By: Abhijit Majumder Date: 2009-12-07 Place: Mumbai




Here is why honest film review in India is not dead: there comes in a decade a film or two that actually deserve three stars or more.

Five or six films may be, if it is an exceptional decade like this one Dil Chahta Hai, Company, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Swades, Rang De Basanti, Dev D...

But while you can trash reviewers, it is hard to even imagine yourself in their place. The business team in your paper will cite you as the one who stands between the organisation and astounding profits. Stars, producers and their PR machinery will go to any extent to ensure you pick up and praise the onscreen poop they usually produce.

An actor actually got a film journalist dismissed from the job using his godfather political fixer to arm-twist the paper's owners. Reason? A bad review!

These stars then claim moral high ground by ranting against the media, cheered on from the sides by loony cronies and hired PR goons.

The film industry has got so insecure and has entered such a high-stake game that it no longer trusts its own work. Nothing can be left to chance: overpower the audience with the chloroform of heady marketing and paid reviews, kill the mockingbirds by blackmailing newspaper managements.

It's strange that viewers still have their heads in place. They can see through the four or five stars. Most rubbish still bombs, good films by and large do well.

But in all this, the one writing the suicide note is the media. Newspapers endlessly crib about falling circulation.

Why would the reader come to you if you lie? A reviewer can go wrong in her criticism, but as long as she is honest, the reader understands. When you fake it, readers know. Most of us do not give our spouses a second chance when they betray our trust, why should a newspaper or channel expect to get away with cheating?

The post of the film reviewer is, for all practical purposes, dead in the newsroom. With shrinking budgets and just a handful of specialised reviewers around, film reporters fill that slot now. Which can be dangerous.

Reporters on the film beat network with stars, filmmakers and their PR machinery to get stories and exclusives.

They feel important when a star personally calls them to their private dos.

When they review a film, most find it hard to not be driven by obligation or personal grudge against a star who has been good or obnoxious. Ideally, the reviewer should have a distance from the people who have made the film.

The trend of appointing film trade guys as so-called reviewers doesn't even merit discussion. Let's not call such a thing "review"; there's another sexually explicit word for it.

The new wave of honest reviews could come from gifted bloggers who have a strong technical and aesthetic understanding of cinema and are not part of the film reporting circuit. Provided, of course, newspapers are willing to give them space. They ought to, if they still want to be in the business of trust.

I disagree with Khalid Mohamed on many of his reviews, but bleakly hope that five years later, a youngster will have the gall to use the only two words he once used while reviewing a bad film: "No comments."



Abhijit Majumder is Executive Editor, MiD DAY
Follow him on twitter.com/abhijitmajumder

Khalid Mohammed's article on PFC



MUMBAI: On Wednesday afternoon, critic Udita Jhunjhunwala, was missing from the press screening of Himesh Reshammiya’s Radio. She did not go to the next day’s show of Paa either. The last review she did for DNA, the daily newspaper, was for Kurbaan.

This is not to suggest that the less-than-enthusiastic review of Kurbaan had anything to do with the exit of Udita from DNA. The reasons can only be explained by the newspaper.The upright, well-reasoned Udita has in the last seven years I have known her done her job with more than diligence. Before that she was with Hindustan Times and earlier at Mid-Day where she first made her mark as a forthright reviewer.

Last week,she had phoned up the DNA desk to inform them of the number of reviews she would be mailing in. She was merely told her that her services were no longer needed. In her place Taran Adarsh would be doing the Hindi film reviews, presumably because he also does the TV shows for ETC channel, a subsidiary of Zee which has major stakes in the DNA newspaper.

Normally in another part of the world, a critic’s cavalier axing would send up a chorus of protest, as much from his or her colleagues as from the readers. Case in point: Pauline Kael’s sack from McCall’s because of her negative review of The Sound of Music. Alas, such incidents are not considered worth remarking upon in our stratosphere. Neither is there a semblance of solidarity among the film reviewing community. Whenever any of us have been ‘attacked’ in print or in other media by the film fraternity, a murmur goes up that we should band together and protest. Sadly, it remains at that level – a mumur.

Praise me or else..

It wasn’t always like this though. In the past, the Press Council would issue a statement of tripping up on the job to the editor who had published the ‘attack’ without giving the offending journalist or review the right to an equal reply. Times of India’s M J Pandey, particularly vocal about press rights, would ensure that the film nawabs did not get away with their offensive tactics of “You had better praise me..or else..”

Times (no pun intended) have changed. Today almost if not every newspaper group worships Bollywood as a deity. Stars were once needed to show up at the Filmfare Awards function, now they are needed to show up at a dozen more functions. They are needed to inaugurate fresh editions, websites, sister and brother publications, pop up on television interviews ( a week or few days before a film’s release), and in fact, become ‘mascots’ or columnists for the entertainment supplements.

