A highly promising cricketer Anina is selected for team India to tour England but she meets a tragic accident that causes her to lose her right hand. When she gives up on her career, enters former cricketer Paddy who revives her dream to play for her country when he trains her as an orthodox left-arm spinner.
‘Ghoomer‘ is a fictional sports drama that took inspiration from the Hungarian shooter Károly Takács whose right hand was severely injured in a grenade explosion during World War II but went on to win two Olympic Gold medals by shooting from his left hand.
PLUSES
Coming up with such a fascinating story is a definite plus. The credit must be given where it is due. The other pluses are Abhishek Bachchan‘s performance, Amit Trivedi‘s main theme, and the dramatization of human resilience and the determination and the extreme hard work of achieving something unthinkable and believing in the dreams.
MINUSES
As a critic, I must also highlight why ‘Ghoomer’ ghoom my expectations. Unsurprisingly, there are more minuses than pluses in my observation. One major fault is a bizarre setup of the actual world because anything is certain to happen in Bollywood. Shabana Azmi who plays Anina’s grandma is more of cricket analyst than her grandmother. My criticism is that the emotional value of a grandmother was brutally lacking. Especially, when Anina met accident and then considering whether getting trained from Paddy was the right decision or not.
And then a heavily drunk club member Paddy to whom everyone respects despite his ill behavior God knows why. How such person is allowed to enter the ground and mix up with junior cricketers? How Anina’s family accepted Paddy’s presence at home to meet her in her room? Paddy was responsible for Anina’s fate. How was Anina’s father speaking highly about him to Anina?
How come Anina’s tragic accident never reached to the news media? After all, she was getting selected for the national team. Losing her hand immediately after getting selected was a massive news that would have rocked the nation. She daily practiced at Paddy’s yard later and no news channel or media rep caught such a sensational development. How come no investigation was carried out over Anina’s accident? Why no police went in search for the mysterious car that hit Anina?
If any of you noticed, in plenty of sequences, Ghoomer preferred to be too musical than exchanging dialogues. Observe the first half an hour, over paced screenplay, lame soft humor, and no build-up in the making of Anina, the future face of Indian women cricket team.
And the final half an hour provide you the cringiest aesthetics of a cricket match. No surprises at all and Anina’s predictable heroic performance. When Anina’s improvised bowling action is revealed, almost everyone starts spinning like her, even the spectators of the rival team, even the patient and the doctor while watching TV. Although, this all is likely to happen but my problem is why Bollywood has to make a cricket match a larger-than-life entertainer. Why a cricket match in the Indian film always loses a quality screenplay? Why this becomes a circus show? First of all, how is Anina selected for the national team? She was not even tried for local matches.
Saiyami Kher as Anina was the heart of the story but the performance was below par. Her facial expressions and dialogue delivery are poor. The only plus about her acting was that she did learn to bat and played some good shots.
CLOSING REMARKS
R. Balki had a good run of films at the beginning of his directional career. The story pitch in his recent films is still impressive but the execution in recent years has been disappointing. Ghoomer’s middle portion was more impressive than the beginning and the ending phases. The film chose to entertain rather than give a thoughtful piece of intelligent sports tale.
RATING 4/10
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I welcome all of you to my 9th edition of Bollywood’s Best for a calendar year. An effort I have been making for my own version of Filmfare since 2014.
The reason for blogging this particular material for the past eight years is because I and surely most of you have understood for a long time that the most prestigious award which is Filmfare has lost its credibility for some decades. The deserving people most of the time do not even get nominated or if they do, they do not win. Many potential films are least considered or perhaps not at all for Filmfare. Why? A few bullet reasons can be a failure at the box office, or a not-so-well-known cast leading to a lack of interest despite having a potential story.
So, with such yearly disappointments, I got annoyed and felt I had had enough of this nonsense. And someone has to take the initiative. I do not claim that I am the first to start my own Filmfare but it has now become a part of my nature to honor and recognize with the highest possible accuracy in my decisions every year.
I promise and guarantee that my picks will not sound reward but an award. My decisions will not be biased but simply on my judgment scale. Many of my finalized nominations and winners are about to surprise you like every year.
From 2014 until 2021, click any report below you would like to visit.
And since I have become a vlogger, a content creator, and a YouTuber, I am happy to inform all my readers that for the first time in 9 years, my annual report is transformed into a vlog. If you want to watch instead of reading, click below.
