Bengali films of 2018 which failed at the Box Office

2018 has seen its fair share of surprises and disappointments so far, some of which have hurt Bengali cinema in a big way. While films like ‘Haami’, ‘Uma’, ‘Bidaay Byomkesh’, ‘Guptodhoner Sondhane’ have ruled the Box Office, the worst ones seem to be a number of medium-budgeted films that failed to attract the audiences. Films like ‘Noor Jahan’, ‘Kaya – The mystery unfolds’ had promising trailers but failed to live up to expectations. Here is a list of some of those Bengali films which couldn’t live up to the expectations.

The romantic flick directed by Abhimanyu Mukherjee and produced by Raj Chakraborty introduced a new pair Adrit Roy and Puja Cherry Roy to Bengali cinema. Expectations were quite high but it didn’t manage a good outing at the Box Office following its release in February. A story of two passionate lovers, the romantic flick is more than just a romance. Despite the lack of a very original plot, the film initially promised a lot with its treatment, focusing on different sides of a stark reality and the complex nature of human emotions against the innocent and crazy dreams of the lovers. The love saga seemed old wine in an old bottle!

This horror flick faced the same fate as ‘Noor Jahan’ following its release on February 23. Despite having an ensemble cast including Raima Sen, Kaushik Sen, Sayani Datta, Santilal Mukherjee, Priyanka Sarkar and Poulami Das, in his directorial debut, Rajib Chowdhury completely messed it up with a weak storyline and wrong execution of the script. The horror flick speaks about a burning issue of sexual exploitation of women in the film industry. Sadly, while this issue needs major attention and the story looked lucrative on paper, the execution turned out to be so childish that it became a pain to sit through the entire film.

Watching a rough and tough Jeet in a comedy avatar was not a good option for Bengali movie fans. Released in January, ‘Inspector Notty k’ promised a complete family entertainer but in reality, it failed to live up to the expectations. The story sees an inspector Notobar Khara aka Notty K searching for a job, especially as he dreams of becoming a police officer. It’s no doubt a mindless entertainer but the story is so boring that even after building a plot, the film loses its plot as soon as it’s created. Jeet’s larger-than-hero image, a beautiful Nusrat Faria and exotic locations couldn’t save ‘Inspector Notty k’.

If the characters were not essayed by actors, who can single-handedly carry out a film, like Paran Bandopadhyay, Kharaj Mukherjee, Mir Afsar Ali and Sumit Samaddar; ‘Abar Basanta Bilap’ would have been completely unbearable. Director duo Ipsita Roy Sarkar and Rajesh Dutta termed it as a full-fledged comedy flick, which the film looks like, but only in a few scenes. The story seems to be an ensemble of a number of loose subplots until they start to make some sense in the latter part of the first half. There are so many dialogues that create mindless humour and some of them look like spontaneously improvised during the shoot. Frankly speaking, the irrelevant sequences just make it even more tiresome.

Nehal Dutta’s ‘E Tumi Kemon Tumi’ tries to sketch the status of women in our society despite their noble intentions and sacrifices we see every day. The story, throughout the film, is a grim one. The plot seems a bit clichéd and the approach also a bit outdated. Some dialogues like the ones that suggest the husband is more important than a wife’s self-respect, falls into moral loopholes given the intended message the film tries to serve. Priyanka Sarkar’s performance is decent except in few scenes where she looks a bit theatrical. Debutant Rezwan Rabbani Sheikh fits into the archetypal character along with his poetic inclinations. Although his performance is consistent it drops in some occasions when throwing dialogues.

‘Drishyantar’ refers to a gap between two scenes in a play, but the literal meaning of the word has very little to do with anything that you would see during the course of this ridiculous, illogical plot. Directed by Rana Banerjee, it’s not exactly a thriller, not even a self-discovering journey, or a murder mystery. It is shocking, to see that the film tries to be all of these, and much more. In the end, it ends up being nothing, not even a good attempt. ‘Drishyantar’ is also a perfect example of how talents are wasted. Debshankar Halder, Srabanti Chatterjee, Indrani Halder – all are experienced actors but in the hand of an inexperienced filmmaker, they look like amateurish.