WILL RAID 2 MANAGE TO CROSS THE RS. 100 CRORE MARK?

Last week wasn’t great as expected, in terms of box office. Ground Zero will not reach Rs. 10 crores while Phule will barely cross the Rs. 1 crore mark. However, Kesari Chapter 2 continued to be rock steady while Jaat also did well. And now all eyes are on the big release of the coming week, Raid 2.

As the name suggests, it is a sequel to Raid. This time, the protagonist, played by Ajay Devgn, will face Riteish Deshmukh. Vaani Kapoor is the female lead and she replaces Ileana DCruz. The trailer has been well-received and there’s a perception that here’s a film which will be something to watch out for. The song ‘Nasha’ featuring Tamannaah Bhatia has grabbed eyeballs and further added to the buzz.

The earlier part opened at Rs. 9.45 crores and ended up collecting Rs. 98.02 crores in its lifetime. Raid 2 releases on a Thursday to take advantage of the holidays in Maharashtra and Gujarat and a partial holiday in the rest of the country due to International Labour Day. The advance is decent and it can have an opening of Rs. 10 crores. If all goes well, it can even cross the Rs. 15 crore mark, but this will depend on the jump the film takes from noon onwards. The collections will dip as Friday is a normal working day. But the footfalls will see another jump on Saturday and Sunday. At this rate, the film will cross the Rs. 50 crore mark in its four-day weekend. Once that happens, entering the Rs. 100 crore mark shouldn’t be a problem, considering the limited competition from Hindi films until June 6.

The other release of the week is The Bhootnii. It is a horror comedy starring Sanjay Dutt, Mouni Roy, Sunny Singh and Palak Tiwari. The trailer hasn’t been appreciated and even the songs haven’t worked. The film has got a limited release, as a result. It’ll have some advantage tomorrow due to the holiday and genre.

However, a film that might spring a surprise is Thunderbolts. It belongs to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and this franchise hasn’t had a great run off late. But this film has generated a lot of excitement. The advances are decent and it can have an opening of Rs. 5-6 crores or even more. The target should be to cross the first-day earnings of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3. It earned Rs. 6.68 crores and like Thunderbolts, it was also critically acclaimed. That film managed to cross the Rs. 50 crores mark and that should also be the target of Thunderbolts.

KESARI CHAPTER 2 TRENDS WELL; JAAT SUSTAINS; WILL GROUND ZERO MAKE A MARK?

The last two major releases of Bollywood are not huge Rs. 100 crore grossers. But at the same time, they have been steady at the box office.

Kesari Chapter 2, as expected, opened at Rs. 7.50 crores. The opening was a bit below par, as it was a Good Friday holiday. Usually, the day after Saturday doesn’t see a huge jump. But Kesari Chapter 2 took a while to make noise. Hence, it jumped to Rs. 10 crores on Saturday and Rs. 11.50 crores on Sunday. On Monday, it collected Rs. 4.35 crores. With the cheap ticket offer on Tuesday, the earnings jumped to Rs. 4.85 crores.

Kesari Chapter 2 will collect around Rs. 45 crores in its first week. The target of the film will be to collect Rs. 80-90 crores in its lifetime. The cost, however, is too high. On the plus side, it is the best-performing film of Akshay Kumar in a very long time. The actor suffered a lull but he’s now all set to bounce back with a bang as his upcoming films also seem exciting.

Jaat collected Rs. 59.60 crores in Week 1 and its second-week performance is a bit below expectations. Until Tuesday, it collected Rs. 15.50 crores in the second week. It should have ideally collected Rs. 20 crores. But though Kesari Chapter 2 targets a different set of audiences, the Sunny Deol starrer was affected by the presence of a new release.

Jaat has collected Rs. 75.10 crores until Tuesday and it’ll collect Rs. 78 crores by the end of the second week. It’ll be interesting to see which film manages to earn more out of the two – Kesari Chapter 2 or Jaat.

This week’s big release is Ground Zero, starring Emraan Hashmi. It is inspired by real-life accounts of a man who eliminated the terrorist who was responsible for the 2001 Parliament Attack. The film is majorly set in Kashmir. In fact, the timing is significant as it releases three days after the shocking attack on tourists in Pahalgam.