And I will no longer call my annual reports “My Bollywood’s Best of” whatever year. From this 9th edition, I am renaming it “The Dark Knaik’s FilmFair Awards”.
Note: “The Dark Knaik” is my avatar and the name of my YouTube channel. Subscribe to my channel here: https://youtube.com/@thedarkknaik
HOW FILMFAIR AWARDS ARE SHAPED?
Like every year, I present my nominations and winners for each category by dividing all the categories into three major sections.
The first is the ‘Musical Section’ that will have 6 categories.
Then the next is the ‘Technical Section’ that will consist of 12 categories.
And the last one is the ‘Major Section’ which will have 6 categories.
So, there will be 24 winners from 24 categories. And each category will have a maximum of 5 nominations.
Also, I will rank all the nominations of all the categories.
HOW WAS MY EXPERIENCE FOR 2022’S BOLLYWOOD?
I was generally disappointed after watching around 45 films from 2022. Bollywood had not much to offer, to be honest. There were several good stories but most of those failed due to bad execution. And then Bollywood’s mainstream aesthetics do not change. Unstoppable uninspiring musical scores, mentioning Salman Khan, needless songs, forced humor, unknown extras or unrelated characters knowing the dance steps in all the songs, stereotypical portrayals of hazuris and janabis, concluding the film on a terrible note, and many more.
THE DARK KNAIK’S 9TH FILMFAIR AWARDS
Readers!
The wait is over…
Allow me to honor Bollywood’s artistic and technical excellence in 2022.
The entertainment journalists in Mumbai are haunted in the mist of terrifying clouds when a serial killer is on lose brutally killing only film critics to whom the killer finds passing dishonest film reviews. Inspector Arvind Mathur is assigned to catch him and stop the madness.
INTRODUCTION
‘Chup: Revenge of the Artist‘ is a crime thriller. Two factors propelled me to watch this film. One was that R. Balki directed it who already has entertained us in the past directing some interesting films like Cheeni Kum, Paa, and Pad Man. The other reason is that Sunny Deol starred in it. When Sunny paaji stars, the general audience understands that the film is going to be an action-packed thriller with our He-Man smashing every possible existence throughtout the universe in larger-than-life fighting sequences. But this pick surprised me. So I was interested to know how R. Balki and Sunny Deol collaborate in such an interesting plot.
REVIEW
Almost forty minutes in the film, I felt the story was running in haste. The scenes were short and the dust of investigation was not settling. When you make a crime investigative film, the first forty minutes are the storyteller’s borrowed time to build an interesting crime case to the audience.
The dialogues are surprisingly boring. The leads towards the case are interesting but I just cannot feel myself flowing towards the screenplay because Balki’s direction throughout the film is ordinary.
The love angle of Danny and Nila is unusual due to their mutual interests but boring start of their knowing each other because of unnatural coincidences.
The film falls flat in the second half. Despite having so much potential to give a better conclusion of the case, the quality writing was terribly missing. And one major reason for a disappointing continuity was the revelation of the culprit in the first half of the film. The nature of the case and the whole screenplay pretty much gave an impression to me and surely to everyone who watched the film that Chup will be a suspense crime-thriller with our jaws dropping out in the final scenes. But in the first hour, the makers of the film gave us no chills to guess the person in quest and drop some obvious hints that led to disappointment.
And then average performances. I got to see Pooja Bhatt in a film in ages. Her character looked promising but had not much contribution due to extremely less screen presence. Sunny Deol was okay but Dulquer Salmaan as the maniac in the hunt was disappointing. He is a good actor but this role was not his. That craziness of cutting people and spreading their blood as an art, you need a special romance in those psycho eyes. And that was missing in Dulquer Salmaan. If I was the director of this film, I would have picked either Ranveer Singh or Rajkummar Rao.
The film also suffers from plotholes and I had to question if Balki really was directing all this. There is a mistake in two same murder sequences with the lady feeding her cat where at the same angle, we see the killer walking out from behind but in the previous sequence, the killer wasn’t. Whereas the camera angle was same.
Danny throws Nila from the third or fourth floor of the building and believe it or not, Nila survives with blood on her face. She was thrown on the path, on the hard surface. How come she survived with her head visibly hit on the path with that force? Even Arvind Mathur jumped from that height and dropped down with a leg injury. How come Danny not hear a wheel cart on the rail track coming towards them?
