A quick update on the happenings in Bollywood in Quarter 2 of 2014

Quarter 2 of 2014 is over so its time to look back at the happenings of Q2 of 2014 in our Hindi film industry.

Business of Bollywood in April:

The month of April started with David Dhawan's comedy "Main Tera Hero" , which turns out to be a hit for his popular music and fantastic comic performance by the leading man Varun Dhwan. It registers more than 50 crore collections at the box office. This movie was followed by "Bhootnath Returns", which took a good start but later its collection does not picked up that much. Still it made an average collection. 
On the third week of April comes the first 100 crore grosser of the 2nd quarter of 2014 which was "2 States". It was based on the bestseller by Chetan Bhagat with the same name. The fresh pairing of Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, a solid performance by the supporting cast, an entertaining story, nice music and the holiday season of Good Friday all worked for the film togather and it enters in the 100 crore club. After that no big movies came in April as the IPL season started from the mid of April.

Business of Bollywood in May:

The influence of IPL continued for the most of the part of the month of May.So for the first few weeks only some small budget low profile movies got released which performed very poorly at the box office as per expectations. But for a change on the last week of May, a movie came which gave some expectations to the trade analysts. It was "Heropanti". This movie was the launch vehicle for two newcomers Tiger Shroff and Kirti Shanon. This movie had created a lot of pre-release hype because of the dare devil action sequences performed by Tiger Shroff. Also the music of the movie was popular before its release.When it released it performed beyond the expectations of anyone and becomes a super hit. For a fresh leading couple it was a big achievement to register more than 50 crore collection.

Business of Bollywood in June:

After a long phase of low profile movies during the IPL seasons, in the month of June it started raining of big budget movies from which box office can expect a lot. This h0liday season started with Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha starrer "Holiday-A Soldier Is Never Off Duty". It performs very well at the box office and make it to the 100 crore club. In fact this is the highest grossing movie of 2014 so far with the collection of 112 crores approx. After that the movie which earned good money was Sajid Khan directed "Humshakals" though the critics had no expectations from it but the trade analysts had. Although it made a collection of around 60 crores but considering its budget it was a not a profitable collection. Then the quarter end closed with another 100 crore movie. This time it was "Ek Villain". With this movie the leading actors Siddharth Malhotra and Shraddha Kapoor made their debut in the 100 crore club at the same time it was the first for director Mohit Suri and production house Balaji Films too. The extensive marketing and the hit music were the major USP of this film.

So overall it shows Q2 was better than Q1 as per the box office collections. Q2 has three 100 crore films and 2 more hits which made more than 50 crore.

Top Performances of Q2 2014
Actors-

• Varun Dhawan - Main Tera Hero
• Amitabh Bachhan  - Bhootnath Returns
• Parth Bhalerao - Bhootnath Returns
• Boman Irani - Bhootnath Returns
• Rajkumar Rao  - Citylights
• Akshay Kumar - Holiday - A Soldier Is Never Off Duty
• Sharib Hashmi - Filmistaan
• Siddarth Malhotra - Ek Villain

Actresses-

• Alia Bhatt - 2 States
• Amrita Singh - 2 States
• Revathy - 2 States

Top Songs of Q2 2014

• Palat/ Besharmi Ki Height - Main Tera Hero
• Party To Banti Hai - Bhootnath Returns
• Offo / Locha E Ulfat / Mast Magan - 2 States 
• Whistle Baja / Rabba - Heropanti
• Tu Hi To hai / Shairaana  - Holiday- A Soldier Is Never Off Duty
• Caller Tune / Piya Ke Bazaar Me - Humshakals
• Galiyaan / Banjaara / Zaroorat - Ek Villain

Review of Ek Villain

From last one decade director Mohit Suri is making movies adapted from foreign films without giving any credit to them.The only change he does is to add some Indian sentiments and some melodious songs. With "Ek Villain" he has done the same thing. This time the movie which has been taken as inspiration is a Korean film "I Saw The Devil".

This is a movie about two lovers one become a good person from a villain for his lady love another becomes a villain from a good guy for his wife. So there are two parallel tracks one involving Guru (Siddharth Malhotra) and Aisha (Shraddha Kapoor) and another one is about Rakesh (Riteish Deshmukh) and his wife Sulochana(Aamna Sharif).