The buzz for Ground Zero is very limited and hence, an opening of Rs. 1-2 crores is expected. If word of mouth is positive, it can see a huge jump, which will ultimately benefit the film in the long run.

The other major release of the week is Phule. It stars Pratik Gandhi as Mahatma Jyotiba Phule and Patralekhaa as Savitribai Phule. The film has been in the news after the Censor Board deleted certain words. A large section of netizens found it unjustified and it led to a lot of brouhaha.

Sadly, though this controversy has enhanced the awareness of the film, it hasn’t excited the audience to book tickets. Hence, the first-day numbers will be dismal.

Lastly, Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins will premiere on Netflix. It is sure to grab eyeballs due to its mass appeal and casting – Saif Ali Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat, Nikita Dutta and Kunal Kapoor.

We are all aware of the shocking Jallaianwalla Bagh massacre. Kesari Chapter 2, however, deals with the aftermath and how a brave Indian lawyer took General Dyer to court. The film moves at a steady pace and the way the massacre is depicted is shocking. The circumstances which lead to the courtroom drama are also interesting. The film goes to another level once the court scenes commence. The climax is powerful. However, the courtroom drama follows a set template and hence, one might anticipate where the film is heading. Moreover, the protagonist's backstory and his belief in the British justice system is unconvincing; it should have been better explored. Akshay Kumar, as always, gives his best to the role. Watch out for him in the climax! R Madhavan has a late entry but dominates some of the scenes in the second half. Simon Paisley Day is too good as the villain (General Dyer). Ananya Panday has an important role and does very well. Regena Cassandrra is wasted. Krish Rao (Pargat Singh), Amit Sial (Tirath Singh). Steven Hartley (Judge McArdie), Alexandra Moloney (Martha Stevens) and Sammy Jonas Heaney (Harold Laksi; jury member) leave a mark. All in all, Kesari Chapter 2 is a hard-hitting courtroom drama that educates viewers about an important chapter of Indian history. Here's hoping this well-intentioned film succeeds in cinemas.

My rating - **** out of 5!

JAAT BRINGS RESPITE TO CINEMAS; WILL KESARI CHAPTER 2 MANAGE TO SUCCEED?

Last week’s release Jaat is doing very well at the box office. There were apprehensions about releasing the film on a Thursday. Thankfully, it opened beyond expectations, collecting Rs. 9 crores. It had a healthy jump on Sunday when it earned Rs. 14 crores. The four-day weekend total was Rs. 39 crores. On Monday, it had the advantage of a partial holiday (Ambedkar Jayanti) while on Tuesday, most cinemas sold tickets at cheaper rates as per the new offer by PVR Inox.

While Jaat collected Rs. 7.25 crores on Monday, it earned Rs. 5.50 crores on Tuesday. Wednesday was the first normal non-holiday weekday for Jaat when it held strongly, collecting Rs. 3.85 crores. The first week collections of Jaat are expected to be Rs. 59 crores. If it manages to hold well for the next two weeks, it has the chance to cross the Rs. 100 crore mark. It faces competition from Kesari Chapter 2 from tomorrow, April 18, but that film is meant for a different audience.

Kesari Chapter 2 stars Akshay Kumar, R Madhavan and Ananya Panday and is based on the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre’s aftermath. While many films have been made on the tragic event, this film throws light on the courtroom drama that followed. The trailer is hard-hitting and all three actors seem in top form. In a unique initiative, fan screenings were held in different cities on April 16 and the terrific word of mouth has enhanced the hype to some extent.

Sadly, the film faces several challenges. It is given an ‘A’ rating, which will restrict its audience. Secondly, there’s no song and it looks like a serious drama. Thirdly, Akshay Kumar’s box office standing sadly is not the same as it was before the pandemic. 6 years ago, a film like this would have opened in the range of Rs. 13-14 crores.

As of now, it seems like Kesari Chapter 2 would have an opening of Rs. 7-8 crores. A weekend of Rs. 30 crores would be very healthy and this will be possible with encouraging word of mouth followed by huge interest among people to see the film.

