The young Bollywood brigade must smile and endure the movie critics

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A film critic is a necessary evil in Bollywood, and the young gunslingers in the industry will have to learn to accept him as their predecessors did.

Praised to the sky for her performance in Anubhav Sinha’s “Thappad” (2020), Taapsee Pannu probably expected a similar response for his latest release, “Haseen Dilruba,” which recently fell on unsuspecting audiences via Netflix.

The film was, however, not only panned by most critics, but was also trolled despite publicity overdrive as it neared release. The 33-year-old actress was understandably upset, as her response to the film’s social media reviews suggested.

Taapsee – who has started her own production house, “Outsiders Films” now – isn’t the only star who has to accept criticism in her stride and let her work do the talking. Nowadays, many young actors oppose negative reviews of their films and even suspect bad faith grounds from the critics.

Bête noire of Taapsee, Kangana Ranaut went so far as to call a film journalist a “bikaau (salable)” during the promotions of “Judgmentall Hai Kya” (2019) apparently, because he had criticized his previous film, “Manikarnika : The Queen of Jhansi ‘. But they need to remember that good movies and bad movies are part of every actor ‘s repertoire, great as they are, and no one should expect applause for every performance they perform.

Movie stars and movie journalists have shared a love-hate relationship from the very beginning. In fact, compared to the old days, film critics and journalists today are rather harmless in their criticism, as they generally refrain from making personal attacks (unless, of course, the ‘someone called Kamaal Rashid Khan is considered a member of the fraternity!).

Anyone who has heard of Baburao Patel or read his magazine Film India knows how acerbic a film critic can be. For many years, he remained the most feared man who spared no “holy cow” in the film industry. He was the first “anti-establishment” scribe of Hindi cinema who loved to blow up impeccable reputations with a single gesture.

Devyani Chaubal aka Devi, who has written a widely read “Frankly” column in Star & Style, continued Patel’s tradition with her bombshells of revealing secrets in the personal lives of megastars. The 1970s also saw a phenomenal increase in movie magazines that made their fortunes by publishing juicy gossip about popular stars in every issue.

People in the industry, in general, often denounced what they called “yellow journalism” at the time, but few refused requests for exclusive interviews or photoshoots from the same magazines. Besides, they would also be happy to feed these posts with all the salty treats of their rivals.

It wasn’t like gossip magazines were the industry’s only anathema. Many film critics writing for serious national dailies also believed in calling a spade a spade. When Kishore Kumar shot a movie called “Door Wadiyon Mein Kahin” in 1980, a critic for a major daily infuriated the legendary singer-actor so much that he placed a two-page ad in a popular weekly to counter his claims. opinions, bearing not only all the reviews of other publications but also the opinion of the great Satyajit Ray on his film.

On the other hand, the industry did not seriously film reviews in the post-Baburao Patel era, when articles became more pedantic and serious in nature. In fact, producers would really be concerned if a particular film reviewer from a top daily newspaper praised their films. Reason: Anytime he dismissed a movie as a “total waste of time” it invariably became a blockbuster. Ramesh Sippy’s “Sholay” (1975) was just one example.

In the age of social media, film review is no longer the exclusive preserve of a handful of film critics. Millions of opinions are exchanged after the release of a teaser for a movie trailer. This often makes or ruins a movie’s box office outlook even before a movie is released. This happened in the case of Mahesh Bhatt’s “Sadak 2” at the height of the controversy over Sushant Singh Rajput’s death last year.

With word of mouth becoming so important to a new movie these days, stars and filmmakers seem to become more and more intolerant of criticism by the day. Since the stakes are so high, they indulge in all kinds of gimmicks and promotions to make their movie work. but they are bitterly upset if their films get “negative press” at the end of the day.

They tend to conveniently overlook the fact that no critic or PR machine can make a bad movie work or demolish a movie with good content. It is the audience, as always, who remains the ultimate arbiter of a film’s fate. They can make a ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’ (1959) a flop and a ‘Ranga Khush’ (1975) a hit.

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