GURU DUTT
Chup is an obvious and ardent tribute to the legendary filmmaker, Guru Dutt. The sound that is repeatedly used in the background, the old songs, and a few scenes in the film especially the studio scene are all the prestigious references of Guru Dutt’s cinematic artistry. Shaping a villainous character’s origins inspired from Guru Dutt’s real-life melancholy over a failure of his film is the biggest plus of the film. I liked the idea where I need to look at Guru Dutt’s angle, what if he had turned a killer of all the people who disliked his cult classic ‘Kaaghaz Ke Phool‘?
CLOSING REMARKS
The story of Chup is easily one of the best of 2022 Bollywood but a failure to give justice through direction and screenplay.
RATINGS 4/10
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My yearly review season has arrived to inform the readers what Hindi-language Indian films do I find the best in different categories. This is my 5th annual review work on the Indian cinema and to read my previous works, kindly follow the links:
So how do I do all this? I select some three dozen potential films of the calendar year after watching the trailers and reading the minor narrations at the year-end. Then I spent a few months watching the films I selected. It takes me roughly 5-6 months to watch three dozen films because I have some other things to do in life. For the music department, I consider the selected films and explore further on the internet because the discovery of good music is vast and unlimited.
I am glad to see that watching and observing culture in India is changing. Year by year, some good stories are making rounds and getting recognition. Moving towards the new decade, this change may become a blessing. With so many production companies and heavy money involved, some very good talent is polished from any platform. Then the streaming service has developed and improved the viewing quality.
Following films grabbed my attention and I watched these in the past few months:
Besides the abovementioned 35 Hindi films, I was not able to watch the other selected films, Omerta and 3 Storeysdue to lack of availability or availability in extremely low video/audio quality.
Now before I present my winners, let me tell you how this works. After watching the above mentioned 35 Hindi films, I will segregate the categories into three different sections i.e., musical (5), technical (10), and major section (6). In most of the categories, I will brief a small explanation where I find necessary. In most of the categories, I will also make some unranked honorable mentions under “Other Notable Works” which are the individuals or the films deserve to be counted among the best.
Now I present you my picks from Bollywood’s Best of 2018. The readers can share their opinions below the blog.
Andrea Guerra’s music matches nowhere to Sui Dhaaga’s screenplay but the best thing about it is that the applied score helps us build a fresh perception towards the film. The same thing happened with Darren Fung’s score on Union Leader but Guerra’s score was better. Let us assume if a stereotype Indian music was played in the background on these screenplays, these films may not have built in our observation.
There is no way anyone can sing better than Arijit Singh nowadays and Binte Dil is an example. The score of this track is middle-eastern and Arijit has worked on his vocal cords as per the style of the track demanded. This was not the same ‘Tum Hi Ho’ voice we listened to. Listen to him when he sings Aatish Kada Adaoon Se until the drop at deeda-e-tar ka hijaab, brilliant. Because the lyrics are not easy, the singer has sung pretty vibrant and unfamiliar Urdu and on a few occasions sang in one breath.
Daryaa is a heart-wrenching track speaking about one’s love being distanced from the others with beautiful Punjabi lyrics and Deveshi’s voice offers a blend of urbanized rural melancholy and agony especially when she shouts Beh Gaya Hanjuaan Da Dariya. What we listen here is a raw voice and is used in the film at some critical junctures. A wonderful vocal rendition here.
It is hard to believe that Amit is yet to win the Best Music award from Filmfare. This could be his year but I have to admit that the competition with Bhansali for Padmaavat was really strong despite average reviews. For me, Manmarziyaan will be remembered one of Amit’s finest works to date. The compositions of all his soundtracks were magnificent. Daryaa was indeed the best track.
I think this is pretty agreeable to everyone that Bhavesh Joshi Superhero offers excellent action sequences to seek our attention. There are no silly nonsense out-of-the-world fights and ridiculous visual effects to give up between the film. Because the plot is built in the honesty of depicting the birth of a superhero and the reasons behind wearing the mask. Even in the most possible exaggeration of any sequence, the scenes are acceptable and enough to pass a compliment like Siku’s lengthy attempt of escaping on the bike towards the railway station.
Andhadhun offers the freshness in presenting a crime thriller in dark humor. Two different stories connect to each other when the man pretending to be blind witnesses the dead body at an apartment and trying to give justice to the dead becomes a huge regret. The continuity is crazy and unpredictable. A story like Andhadhun is some kind of accomplishment and hope that some great stories can be told in the Hindi-language cinema.
