Anandita Dudeja
6. Jhoom Barabar Jhoom – 67%
One disaster after another, this is where my disbelief actually kicked in. The movie is a headache, and I don’t remember any of it except a copied sequence from Before Sunrise which was so horribly acted out it could put the entire movie fraternity to shame. Just, don’t watch it if you’ve been safe from the wrath until today.
5. Om Shaanti Om – 73%
From Deepika Padukone’s debut to legendary dialogues which nobody told anybody were quotes from Paulo Coelho books translated in Hindi, dramatically but word to word. Reincarnation is such a fascinating concept but if you want to see it come to ruins, watch this movie. Unoriginal and inept, there is not one dimension in which this movie caught my attention.
4. Sultan – 80%
I’m a firm believer of not having to indulge in anything that Salman Khan does, because I cannot expect him to do well, at any point. Anushka Sharma, on the other hand, is one of my absolute favorites. The movie obviously was short of everything you want cinema to be like, but it still is a movie that did a lot of business because I don’t see fans of Salman Khan ever ditching him. When superstars like him have their face on a movie that does well, it doesn’t surprise me, but when cinephiles rate it well, it does upset me a little.
3. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi – 83%
It was waaaaaaaay to silly a film, and so I laughed when I saw it is rated so high on Rotten Tomatoes. But then, I saw a pattern. Movies with big names on it tend to do well in all dimensions, except of course often failing to be good films. Shahrukh does a double role (sort of) while Anushka makes her debut as the prototype of every woman-debutante in Bollywood. Watch the movie only and only for Vinay Pathak playing Shah Rukh’s best friend, if you must.
2. Gunday – 86%
A gangster duo falling for the same woman who happens to be a cabaret dancer. WOW. Only when you begin to think Bollywood is growing up, they throw something like this at you. Ranveer Singh, Priyanka Chopra and even Irrfan Khan for that matter, the movie stars marvels of our industry and maybe they are the ones responsible for the ratings but this was horrendous and unworthy, the fact that this film was made very recently is both hysterical and horrible.
1. Krrish – 100%
The Big Shock! I might’ve frowned at the ratings of all the movies on the list but this was the most unexpected, I kept looking at it, failing to actually believe it. I’ve seen questions on quora like “Has Rotten Tomatoes ever rated a film 100%?”. And then, I see this. If professional critics think this movie deserves this, I’d be left speechless. I’ve never disliked Priyanka Chopra in any of her performances, except this one time. I’ve never seen a script so absurd and filmography so ambiguous that it would want you to stop watching movies forever. This movie is a dumbed down version of itself.
As much as I wish for these ratings to be a joke, and for these films to not be representative of what Indian cinema stands for, these ratings are none of that. ‘Pather Panchali’ has a rating on 98%, while Krrish stands at 100%. THIS is beyond my capacity to decipher, the concept of rating movies is a rotten one. Movie ratings are mostly just generalization because what the medium is capable of making you feel is as subjective as every individual human mind. So, my advice to you would be to not let these ratings be parameters of what kind of catharsis you’re going to experience today. Watch every movie that anyone has ever recommended to you because then you will understand that person better, whilst having a great movie watching experience.
