Most Disappointing Bollywood Movies of 2014

Jai Ho: Salman Khan did not have any release in 2013 which was a first for him. So when he was returning after more than a year with a film that was labelled as a social drama, expectations were certainly running high. Unfortunately, Jai Ho turned out to be a damp squib filled with clichéd situations, unconvincing storyline, awful casting filled with B grade actors and above all unnecessary Salman Khan fight scenes. Sohail Khan wanted to make a social drama without alienating Salman’s fan base. He ended up pleasing nobody with Jai Ho.

Gulaab Gang: Sampath Rai’s story of forming the Gulaab Gang and invoking their own justice on men who harm women was an interesting premise for a film. Casting former heavyweights like Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla made the film’s prospects seem even better before release. Sadly, in his attempt to turn the film more commercial, director Shoumik Sen added unusually Salmanesque action sequences to his film. A much more realistic subtle approach would have done the film a lot of wonders. No wonder, Gulaab Gang sank without a trace.

Revolver Rani: Kangna Ranaut stole our hearts with her performance in Queen. The film made us feel that it was the emergence of a bold and independent new actress in Indian cinema who likes to do things her way. That is why we were intrigued by Revolver Rani before release. Unfortunately, the film turned out to be too eccentric and loose-ended for anybody’s liking. Its failure notwithstanding, we are willing to give Kangna the benefit of the doubt.

The Xpose: Truth be said, we were not expecting The Xpose to be a good film since the moment the trailers were released. Heck, we expected a bad film. But The Xpose turned out to be even worse than we imagined with some of the worst acting we have seen in Hindi cinema recently, coupled with cringe-worthy and atrociously bad dialogues. Even Himesh Reshammiya’s music couldn’t save his acting venture. Himesh should do himself and us a favour and just quit acting as soon as possible. However, the makers are set to release a sequel later this year.

Fugly: Akshay Kumar showed promise as a producer when he produced the phenomenal OMG Oh My God and that alone made us feel that Fugly will be worth watching. However, it turned out to be almost unwatchable with hackneyed plot-lines and clichéd characters like the one which Jimmy Shergill portrayed. Fugly was trying to be a Rang De Basanti for this decade but unfortunately, it had neither the balls nor the brains to execute the social uplifting aspect with the youthful camaraderie aspect. Vijender Singh would do the country proud by focusing on his boxing career for now.

Humshakals: Sajid Khan delivered the first flop of his career with Himmatwala where he abandoned his favourite genre of comedy for masala. So when he returned to comedy, we expected Sajid Khan to be back to his A game. That of course turned out to be a false dawn as Humshakals lowered the mark for the worst film of the year and took the crown from Fugly. The cheesy acting, the ridiculous story and the miscast Saif Ali Khan all played a part in ruining Humshakals and gave Sajid Khan his second flop in a row.

Bobby Jasoos: Vidya Balan had been going through a dull phase before Bobby Jasoos came to town. She was allowed her share of Ghanchakkars and Shaadi Ke Side Effects after giving us films like Ishqiya, Paa, Kahaani year after year. So we expected Bobby Jasoos to bring Vidya back into the game as the film’s focal point was Vidya and everything revolved around her character. She was almost faultless as an actress but the film was truly disappointing with very few thrills and the suspense not being up to the mark. We expect Vidya to choose better scripts now, as per her usual norm.

Entertainment: One of the many reasons Rohit Shetty has emerged amongst the top directors in the last decade, has been the scripts written by Sajid-Farhad. They’ve written some of the funniest films like the Golmaal series and Chennai Express. So when news came of them making the leap into direction, naturally we expected them to make a fun family film. But it wasn’t to be. Entertainment turned out to be a mess of a film which seemed like it was spoofing other comedy films. Entertainment can be best enjoyed at home on the TV, it just wasn’t a good enough big screen experience. Sajid-Farhad have to do better with their next film, which is Housefull 3.

Raja Natwarlal: Emraan Hashmi seems to have forgotten his core audience in search of respect amongst the multiplex audience. It was felt as if Raja Natwarlal would be a return to familiar rustic territory for Emraan. It had a very entertaining idea about creating a fake IPL team and selling it but the execution left a lot to be desired. It just didn’t come together in the end. Raja Natwarlal felt like a disjointed film which had been edited together.

Daawat-e-Ishq: Parineeti Chopra has been one of our favourite actresses ever since her debut in Ladies Vs Rick Bahl, because of her jolly attitude and fun nature. It doesn’t hurt that she is a good actress. Director Habib Faisal has also written and directed films like Do Dooni Chaar and Ishaqzaade. That had us intrigued about this film which promised to capture the delicacies of Hyderabad and Lucknow. At the end, it was neither a food film nor a properly boiled (get it) love story. It ended up being a film about dowry. You can’t promise the audience one thing and give them something else. Daawat-e-Ishq met its fate at the box office.

Bang Bang: Bang Bang was being made since ages. It was the official remake of Hollywood hit Knight and Day and featured the beautiful pairing of Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif. It was shot in beautiful locales around the world. Unfortunately, with hindsight we can say that Bang Bang is the most beautiful looking bad film. It felt as if director Sidharth Anand brought together action scenes and conceived them just to play to the gallery. Now, those actions were stylishly shot and were good to look at but without a believable script to back it all up, Bang Bang fell flat after its opening weekend. The fact that it was still the highest grossing non-festive release of 2014, shows the potential the film had, if only it had a better script and director!

Kill Dil: Ranveer Singh has been the darling of the media recently because of his hit films and his hit pairing with Deepika Padukone. So when he decided to do Shaadi Ali’s Kill Dil we were looking forward to the final product. Expectations weren’t high but we expected a watchable film. It wasn’t to be. Kill Dil was plain and simple bad cinema with nothing working for it. Director Shaad Ali wasted some good songs created by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. The box office outcome of Kill Dil has lessons for its lead actor – Ranveer needs to do less buddy-action films, Parineeti Chopra needs to reinvent herself and Govinda needs to be given better scripts to work with.

Happy Ending: Saif Ali Khan is a good respected actor with a decent body of work behind him. However, he has been going through a rough patch recently which is partly due to his bad script selection – Bullet Raja, Humshakals and Happy Ending. He was miscast in all those films except for Happy Ending. Saddest thing about Happy Ending was that Saif didn’t do justice to a film which is home territory for him: the romantic comedy genre. He seemed old in it. The film itself tried to be different from other romantic comedies but ended up being the same type of romantic comedy it was trying to make fun of. One of the biggest disasters of 2014.

Action Jackson: Being part of disasters seems to have become a speciality for Ajay Devgn, what with him doing films like RGV Ki Aag, Cash, Tezz, Rascals and now Action Jackson being added to that list. Prabhu Deva makes some of the most regressive and repulsive films in Bollywood and Action Jackson was a sad continuation of that trajectory. It was the worst film made this year by far. Everything from the casting to dialogues to storyline to action scenes created record lows. For arguably the best actor-superstar in the industry, Ajay Devgn can do justice to both serious intense roles and as well as light-hearted comic roles. We hope he picks better films!

Pick the most disappointing films from the above list. You can pick as many as 5 movies!