I believe Beyond The Clouds had the most powerful screenwriting than any other films of 2018. The biggest reason lies in the happening of the plot. The intros of the leading characters and that cat-and-mouse run of Amir from the police. Then his emotional attachment with Tara and the given agonized circumstances between them in the plot is all splendid writing. Plus the development of mental growth of both Amir and Tara after her imprisonment carries the film. Amir’s changes in attitude with the relatives of Akshi (Tara’s husband) and Tara’s fondness towards the child are some impressive aspects of the writing. Due to the fact that this screenplay was written by the foreigners, they set the new standards of screenwriting in the Indian cinema.
What is important about dialogues-writing for me? It must fit the screenplay and the entire plotline. A light-heart musical like Onir’s Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz is a feel-good romantic whistler and the main reason is dialogues. So natural that it grows on you. There is decency, there is literature, the conversation between Alfaaz and Archana has a polite affection. Another factor doubling the significance of dialogues is Zain Khan Durrani‘s voice. When he speaks, you just close your eyes and listen to what he speaks. Summing in short, Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz has the most real and natural piece of dialogues-writing in the film.
Sold. Diabolical and sold. I was losing my interest in the film and wasn’t believing how Sriram Raghavan can disappoint me after waiting for his next project for years until those blind eyes spotted a dead body in an apartment. His fingers were bought by that dead man to play his wife the piano on their wedding ceremony, the woman who killed her husband with the help of her boyfriend, masterpiece!
This was just the beginning. The best part was the continuity when both the deceased’s wife and her boyfriend silently try to clean the crime scene on the blind’s piano notes in one take. It was like I was watching good old silent-comedy stunt of the golden age. This is the beauty of the director’s artistic mind dropping the significance of presenting simple scenes in extraordinary ways.
I wish this particular scene is not a copy of any. I am not able to share the video because unfortunately, this is not available on YouTube.
Other Notable Scenes:
Murad Ali’s response to prove if he is a Muslim or not (Mulk)
Shravan lecturing his father about his boxing passion (Mukkabaaz)
Amir escaping from police-chase (Beyond The Clouds)
The best aspect of Irrfan’s acting is his absorbing the given role. He executes so well that he is no more Irrfan in the film, he is the character watched by millions of viewers. In Karwaan, we didn’t see Irrfan acting, we saw Shaukat helping his friend find his father’s dead body. Irrfan brings a tremendous balance between the two new faces in the film, Dulquer and Mithila, and beautifully completes the trinity of three extremely different characters. His supporting role was well supported by the dialogues and Shaukat’s innocence throughout the journey.
Thank God, Filmfare didn’t make the mistake of handing Best Supporting Actress to any other actress than Surekha Sikri. Because if not this, then I wonder what further would take her to get the recognition. At her age, she justified her presence and the significance of her being the matriarch. Her series of scolding to his son and later in her daughter-in-law’s defense is magnificently hilarious.
This is one stunning performance I am lost at and cannot believe that a 23yo can bring such maturity and versatility in his given role. A fresh start as an actor, Ishaan is Amir, a drug dealer whose sister is imprisoned in an attempt of killing her husband. Desperate brother is stuck of ill-fate with her husband to care in the hospital but the responsibility doubles when the husband’s relatives arrive and there is no other way than refuge them at home until the admitted patient is fit to stand on his feet.
Amir’s attitude changes from rudeness to friendliness when he is more involved with his relatives. And during all this period, Amir grows Ishaan grows, in his acting on our nerves. The director plays a significant part in growing his character but Ishaan’s mental timing and body language are pretty flawless everywhere. His bursting out of anger and voice pitch control is excellent. That rage in the pigeon room was the summary of Ishaan’s hard work of Amir’s ridiculous tolerance giving up on seeing his sister mad. Between this sequence, it was so natural to make an unnatural response towards the relatives and speak in English in agony. This Ishaan Khatter is pure promise if he moves his acting career in the future in the right direction.
I thought a lot about this. Even while deciding to pick this, I reconsidered. But I have made my mind to say that this was Taapsee’s year. And it is utter shame to see her not even getting nominated for Manmarziyaan, forget about winning a Filmfare. Many may not agree with me on Taapsee as far as the choice of film is concerned, why Manmarziyaan? Why not Mulk?
