After listing out the outstanding films of the year 2023, FilmyTown web portal lists the ten worst films of the year gone by. The list is compiled by veteran filmy journalist Jyothi Venkatesh.
THE LADYKILLER
The Arjun Kapoor and Bhumi Pednekar ‘The Ladykiller’ is the biggest flop film of this year. The film did not even get a proper promotion and sold very few tickets after its theatrical release. The Lady Killer is a Bollywood action-drama, helmed by Ajay Bahl. The movie stars Arjun Kapoor in the lead role. The movie is produced by Shailesh R Singh and Sahil Mirchandani, and written by Pawan Sony, Mayank Tewari and Ajay Bahl. Ranking the top of the list of worst films, The Lady Killer is a crime thriller movie in which Rajendra meets Jansey and plans to murder Vikram who assaults sexually Jansey. The Lady Killer is a flop as the movie has earned only Rs 38,000.
ALMOST PYAR WITH VJ
Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat is a musical romantic drama film written and directed by Anurag Kashyap and starring Alaya F and newcomer Karan Mehta in the lead role. What is its bizarre plot? In London, a girl likes a boy a little too much. And, in a parallel universe exists a boy who likes a girl. The two unrequited love stories, burdened by social status, caste, religion, and inequality, are breathlessly heading on towards each other…two tragic love stories, one musical and an uncanny coincidence as told by the Guru of love – DJ Mohabbat.
TEJAS
Kangana Ranaut should have been an exciting, thrilling joyride.. . Sadly we had to include this film in teh worst films list, director Sarvesh Mewara’s Tejas is less about Kangana Ranaut playing a pilot on a mission to rescue an Indian spy from Pakistan and more about her dishing out platitudes to burnish her nationalistic credentials. But all we get in Tejas are bombastic dialogue like “Bharat ko chedoge toh…” and so much insubordination, certitude, and desh bhakti from Tejas that it feels like we are watching a dull, robotic character in a video game.
THE VACCINE WAR
A rhesus monkeys leaps about in a forest. A female scientist talks of Bharat ke scientists and the head of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), played by Nana Patekar, conjures up Mahabharat’s Arjun and machli ki aankh. A journalist, meanwhile, looks straight into the camera and says, “India can’t do it.” A critic wrote, “After living through the hell that was COVID, watching Vivek Agnihotri’s The Vaccine War, which is based on Balram Bhargava’s book Going Viral, is like being tortured by an extended, surreal government PR video that shifts all the angst, tragedy, and frustration to a lab, while reducing the outside world to a soulless, distant entity.
KISI KA BHAI KISIKI JAAN
Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, directed by Farhad Samji, plays out in two artificial sets — one can be called a happy neighbourhood in North India and the other can be called A South Indian Haveli. In the film’s first half, Salman Khan’s hair is long and it’s always flowing in the wind. In the second half, men wear lungis, women wear gajras, and meals are served on banana leaves with papadam.
SELFIEE
Starring Akshay Kumar, Emraan Hashmi and Diana Penty, ‘Selfiee’ is one of the worst-performing films of Bollywood in 2023. It is the remake of the hit 2019 Malayalam movie ‘Driving License’.
AANKH MICHOLI
Aankh Micholi directed by Umesh Shukla starred Abhimanyu, Mrunal Thakur, Paresh Rawal, Sharman Joshi, Divya Dutta, Abhishek Banerjee, Darshan Jariwala, Grusha Kapoor and Vijay Raaz in the lead roles. Aankh Micholi depicts the story of a family who want her daughter to get married to a well-to-do NRI guy.
UT69 – BASED ON TRUE STORY
Based on a True Story is a biography film based on Raj Kundra’s life, a popular businessman and husband of famous Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. The director and lead actor of this movie will be Raj Kundra. The movie’s creators reveal the piece of information after some time. During a promotional event, Raj broke in front of the public, stating that people should not punish his wife and his family for his deeds. Its trailer was released on the 19th of October 2023. Runtime And Certification: UT 69-Based On A True Story has been certified as U/A by CBFC with a duration 1 hour 57 minutes and 20 seconds.
KHICHDI 2: MISSION PAANTHUKISTAN
Khichdi 2: Mission Paanthukistan has been directed and written by Aatish Kapadia and produced by Jamnadas Majethia, it cast Supriya Pathak Kapur, Rajeev Mehta, Anang Desai, Vandana Pathak, Jamnadas Majethia, and Kirti Kulhari in lead roles. Plot:Khichdi 2: Mission Paanthukistan is a comedy-drama family movie, the time-crazy Parekh family is on a mission to save the country with their unique style. Khichdi 2: Mission Paanthukistan was made on a budget of 15 crores including production and advertisement costs. Khichdi 2: Mission Paanthukistan collected 2. 45 crores on its first day of release.
ADIPURUSH
Ever since Adipurush dropped its first teaser, it was quite evident that in the name of visual effects, the film was playing a giant practical joke on its audience. Another biggie featuring in the worst films list is Adipurush turned out to be a big disaster. Not just the VFX, even the dialogues and the performances were far from what people had expected. Imagine hating on a movie where people willingly walked into a theatre to watch a story they already knew, and still coming out disappointed, and that’s what happened with this Om Raut directorial. Looks like Bollywood’s biggest problem isn’t its lack of stories because as it turns out, they can sink a movie even when they have a renowned story with them
