Multiple new power centres are being created in the Hindi film industry ... a sure sign of its maturity. If Vicky Kaushal blazed to stardom with Uri: The Surgical Strike, the biggest sleeper hit of the first quarter of 2019, Shahid Kapoor has just scored the biggest blockbuster of his 16-year-old career with the angst-laden drama, Kabir Singh. It is the surprise superhit of the second quarter (April to June) of 2019.
After over a decade of middle-level stardom, Shahid Kapoor saw his Kabir Singh opened to an eye-widening Rs 20 crores on the first day. In the past, popular films without a megastar headlining it, have picked-up on word of mouth but for a Shahid Kapoor film to generate such a huge opening makes you wonder if it was the power of promotion, a bulls-eye trailer or the uncanny ability of the audience to smell a good film.
The unenthusiastic reviews just didn't matter. Shahid Kapoor as an angry, young, disenchanted and consequently dangerous and self-destructive lover is a likely contender for the best actor awards this year (he has won earlier for Haider and Udta Punjab).
He has stiff competition from Vickky Kaushal of Uri... so far. Kabir Singh also marks the stupendous debut by 37-year-old director Sandeep Vanga in Hindi films. Vanga is already a household name in the South since the last two years for directing Arjun Reddy, the original version of Kabir Singh.
Two months ago, in my FPJ column dated May 12, 2019, I had prophesised, “Soon, no one in the audience will be asking Kiara Who?” And my words have come true. Kiara Advani has leapfrogged into the A-league after playing the leading lady in Kabir Singh.
Numerically, Salman Khan’s Bharat is the biggest grosser of the second quarter so far but Kabir Singh has just begun its victory march and we have to wait and watch if it overshoots Bharat at the Indian box office.
Thanks to the staggering initial it garnered, Bharat is already a box office biggie but now Kabir Singh is playing catch up despite stiff competition from the ongoing World Cup cricket.
Bharat is a beleaguered story about a patriot whose pursuit of the straight and narrow path is peppered with episodic incidents. The film attempts adding a novel dimension to the story telling by tracing the protagonist’s life from 18 to 70 and drawing parallels between his personal milestones and the memorable moments of post-Independence history. Salman Khan stays true to type and plays an invincible super hero.
Barring an impressive Kiara Advani in Kabir Singh and Tabu in De De Pyar De, the second quarter has largely been a male-dominated arena.
Remarkably, the talented Tabu is getting some of the best roles of her career in her 40s. Contemporary Madhuri Dixit scored with Total Dhamaal earlier in the year but couldn’t repeat the success with Kalank.
In the latter film, Madhuri Dixit reaffirmed her acting chops while Alia Bhatt surprised both the audience and Madhuri with her classical dance, Ghar more pardesiya. Another biggie, Student Of The Year 2, couldn’t score the high grades that SOTY did but Ananya Pande managed a few decent notices.
I have never seen Ajay Devgn look as dapper as he does in De De Pyar De. The May-December wedding love story was engaging albeit in parts. It enhanced Ajay’s reputation as a lambi race ka ghoda as it is his second success this year (after Total Dhamaal) and his fourth hit in a row (preceded by Raid and Golmaal Again).
The Tashkent Files, a conspiracy thriller, probed into the decades old enigma surrounding the death of former prime minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri. Unexpectedly, thanks to word of mouth publicity, the film began to grow on the audience.
An ensemble film, the credit will be shared by the entire cast and therefore no single star in particular stands to benefit. Sunny Deol and newcomer Karan Kapadia, the nephew of Dimple Kapadia, drew a blank with Blank.
The thriller about a human bomb (Kapadia) who can’t be defused failed to ignite interest in the masses. Pure conjecture but Vivek Oberoi’s ambitious biography, PM Narendra Modi, could have done better if it had released in the heat of the 2019 elections rather than post elections.
The last major release of the quarter is Ayushmann Khurrana’s trenchantly topical film, Article 15. For the uninitiated Article 15 of the Indian Constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.
The critics have given a thumbs up to the film and Ayushmann for his performance as an intense police officer but could have done better had Pacman Kabir Singh, as strong in its second week as it was in the first, not eaten into the film’s opening.
Dinesh Raheja is an Indian author, columnist, TV scriptwriter, and film historian. In 2017, he initiated The Dinesh Raheja Workshop in which he teaches Bollywood aspirants everything related to the media.
