeev and Gopal (Samrat’s assistant and friend, Chakradhar Pandey) do a Holmes-Watson act, you could be mightily disappointed. But currently you have a mystery to solve. Try and predict if these three would do well at the domestic box office over the first week. Your guess is as good as ours.

Images: Indiatimes
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