Here is
Bollywood at its worst unless you are ready to ogle
producer Suneel Darshan’s son
Shiv’s debut performance in
Karle Pyaar Karle – lock, stock and barrel. Directed by
Rajesh Pandey, this
romance stars newcomers
Shiv Darshan and
Hasleen Kaur but there ends the novelty. The plot harks back to the good old 1980s and we find the long-separated childhood friends
Kabir and
Preet meeting after 12 years, reconnecting and playing daring games… but will they dare to love? And that brings us back to the
box office impact. It seems Bollywood fans did not dare to watch this potboiler either and the movie is literally struggling after Day IV (January 20), grossing around Rs 3.20 crore in the domestic market as per industry estimates. The first weekend collections reportedly stand at around Rs 75 lakh nett with opening day being Rs 20-25 lakh nett.
Karle Pyaar Karle has hit around 1,000 screens in India and doesn’t lack in
masala. You get to see bike rides, fights, bikini parade, lap-dancing and kissing, but what you miss is a meaningful storyline that binds all the elements together. The villain (DJ) who owns a meat factory, his spoilt son (Jazz) and the son’s sidekick (Goldie) are again mere caricatures. Debutante Hasleen has the spunk and may do better in other films, but we are not sure about Shiv.
The other noted release of the week is
Miss Lovely, which is way ahead of
KPK in terms of cinematic art, content and research. Directed by
Ashim Ahluwalia, the movie was first screened at the 2012
Cannes Film Festival and got mixed reviews from critics. Since then, ‘the art house venture’ has won a number of awards including Best Film in the
India Gold category at the 14th
Mumbai Film Festival and Best Feature Film Award at the 11th
Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. But even then, the movie has witnessed poor box office response on opening day (January 17) – around Rs 20 lakh from 300 screens. Still, with positive reviews pouring in, the numbers may soon shoot up and we will keep you updated.
Miss Lovely introduces a new genre of sorts in the saga of
Indian cinema as it walks you through the making and unmaking of an entire genre, namely the C-grade horror-and-sleaze movies so popular in Bollywood in the 1980s (remember the
Ramsay era?). Set in Mumbai of that period, it is the story of two brothers – the assertive, exploitative Vicky (
Anil George) and the submissive Sonu (
Nawazuddin Siddiqui) – and a
struggling actress Pinky (
Niharika Singh), all of whom are entrenched in the dark underbelly of the
C-grade movie industry.
The style is pseudo-realistic, heavily layered with facts and fiction (it started as a
documentary project) and the movie itself is an entertaining mix of different genres – part
film noir, part romance and part documentary. The dark world portrayed in
Miss Lovely has all the elements of reality, but still rises to the level of a
fantasy that will keep you baffled and spellbound. Definitely a movie for niche audience, but this could be the beginning of a new stream in versatile Bollywood.
Images: Indiatimes