“They were told to disperse. They didn’t. So I opened fire.” That chilling line was reportedly uttered by General Reginald Dyer after ordering troops to open fire on thousands of unarmed civilians in Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh. Over a century has passed since that April afternoon in 1919, but the brutality of the massacre continues to haunt India’s collective memory.

For lawyer-turned-filmmaker Karan Singh Tyagi, who makes his big screen debut with Kesari Chapter 2, the story still remains as relevant as it was 106 years ago, despite countless filmmakers—from Shoojit Sircar and Richard Attenborough to Ram Madhvani—having looked at the event from various lenses.

“The event speaks to the present times that we live in. It’s a post-truth world where fake news is rampant. I was fascinated that when people read about the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy, the next day, the truth was suppressed,” says Tyagi.

“There were regional newspapers that wanted to report the truth, which got burned down. There’s this famous poem written by a survivor called Khooni Baisakhi—the British Empire went to great lengths to ban that poem. The Empire started spreading a fake narrative through their publications, especially the English media, where the victims were labelled as terrorists. The whole narrative that the British Empire spun was that the people at Jallianwala Bagh were armed, and General Dyer had to shoot in self-defence. I think it’s a fascinating story to bring to the people in 2025,” he adds.

Tyagi wanted to look at it from two lenses. “One is from the empire machinery and what they did pre-April 13 and post-April 13. And the second is the human aspect of the tragedy.”

It almost seems like history is cyclical, because in 2025, wars continue to be waged around the world. We ask him if as a filmmaker, he feels compelled to tell a larger tale? “When you’re true and you’re authentic to your own story, the more specific, the more real you make it, it becomes universal. This is the story of Sankaran Nair, who was knighted by the British Empire. And, he was the only Indian member on the Viceroy’s executive council. For him to then take on the British in the most dramatic of ways is a story of valour. When he resigned from the council, he told the Viceroy [who can be compared to the PM today] that ‘your empire is being run by yes-men so why don’t you make the jamadar replace me’.”

Being a student of law and politics, his core interest has always been in stories that involve the state, its fallacies, tragedies and injustices. “I read the source material and was enamoured. The book is called The Case That Shook the Empire. Sitting down with the authors was key because they are the heirs of C Sankaran Nair—his great grandson, Raghu Palat and his wife Pushpa Palat. I did my own independent research as well. There’s a lot of literature on Jallianwala Bagh. There is a Canadian author, Kim Wagner, who has written a fantastic book. There is an Indian author who’s not gotten his due, called VN Datta. There’s Kishwar Desai’s book. There are independent accounts of survivors chronicled in the two commissions that were set up. These materials uncover an argument that the film makes as well. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre was actually a planned conspiracy to kill. There was a plane that flew over the Bagh to check whether enough people had assembled. There were troops called in—Gurkha troops and Baluch soldiers—and the Sikh infantry was kept completely in the dark because they would be up in arms if they knew.”

We tell Tyagi about the documentary in which Caroline Dyer, General Dyer’s great-granddaughter, is seen defending him. “That interview really angered me. She labelled the people who came to Jallianwala as looters. The film is important because you’ll be shocked to know that the empire went into overdrive after the massacre. They went to extreme lengths in order to laud General Dyer as a hero.”

The film started off as an independent movie despite being headlined by the original star Akshay Kumar. “Do you know Kesari is the colour of revolution? For us, the baton of revolution is being passed down to this story where one man is taking on the empire. Revolution seems like a big term but its essence is quite simple—standing up for what’s right,” says Tyagi.

There’s a reason why Kumar is a superstar who has stayed at the top of his game for decades, he says. “He’s been incredible in his support for me. I just want the audience to watch the film because I feel this is one of his best performances. He’s heard stories from his grandfather, from his father. So he feels a personal connection to the tragedy.” 

The film is a few days away from release and Tyagi says he and his writers Amritpal Bindra, Sumit Saxena and Akshat Ghildial hope that the audience will take back the famous Pablo Neruda quote from Kesari Chapter 2: “Empires perish because they listened to their lawyers and ministers and not to their poets’. Empires have to listen to the common people of this country.”