Hindi cinema needs fresh mojo to woo fans as patriotism fatigue sets in
Jawan, Pathaan and Gadar 2 set a bar for Bollywood films flaunting the Tricolour sentiment; the list of duds doing the same so far this year has left an expensive dent on the film trade
Once upon a time, till only a year ago, Bollywood knew where to turn to when all else failed. There was Pakistan, with a terrorist or two lurking in the shadows who would give the hero reasons enough to get into full-on action mode and spew bombastic deshbhakti dialogues. From Sarfarosh in 1999, where mainstream Bollywood openly named Pakistan as a hub of cross-border terrorism for the first time, to last year’s triple blockbuster showing of Jawan, Pathaan and Gadar 2, pop patriotism was all along a lucrative option to fall back on. Hindi filmmakers rarely went wrong with the formula.
Bombs of 2024
Till Fighter bombed on Republic Day this year despite Hrithik Roshan taking on the archetypal Pakistani terrorist and exuding Top Gun vibes in heady fighter jet stunts. The glossy production, said to be budgeted at around Rs 250 crore, grossly underperformed, and before the film trade could recover, exhibitors were suddenly reeling under consecutive flops in the genre.
The list of duds that tried flaunting Tricolour sentiments so far this year has left an expensive dent on the film trade. Fighter was followed by the failure of the Sidharth Malhotra-starrer Yodha, an amateurish film about a de-rostered special task force soldier caught in a hijack situation. By the time the mega-ambitious Bade Miyan Chote Miyan ended up as one of Indian cinema’s biggest disasters after releasing on Eid, the writing was on the wall. The film, mounted on a massive Rs 350-crore budget, managed to recover around a third of its budget.
Clearly, some sort of patriotism hangover has set in and the audience is currently not in the mood to venture to theatres even if a film like Bade Miyan Chote Miyan flaunts the alpha action heroes Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff, unless the plot or storytelling has something new to offer. The trade, for one, believes it is time for a change. “I definitely think the audience is tired of anti-Pakistan dramas. They have had too much of it and therefore they need a break,” says film trade analyst Komal Nahta.
The Generic Hangover
The generic hangover among viewers seems to affect films hawking patriotic and nationalistic themes even outside the zone of Pakistan bashing. Barely a fortnight ago, the dubbed version of Kamal Haasan’s Hindustani 2 (original title Indian 2) released and bombed in the Hindi market. Made at a reported budget of around Rs 250 crore, the sequel brought back Kamal Haasan in his iconic role of Senapathy from the 1996 first film on a new mission to eradicate corruption from India. The novelty of an aged idealist resorting to violence in order to punish the corrupt, however, seems to have worn off this time.
Several other Hindi films flaunting specific socio-political agendas or social messages have ended up duds, too, in the first seven months of 2024. These include Akshay Kumar’s latest release Sarfira, the Ajay Devgn-starrer Maidaan and Randeep Hooda’s self-starring directorial Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, besides the modest-budget productions Accident Or Conspiracy: Godhra, Bastar: The Naxal Story, Jahangir National University and The UP Files.
The mega-ambitious Bade Miyan Chote Miyan ended up as one of Indian cinema’s biggest disasters after releasing on Eid.
Tough Acts to Follow?
The situation is confusing for beleaguered Bollywood all the more because last year’s three biggest blockbusters — Jawan, Gadar 2 and Pathaan — were made around the formula of pop patriotism riding loud action and louder dialogues.
Ironically, the super success of the three patriotic biggies of 2023 could actually account for the no-show of films in the genre that opened after them. Jawan, Pathaan and Gadar 2 set a bar for Hindi films flaunting the Tricolour sentiment that is perhaps too high to scale.
“Unless something which is more outstanding than Jawan, Pathaan or Gadar 2 is offered to the audience, they are not going to accept it. They have seen the ‘ultimate’ in the genre last year. They want something better now. Those three films were so well made and so wonderful were those patriotic tracks that anything short of that is not going to work now,” Nahta reasons.
All-Out Fun Rules In 2024
As Bollywood struggles to fill theatre seats and struggles to tackle the twin onslaught of OTT and South Indian films, there is clearly an indication that out-and-out entertainers tend to work once more, irrespective of whether they tout patriotic themes or Pakistan bashing.
The year’s biggest hit so far, Kalki 2898 AD, comes from the Telugu film factory and boasts of every larger-than-life formula in the screen entertainment textbook. The Prabhas-Deepika Padukone-Amitabh Bachchan starrer is a sci-fi action thriller that mixes history with fantasy, and has minted over Rs 11,00 crore (and counting) across its Telugu and dubbed Hindi versions against a budget of Rs 600 crore.
The mega-budget Kalki validates the fact that Bollywood needs to focus on catering all-out fun banking on solid content as does Munjya, a polar opposite ‘small film’ that has scored big. The horror comedy made Rs 131 crore against a budget of around Rs 30 crore, while the Ajay Devgn-starrer Shaitaan, another horror drama produced on a budget of around Rs 65 crore, raked in over Rs 211 crore. The other films that have seen plus revenues in 2024 are the heist comedy Crew and the sci-fi comedy Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya.
What's in the Offing
Bollywood, however, is not giving up on patriotism just yet. From now till the end of 2025, there is a long list of releases lined up in the genre. Many of these, like Aamir Khan’s Sunny Deol-starrer Lahore 1947 and JP Dutta’s Border 2, will, of course, bask in packing a Pak punch. Others like Ajay Devgn and Rohit Shetty’s Singham Again will search within Indian borders for issues, to set up the right mix of melodrama and nationalism. Still others like Kangana Ranaut’s Emergency and the Vicky Kaushal-starrer Chhava will try interpreting history.
Dutta’s words while introducing Border 2 in an interview to E-Times a while back reminds you why, when it comes to deshbhakti, Bollywood can only serve it in king-size. “Subtlety is not for a franchise like this. Border 2 will have chest-thumping patriotism,” Dutta sums up the essence of his film.