Not Quite A Revolution At The Box Office
By SAMPURNThursday, June 24, 2010
June 24, 2010 (Sampurn Wire): ‘Krantiveer - The Revolution’ releases this Friday. Unfortunately, contrary to it’s name, this Mehul Kumar directed film is not expected to bring any ‘kranti’ at the box office. The film belongs to the era of Nana Patekar and his ‘Krantiveer’ days. Now a decade and a half later, movies belonging to such a genre are pass. However, this doesn’t seem to have deterred the film maker who once made the box office rock with films like ‘Krantiveer’, ‘Tirangaa’ and to an extent ‘Kohraam’. If promos are any indication, he has adopted a similar execution approach for the sequel to ‘Krantiveer’ as well.
No wonder, the buzz has been near to negligible for this action drama that has a female protagonist as the centre of attraction. Jahan Bloch, daughter of Mehul Kumar, makes her big screen debut as the leading lady here (she has featured as a child artist in her dad’s films earlier) and makes an unconventional start at Bollywood. However, she can be expected to have kept her excitement in check because ‘Krantiveer - The Revolution’ doesn’t quite come across as a film which could take the entire nation by storm. At best the film is expected to find an audience only in the smaller towns and cities.
On the other hand, the second release of the week, ‘Mr Singh Mrs. Mehta’, is arriving virtually unannounced. This small budget film did see some pumping in promotion when news of Aruna Shields, the leading lady in the film, appearing nude started making the rounds. However, that controversy hasn’t helped the film’s cause much, because everyone understands that the Indian Censor board has its own limitations when it comes to passing nude scenes. Not much is expected here too. Also, the film is releasing at select multiplexes with a limited number of shows which means it would find minimal reach.
Due to the two new releases not carrying much weight, ‘Rajneeti’ is expected to benefit the most. The Prakash Jha directed film is now officially the biggest hit of the year and has achieved a blockbuster status for itself. With more than 85 crores already in its kitty, this multi starrer is benefiting most out of the debacle of ‘Raavan’ and is expected to continue its golden run at the box office. The film comes with a potential of touching the 100 crores mark and if it indeed manages to do that, it would be the only film in the history of Indian cinema (after ‘3 Idiots’ and ‘Ghajini’) to do that.
–Joginder Tuteja/Sampurn Wire