If I say this it’s because I’ve experienced it first-hand, the most dismal evening in my life being when the marketing department told me that in return for a dinner date at a certain restaurant with a star or even a starlet – and a complimentary write-up – they would be given free coupons to entertain their clients. Nothing could be more demeaning.

Mutual understanding

The plug-plug-plug-or-be-damned trend has risen to dizzying heights – of course — because a story about a film or any product for that matter, can be purchased for a price. There are also whispers that a film production corporate has an understanding with a newspaper that its films should never get less than three stars. In return, their premium ads go to the paper. Such ‘understandings’ have become so impenetrable that it is also difficult to believe that some films were to be denied any advance publicity unless they had purchased space. Jaise ko taisa mila?

In the event, film reviews are not film reviews. They are rain-machines, pouring “the most powerful” stars on movies that are forgotten even before The End comes on the screen.

No distinction is made any more between a review critiquing the content and style of a film, and a review written from the point of view of its trade potential.

Trade soothsayers are all over the place, the only trouble is that their predictions are more often than not off the mark. Such generous souls assign a bevy of stars to 95 per cent of the films released in a year. And averagely, 90 per cent of the films flop. So go figure! Lagaan and Border are just two of the films which were thumbed down by a soothsayer, dire doom was predicted.

Get emotional

That’s human. Conceded. But how about admitting one’s errors of judgement instead of playing tinpot god? As for the ‘non-trade reviews’ – for a want of a better expression – it is still to be understood that they concern the ‘quality’ (aesthetic, emotional and more) of a film. They do NOT hinge on box-office wins and losses.

Today, the attempt (and a successful one, too) is to control and lead on the reviewers. Trade, non-trade, whatever. Indeed, there could be more names on the chopping block of reviewers at this very moment. Just an angry phone call from a producer, director or star to an editor, complaining about the treatment received by his film, is enough to set off an earthquake in the hallowed portals of a media office. Repeatedly the reviewer is chastened:Tone the review down if you can’t praise it, and if that’s not done, thank you, someone else will edit it for you. Have a nice day.


Fortuitously, I have narrowly escaped this stonewall-the-reviewer era. Or else, every week there would have been a face-off with the authorities – read management and marketing sub-divison. There were plenty of unpleasant incidents for sure (that’s another story, guys). Thank the lord, on my side, during flare-ups I had immediate superiors who believed in integrity and free thought.

The last one

Among them for sure, I would always doff my hat to U S Rau and K Kittu, news editors at The Times of India and Evening News respectively. Plus there was also the ideal role-model Bikram Singh who had quietly told me, “Always write your review as the last one..if you’re afraid of the consequences, don’t get into this.” So, I knew it was time to pack up when I was told to be “good” to Raveena Tandon in the review of Daman. She had won a National Award for it, we had to be supportive of this. I didn’t comment on her performance, a silent protest maybe but it suited everyone’s purpose, I had been effectively silenced.

Incidentally, back in the mid-1970s Bikram Singh’s reviews had so upset the film industry that all movie ads were banned in the TOI for months. The management did not say a negative word to him. He was surprised, they even smiled extra-wide at him in the elevator. Naturally there was a hidden story to this. Filmwallas, in general, did not pay up the money for the ads in time, and some did not pay up at all. Plus, the space left vacant by the film ads, could be used for ads which garnered not only more revenue but punctual payment. Film ads, then, not necessary.

Bikram Singh could be a tough cookie. God bless him, he was. I was a rookie but I accompanied him to the patch-up meeting between the Times of India and the film industry represented by Gulshan Rai. Over tea at the Taj Mahal Hotel, Gulshan Rai laughed, “Bikram, you win..now at least have a pastry with your tea. Your people are paying for it. I’m not.”

When watchdogs bark

I rewind to the past to point out that there are neither unbending Bikram Singhs nor flexible Gulshan Rai on the scene any more. The Bollywood biggies appear to have won the new millennium round – only for the time being I hope. B-towners are loved and adored by the nation, the world. So who the hell are these watchdogs? If they bark, just send a complaint to his kennel.

Reviewers, or most of them, love the movies. It’s a beat they have elected and stuck to. Yet does love have to be blind? Nope, nope, nope.

Individual opinion – whether in agreement or dissent – is the bedrock of democracy they say. Bollywood bosses don’t think so, they rant not only against reviewers but also against those who dare to raise any kind of question. They speak to 200 mediapersons when they want publicity, and curse them for the rest of the year.

No solidarity

Journalists endure this. And this is primarly because there is no solidarity. One is waiting for the other to trip, and fall. Ha ha ha. That is the reason why no one says half a word when Udita Jhunjunwala is told that her reviews are no longer needed. She will get a better platform, her word won’t be erased.

Such a moment has happened to her, it could and will happen to others of our ilk tomorrow.

And when it does, no one will be there to even say, hey, what the eff, you’re better off,now you can do so many other things that you’ve always wanted to.

No one will be there. Because the show..aah..must go on.