Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

This one’s my personal favourite of the year. ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ captures the essence of friendship in a far more mature way than most of the films released in the recent time. For the young, the film would come as a complete entertainer, dialogues are totally in sync with today’s youth and one feels like a part of the film. The story about self realization and taking pleasure in what we have rather than bothering over what we don’t elevates ZNMD to a higher rank. The film was a slow starter but gradually went on to become one of the biggest hits of the year. ZNMD truly deserves to be here in this list of best film of 2011.

Delhi Belly

2011 would also be remembered for this coming age adult comedy. ‘Delhi Belly’ had the whole nation sit back and watch a new genre of cinema emerging out of Bollywood. Coming from Aamir Khan Productions, ‘Delhi Belly’ is the meanest comedy you are likely to see. Songs of the film became runaway hit and the year’s anthem ‘Bhag Bhag DK Bose…’ went viral moments before maverick Aamir Khan (the producer of the film) uploaded it on YouTube. You cannot miss ‘Delhi Belly’, if it’s the best of 2011 lot you are looking for.

Singham

Everything looks larger than life in a film helmed by Rohit Shetty. The director scored another hit with ‘Singham’ casting his favorite actor Ajay Devgn in the lead role. Unabashedly designed for easy digestion, ‘Singham’ is an old-fashioned but rousing Hindi commercial film that pretty much restores one’s faith in this often-maligned brand of cinema. It has super-duper hit written all over it.

Tanu weds Manu

After ‘Fashion’, Kangna struck gold again with ‘Tanu weds Manu’. The film has a charm you just cannot miss. Kangna Ranaut makes ‘Tanu weds Manu’ work with her chirpy appeal and energy. The film managed to impress with its small town romantic escapade and refreshing earthy feel woven around love, dhoka and marriage. A must watch of 2011.

Mausam

One of the most anticipated flicks of the year ‘Mausam’ ended up in smoke and failed to deliver an iota of what it promised. Shahid Kapoor sure looked dashing in that Air Force uniform, but his chemistry with Sonam Kapoor failed to set the BO on fire. Pankaj Kapoor’s first venture in which he casted his son Shahid failed from the word go. Length of the film also irked people a lot. ‘Mausam’ turned out to be one big disappointment of 2011.

Aarakshan

Prakash Jha’s ‘Aarakshan’ boasted an impressive line of stars. But even the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone and Manoj Bajpayee couldn’t help the film match the standards of Jha’s earlier hits like ‘Rajneeti’ or ‘Gangaajal’.

Game

Here’s another bummer you’d like to avoid. ‘Game’ was a total disaster at the Box Office. It looked promising at first when the rushes were out, but eventually ‘Game’ turned out a dud. The film didn’t earn any appreciation from the audience and critics slammed it altogether. Not a best bet for 2011.

7 Khoon Maaf

One promising director who disappointed the most with his last film was Vishal Bhardwaj. Even as Vishal has excelled brilliantly by making adaptations like ‘Maqbool’ and ‘Omkara’, the master helmer hit rock bottom when he tried converting Ruskin Bonds’ famous work Susanna`s Seven Husbands into ‘7 Khoon Maaf’. The biggest drawback of the movie was that the director took too many sub-plots into consideration and consequently, could not do justice to any one of them.

Rascals

David Dhawan made a comeback with ‘Rascals’ and don’t ask how the movie faired. It failed miserably at the Box office. One expected that ‘Rascals’ would break the lull at the BO with not one comedy fairing that well this year. The movie got all the hype one can ever expect. Not only that, it had the two most bankable stars in Sanjay Dutt and Ajay Devgn, apart from a good dose of glam and gloss in the way of Kangna Ranaut and Lisa Haydon. All that the director did was sweep it under the carpet but the audience is not stupid. They saw it right through and panned the pedestrian flick.

By Bikas Bhagat