It’s been a buzzy year, with a string of indie films outshining the star-studded ones, most of them directed by debutants. Among the list of highest grossers – Akshay Kumar with four films, Shah Rukh Khan with two films, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan with one film each, and Abhishek Bachchan with two films, only a couple stand out creatively.
Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om once again paid homage to Bollywood’s most beloved tropes – the star mother who’s convinced her son will make it big one day, the shenanigans of movie moguls, and the games they play – was the biggest guilty pleasure of the year, with Shah Rukh Khan-Shreyas-Kiron-Arjun and Deepika Padukone making their debut, looking every inch the Hema Malini character they were meant to be. All the cool boys and girls of Bollywood were there to celebrate themselves in that iconic song, the spirit of which Shah Rukh Khan’s Beta Aryan celebrated to the max in his fan-pleasing serial, The Ba***ds of Bollywood.
The other is Shemit Amin Chuck from India!in which Shah Rukh Khan’s failed hockey player – and his reluctant coach – set out to reclaim his personality, snatched away by fanatics, by assembling a team of misfits and turning them into a game-winning team. The fact that it was an all-female team was a plus point, cementing SRK’s reputation as a champion and respecter of women, and flash forward to a full decade later, when his religion became a flashpoint for trolls. Being Kabir Khan is one of Shah Rukh Khan’s most influential performances and remains the best sports film in India. And the best of 2007.
Shah Rukh Khan is known so far for his portrayal in the film Chak De! India.
Why did Aamir Khan direct Tare Zameen Par in the middle of making the film? It was a burning question that took up a lot of tabloid space that year, but the result was a film that did a lot for kids who learned differently. The young boy, played by Darsheel Safari, is not ill-behaved; He has dyslexia, and his brain works differently. Aamir, who plays the sympathetic teacher, also takes a back seat, letting the kids do their work. The film brought dyslexia into public discourse, and built on the spaces that opened up after Black for conversations about special needs.
It was also the year Anurag Kashyap was born Finally, he broke the censorship restrictions and was able to show Black Friday in theaters. Based on the untold story behind the Bombay bombings, it had to be fought long and hard in the courts, but once it was released, no one could deny the strength of the film and its performances – with Nawazuddin in the blink-and-you-go role – and it remains India’s best documentary. He also broke Kashyap’s jinx and started his career as a director. However, censorship and its evils continued to haunt the director, and he continued to speak out against it.
Black Friday is a movie made in 2004, which was finally released in 2007. (Image: Anurag Kashyap/Instagram, Hotstar.com)
The Namesake, Mira Nair’s beautiful adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel of the same name, gave Irrfan and Tabu, together again after Maqbool, the roles of a lifetime. It’s one of those films that you can keep watching on repeat, but with Irrfan no longer in this world, we feel a constant pain over the sudden passing of this incomparable artist.
Rajat Kapoor’s film Bhaga Fry, produced by Sunil Doshi, It became a sign of a small film that did so well that it received more than the most successful film of that year. Rajat’s signature trademark of this film was his co-stars, Vinay Pathak and Ranveer Shorey, making fun of each other and creating laughter that made you think too.
Story continues below this ad
Also fun and quirky, Reema Kagti’s Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd marked her arrival in Bollywood, giving us a funny romance with a unique supernatural angle, and Kay Kay – yes, he – dancing like a dervish: ‘sajna main vari vari jaaoon re’ is still interesting.
Kay Kay Menon in his dance series at Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd. (Image: IMDb)
Abhay Deol had three films that year. With Honeymoon, Ek Chalis Ki Another Local and Manorama Six Feet Under, he became the certified big star of the small film. It’s one of those inexplicable things that you wonder – if these films had done well, instead of remaining niche, would they have made a serious dent in the mainstream? The latter is a bit exaggerated, but it’s a question that continues to nag – whatever happened to Deol, who was from an old film family, but he wanted to break free from the formula, and attempted a bunch of great films, and then.
Johnny Gadar stars as Sriram Raghavan, with a group of crooks running around trying to outdo each other in true James Hadley Chase style mixing grunge, grime and glitz: if you want a thriller with wit, this is it.
And then of course, there was Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met, which became the film that put the refresh button on the Bollywood love story’s leap into the new millennium: Jeet Hoon Jeet was Kareena Kapoor’s favorite and Shahid Kapoor’s quiet, intense lover, and the music was foot-tapping. You can still watch him and smile.
(tags for translation) Chak De
