Bengali stars and their recent box office flops

There is a simple recipe to make your film a hit one – mix these three ingredients in right proportion; quality content, good screenplay and great star cast. But, not always these simple formula works and many potential hit films fail to succeed at the box-office. There have been so many instances when even the biggest stars have failed to achieve the expected response from the audience. We have seen films starring Dev and Jeet stumbling upon at the box office. Although they have bounced back with their next releases, these occasional flops have many a time proved there’s no such fixed formula to make a film hit. Take a look at these Bengali films which flopped even with an ensemble cast.

There were a number of sluggish executions in the middle which made the unique content of ‘Cockpit’ a dull one. Just like all his films, Dev was supposed to carry the film on his shoulder. His portrayal of Captain Dibyendu Rakshit was appreciated by both the audience and critics but overall it was a flop show for ‘Cockpit’. Playing the female lead only in her second film, Rukmini Maitra looked like an expressionless heroine at some points, yet in few dramatic sequences she was trapped in overacting. There was so much hype surrounding the film as Dev left no stone unturned during the film’s promotion. Yet leaving his faithful fan circle, the audience response was not so good one

Jeet is a comic avatar was a blunder in this rom-com. The audience couldn’t digest the actor hero’s comic appearance and ‘Inspector Notty K’ turned out to be a box office disaster. It’s simply a no-brainer. The story follows Notobar Khara, aka Notty K (Jeet), a village bumpkin from Chamkaitala, who is in his pursuit to secure his dream job of a police inspector. He travels to Italy to bring back Samira, the daughter of a top cop and reunite the family. All goes well for the funny Notobar until he falls for Samira who is a police officer in Italy and up next a series of strange events ensues. Releasing early in 2018, this film didn’t give a perfect start to the year for Jeet. However, his next ‘Sultan: The Saviour’ did manage to recover his action image.

The multi-starrer comedy flick featured big names like Jisshu Sengupta, Soham Chakraborty, Hiraan Chatterjee, Srabanti, Koel Mallick, Paayel Sarkar. Still, it failed to rule the box office. With a weak script and boring screenplay, it can hardly be a one-time watch. The story is about a group of four friends Ananta, Sujoy, Ananda and Rajasankar Dhol. Ananta, a fashion photographer lives in a rented house owned by Khogen Mal. In a dramatic turn of events, all the 4 friends had to live together at Ananta’s rented home. Their peaceful life gets disrupted when Khogen catches them red-handed doing mischief with his third wife Tola Boudi and threatens them to vacate.

‘Hamlet’ is regarded as the most adapted drama written by Shakespeare. The famous play has seen interpretation and execution on a different level in every adaptation. Vishal Bharadwaj made its Hindi version on the backdrop of the burning situation of Kashmir in ‘Haider, but Anjan Dutt had something different in mind which motivated him to make 'Hemanta'. It tells the story from the perspective of Bengali sentiment and culture. Parambrata Chatterjee playing the titular role in ‘Hemanta’ failed to stop the movie’s downfall.

The lightening, brightening and sparkling romantic comedy could have been a perfect treat for 2017 Puja. The fun meter of the movie could have been too high to boast us with vigor for the Puja but sadly none of these happened. Despite showing a lot of promise the Ankush and Nusrat starrer didn’t enjoy a good out at the box office. The story follows a distracted Shamyo (played by Ankush Hazra) who has been disowned by his extravagantly rich grandfather. Being on one of his carefree sides, Shamyo meets a cute young lady Uma (Nusrat Jahan) in a train and gets clicked with her while she is asleep. This small mistake soon lands him in an ocean of troubles and starts a journey of endless laughter. How he confronts the trouble while unknowingly exploring love, care, and realisation build the soul of the movie.

Though director Kamaleshwar Mukherjee tries to highlight a number of issues, his failure at creating a compact plot disappoints a great deal. Riwtick Chakraborty deserves much credit for magnifying the emotional pangs and helplessness of the protagonist, a mental patient Abhimanyu Mitra, without any melodramatic thrust. Even the presence of Saswata Chatterjee and Rituparna Sengupta in the cast fails to make it work for ‘Good Night City’. However, Paayal Sarkar and Arunima Ghosh’s performances no doubt lift the story when it seems a bit exhausting.

Glitter and glamour are attractive things. In commercial cinema, glamour always comes with its own share of significance. But glamour can be misleading too – especially when it’s not accompanied by meaningful content. There is no perfect example to analyze this than director Joydeep Mukherjee’s Indo-Bangla joint production Tui Shudhu Amar which sank at the office without any trace. Om playing the antagonist often overdo his part. Bangladeshi actress Mahiya Mahi, as the female lead, seems to deliver the same expression in every scene. Soham playing the male lead looked like submitted himself entirely in director’s hand. If there’s enough creative freedom, even a moderately-skilled filmmaker can extract a good performance out of him. But in this film, you would definitely feel sorry for the actor.