Shaandaar is so bad, it is a spit in the face of Bollywood
The director of National Award-winning, critically acclaimed, loved-by-all movie Queen, fails to meet your modest expectations with his latest offering - Shaandaar.
The movie, starring the newly wed Shahid Kapoor, future Kareena Kapoor Khan - Alia Bhatt, veteran Pankaj Kapur, Pankaj's daughter and Shahid's sister Sanah Kapur, the inconsequential Sanjay Kapoor, forever the grandmother Sushma Seth and many others, not only bores you to death with a sloppy script and bad direction, but also makes you question why such a movie was made at all!
Karan Johar, celebrated director of very many successful films, and the man behind Dharma Productions, is known for his larger-than-life films, film sets and outdoor locations. He is next best known for his questioned sexual orientation, which is sadly now mocked and put to use by himself in various occasions.
Anurag Kashyap, the one director in Bollywood who has always shown the guts to stand apart, and carved out a space for himself and his movies in the industry and in the hearts of good cinema loving audience, has been falling into the trap of commercial masala films of Bollywood, and one cannot not doubt whether this stems from his newly found friendship with Mr Johar.
Vikramaditya Motwane, who penned a masterpiece like Dev D, and directed gems of Bollywood movies like Udaan and Lootera, who co-owns Phantom films with Vikas Bahl, Anurag Kashyap and Madhu Mantena, has made people raise eyebrows about the movies he decides to produce.
These four director-producers, who have, in the past, made films India can be proud of, this time, chose to take their audience for granted. A good director always knows when he lays his heart on a good script, but why then, would Vikas Bahl, who not only directed, but also co-wrote Queen, decide to make a movie like Shaandaar? Why then would Karan Johar, who has been making serious, not-so-his-type movies like My Name Is Khan and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna decide to produce a script like that of Shaandaar? Why the hell on Earth would Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, who I thought were path-breaking filmmakers of this country fund a script like Shaandaar?
I am not upset with Karan Johar because he has made the likes of Student of the Year. What saddens me as a hardcore Bollywood fan, is the advent of mediocre cinema from good filmmakers. A movie turning out quite different from what the filmmakers expected to make is not a new story, we know what happened to Anurag Basu's Kites and Anurag Kashyap's Bombay Velvet. But when Kabir Khan, who directed Bajrangi Bhaijaan (an out and out Bollywood masala) makes a movie as ridiculous as Phantom (which at the very least deserved good editing) and the likes of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, known for good cinema like Guzaarish and Devdas, produces movies like Rowdy Rathore, it angers me.
Trying to address issues like body-shaming and insomnia, the weak script of Shaandaar deserved n number of reworks. Pankaj Kapoor repeats a mistake he once committed by acting in Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola. Shahid, who seemed desperate to star in a big budget, big banner movies after a string of flops like Phata Poster Nikla Hero and R... Rajkumar, though not forgetting Haider, should have ensured that his character, if not the whole movie, was strong enough.
When the A-listers of Bollywood like Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan stars in disasters like Happy New Year, Dhoom 3, Bang Bang, Singh Is Bling and Kick respectively, maybe nothing should be expected from Shahid Kapoor, who is, in comparison, still a junior.
I sincerely hope directors who have proved themselves multiple times, and producers who have all the luxury to say a strict 'NO' to bad scripts, will come forward and do so and spare the audience, even the masala Bollywood mix loving audience, horrors like Shaandaar.