See, despite a spectacular performance in Mulk, her body language is limited to the screenplay. Half of the film is a courtroom drama and her role, her facial and mental performance is one dimensional. Manmarziyaan? She is a complete woman. Emotion-wise, Taapsee has pulled all the strings. There is so much emotional fluctuation in her given character.
Then her chemistry with Vicky plays a significant part because her scenes with Vicky are where she stands to her episodic collapses from pride, emotion, and respect throughout the film repeatedly giving a gem of performances.
I must not be taken aback to a slingshot theory that the professional actors cannot become the directors of the quality they were enriched with. The brains behind the camera, a cinematic vision thought on the director’s chair needs the required artistry to craft a story and the camera techniques for shooting which waits for the approval of the applause and compliments. Nandita Das is one exceptional name making me stop thinking about the Bollywood stereotypes for once and watch her Manto work with scrutiny.
Thanks to Das, Manto disconnects you. You are in a different timeline and parallel. You are in an undivided India sitting with your friends in a tea shop describing your work, speaking poetries, narrating a woman’s beauty and criticizing the government and the workers involved in it. You are a rebel to this world which is collapsing near you. You are drinking, you are smoking, you are watching some lights turned on in some flats at midnight. It is time to sleep but some streets aren’t and the lights are on for the women to work and sell their body. It is red, dark and hammer on your head.
The point is that the direction of the film is such a force that you become Manto and your world falls apart. The excellence of Nandita’s direction also lies in balancing so many things about Manto within two hours. Even the Lahore days of Manto were shot well and broke the stereotypical Pakistani portrayal in Hindi cinema.
I never felt I was watching a 2018 film. It was like the excellent golden age of the 50s back or if Guru Dutt’s directional artistry was temporarily inherited by Nandita.
The most important category to conclude this blog needs very careful judgment. What needs a film to be the best of the year? A lot of things count. First the story and the message, the brains behind the continuity of the screenplay. The screen time if it justifies the story. The whole body of the film most importantly the final few minutes which need some technical conclusion to convince the viewers. The selection of actors is not an issue because I always believe it is a performance which sells the plot. And that is why I believe that Mulk is 2018’s best film of the year.
Because Mulk opens a very sensitive subject which compels the audience to think about the future of the country. The social portrayal and acceptance towards the minorities in India have not been focused in the Indian cinema because this doesn’t profit the cinemas and the film producers, and there is every certainty that the majority of viewers may not like the idea.
Because most of the films focus on how the terrorism was committed or what role did the police or anti-terror squad play in defending the country or stopping/fighting against the event. But I don’t remember right now if any director tried to focus on the families whose member goes on to become a terrorist and made them regret.
Anubhav Sinha’s Mulk offers such a story about a diverse Muslim family who has been living in the same mohalla for decades. Advocate Murad Ali (Rishi Kapoor) says this is his home and he keeps no grudge with the people of any faith. Hindus and Muslims come together and sit with him, share happiness with him and his family until he nephew Shahid (Prateik Babbar) commits a terror attack.
Anubhav Sinha gives the viewers an intense feeling about such family being surrendered/surrounded by the religious insecurity and social tightness in the society. The behavioral attitude and breaking some ties further makes the family seek an antidote.
Mulk is a very sensitive drama touching a very sensitive subject of the protection and importance of the communities. Half of the film is the intense courtroom drama where Murad’s Hindu daughter-in-law Aarti tries to defend the case against the public prosecutor Santosh Anand (Ashutosh Rana) who tries to convince the court that the Muslim community orchestrates the terrorism.
Anubhav’s powerful writing and direction heavily focuses on the fact that people can be either good or bad whether they are of any faith. There is every chance that the follower of God and evil may be living in the same house under the same roof. The insecurity of being a Muslim is also highlighted well.
Technical aspects have done the talking. Dialogues, screenplay, story, cinematography, and direction are magnificent. These aspects are well supported by the splendid performances of Rishi Kapoor, Taapsee Pannu, Manoj Pahwa and Ashutosh Rana.
Mulk is an agonized cry for love and peace in the cynical times of crossing guns over other shoulders among the communities and even the neighboring countries. It is one of the most important films produced in India with a cinematic masterpiece.
Other Notable Films:
Andhadhun
Padman
Bioscopewala
Union Leader
Beyond The Clouds
Manto
Pihu
Thank you for reading my annual picks and will write next year about Hindi films which are produced in 2019. Share your opinion below.