Guru is a local goon who used to work for a local mafia Ceaser (Remo Fernandes). One day Guru meets Aisha and his life is changed as he falls in love with Aisha. They marry each other and decide to take a fresh start in their life but destiny has some other plans.

On the other hand Rakesh is a frustrated MTNL employee who has a nagging wife at home unsatisfied boss at office. Although his wife's behavior is very bad towards him he loves her very much and wants to prove himself as a hero to her wife.

With one murder both this stories crossed each other. What happens after that is rest of the story.

Basically this is meant to be the story of a serial murderer who kills innocent ladies but there is a solid dose of romance too as the flashback story of Guru and Aisha. If we watch carefully to director Mohit Suri's last two works one was "Murder 2" a psychological thriller and "Ashiqui 2" a musical love story and it seems this time the production house has forced him to mix his both hit formulas together. But unfortunately neither it is as exciting as "Murder 2" as a thriller nor emotional and touchy as a musical love story as "Ashiqui 2".

The main problem is with the script. The romantic track has been added with main story but it has been progressed in a very much cliched approach where a tough guy falls in for a talkative sweet girl and fulfills all her wishes. For the thriller part the main missing thing is a solid reason behind the serial killings. the reason which has been shown in the script is very much unrealistic.
the films narrative style has also some problems in spite of being a thriller it reveals the murderer in just 20-25 minutes of the film. Then a promising point comes that now the main focus will be how the hero traces the killer but surprisingly that is also done even before the interval so basically nothing is left for the post-interval portion. Even in the climax the final confrontation between the hero and the anti-hero is finished in such way which becomes unintentionally funny.

As a director Mohit Suri has done far better jobs for Bhatt camp, it seems he was not at his ease with his first venture outside Bhatt camp.His story telling style is not up to the mark. Every time there is a dilemma whether it is a romantic story or a thriller. He has experimented in casting too by selecting actors for the roles exactly opposite to their image though the casting is good for the leading cast but the same can not be said for the supporting cast members.

As the leading man Siddharth Malhotra has done a fantastic job. This is the first time he has done action role and he has done that very well. Be it the intense emotional scenes or the action scenes his performance is commendable.He is one actor who is growing as a performer with each of his movies.

Riteish Deshmukh has taken a big challenge to do something exactly opposite from his screen image and he succeed up to a point. He is good in negative character but his expressions are very cliched sometime which could have been improved. Specially in some scenes in the beginning he doesn't look much efficient but as the story progresses his control over the character also keeps getting strong.

There are lots of hope from Shraddha Kapoor after "Ashiqui 2" but she is disappointing here. Though she has acted fair but her character graph is bad that she fails to impress the audiences.She looked pretty but her dialogues which consist too much gyaan does not go well with her image.
Aamna Sharif has done good job in the small role of Riteish Deshmukh's wife. Kamal R Khan's acting and his character in this movie is just like his real life personality disgusting. Remo Fernandese is a miscast as the underworld don. Shaad Randhawa tries to hard to act and look like a tough cop but his character has no scope neither he has any promising abilities.
There is an unwanted item song too which features Prachi Desai and no matter how the song interrupted the story but Prachi Desai has given appropriate expressions for the song.

Among the technical team the only man who shines is the cinematographer Vishnu Rao. He has shot the under water sequences as well as the action sequences very well. The rest of the technical team is just okay.

The music is main highlight of the film. All the music composers Mithoon, Ankit Tiwari and Soch band should be given credit for the soulful songs.Also the director himself should credit for choosing such melodious songs and using them perfectly with the story. The main hit songs are ofcourse "Galiyaan" and "Banjaare" but the rest of the songs "Zaroorat" and "Humdard" are also good. Only the item song "Awaari" featuring Prachi Desai seems forced into the screenplay.

Overall it is not a soulful love story that will touch your heart neither it is a pacy thriller it is in between of these two. The only saving grace is the melodious songs and some fine acting by the two leading man. Don't go for this with high expectation just give it a try as a one time watch.