Showing posts with label Rajesh Krishnan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rajesh Krishnan. Show all posts
Why 2020s haven’t been able to deliver generational comedies like years before
9:01 AM
The 2020s have not been able to deliver a generational comedy like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Munna Bhai MBBS, and Hera Pheri. What are we missing?
Akshita Maheshwari (MID-DAY; April 5, 2026)
“Comedy films are a good indicator of where a country is,” argues film commentator Karan Mirchandani. He names a list of films that defined a generation and highlighted its problems: Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983) and builder corruption; Munna Bhai MBBS (2003) and systemic issues and red tape within our education system; Hera Pheri (2000) and the struggles of a common man; Badhaai Ho (2018) or the plethora of films from this genre which tacked socio-familial issues.
The 2020s have not been able to produce a generational comedy. What’s changed? Actor Pratik Gandhi, from Madgaon Express (2024), says that it’s the audiences. The inherent nature of comedies is that they offend, but “today, anything can offend anybody. And in comedy, you have to just let loose. Only then, it’s fun,” says Gandhi.
“Censorship has also become wild,” Gandhi says, “You’ll hear things like, ‘Don’t say sex, instead say sambhog, then it’s fine’.”
Actor Abhishek Banerjee, who was last seen in Stree 2 (2024), also agrees. “The 1990s comedy style is no longer funny. I don’t think today’s generation will enjoy it the same way,” Banerjee says, “Comedies like the ones David Dhawan and Govinda made, or Andaz Apna Apna (1994), or Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro — those are evergreen.”
What does it take to make an evergreen comedy? “They have satire. They have irony. I think what we lack today is satire,” Banerjee answers.
As soon as we realized not-so-politically-correct humour doesn’t work, we stopped trying to find other forms of comedy. Gandhi adds, “Comedy has many sub-genres, and we still haven’t explored them fully. For example, survival comedy. Most of the time, films fall into slapstick comedy. That’s usually the first instinct. But there are many more genres as well.”
Banerjee says, “Situational comedy is becoming more important than dialogue-based comedy. It’s not about saying a funny line — it’s about being in a serious situation and saying something completely unexpected. Layering that with intelligence helps even more.”
The 2020s have also been the decade of the Reel. Banerjee says, “I keep watching comedy Reels and they’re genuinely funny.” When people already have their appetite for funny filled on their phones, why should they come to the cinema for it? Gandhi says, “I never thought a two-hour film would have to compete with a 30-second Reel. But here we are.”
In the last few years, one comedy has broken into the 100-crore club — Crew. Director Rajesh A Krishnan tells us, “If you open social media, you’ll get a laugh. And Instagram doesn’t even need a subscription.”
Throughout the country too, laughter is not dying. “It seems like comedies are reducing but how much comedy content are you actually also consuming from Kerala? If you isolate comedy films coming out of the Hindi film industry, then it starts feeling like there is less comedy. Otherwise, people have been making comedies,” he says, “The scope of comedy has also changed. It’s crossed genres now like comedy-thriller, action-comedy, or horror-comedy.”
In the Hindi film industry, comedy films are surviving on franchise fame. “If we think from the producer’s perspective, franchises have been working well,” Krishnan says, “Sometimes standalone projects work so well that they get turned into franchises.”
The onset of OTT has meant that the theatre is saved for larger-than-life spectacles. So why should you step out to watch a comedy today? “I always feel like great comedies are a tool or even a weapon to critique the establishment. It has a softer touch to do it. And it’s one that lasts with you.”
From the times of the Angry Young Men, films have centred around the common man and his problems. Today, he is no longer at the core of our cinema, instead he is a “big, bearded, angry man on screen,” says Mirchandani.
Mirchandani also points out, “Films today exist in a kind of hyper-reality. They’re not rooted in a specific time or context. Because the moment you ground them — show real problems or systems — you’re also making a critique, and that’s something people are avoiding.”
A lot of comedies like Andaz Apna Apna, though were box office flops, found a second life on DVD. “That pipeline is gone today,” Mirchandani adds. Nothing comes close to a theatre for Gandhi, though. He says, “Any comedy film works best in theatres. Three hundred to 500 people laughing together — it is very, very contagious. You have a lot of fun in those two hours.”
Paisa bolta hai: Is there money to be made with a theatrical comedy?
The comedy genre is an evolving one, says trade analyst Taran Adarsh. “Right now, we’re seeing a lot of horror comedies. But the out-and-out comedies excelled by Akshay Kumar and before him the Govinda-David Dhawan style really worked. But there has been a vacuum since then.”
But is there money to be made in this genre? “Lots. Who doesn’t want to laugh, smile, and come out of a film feeling happy? That’s what cinema is about.” Then why is the genre slowing down? “The market scenario has changed. Profits, losses, hits, and flops dictate the industry more strongly now. Especially since the stakes are higher,” he says, “Actors also tend to follow what’s working because everyone wants to stay relevant, popular, and deliver hits.”
All hope is not lost though. “In the last couple of years, Madgaon Express has done well,” with a box office collection of Rs. 49 crore, “Crew (2024) was a smashing success,” as it sits happily in the Rs. 100-crore club with a box office run of Rs. 157 crore.
Comedy is no funny business: All sources tell us that making a comedy film is the toughest genre to crack
Niren Bhatt, who’s written films like Stree 2 (2024), Bala (2019), and Bhediya (2022), says, “Comedy is highly subjective. What lands for you, might not land for me.” He adds that what appears effortless on screen is often the hardest to write. “You can’t just have characters delivering one-liners. That’s stand-up. It has to be woven into a story, with conflict, world-building, and character arcs,” he explains.
“You might write 10 lines and only one works,” he says, noting how audiences respond differently to the same jokes. While some enjoy meta humour or wordplay, others dismiss it as overdone or “too literary”.
For actors too, comedy is all about instinct. Pratik Gandhi says, “All other emotions have a range. On a scale of one to 10, you can adjust. But in comedy, if it has to land at two, it has to land at exactly two. Unlike drama, where intensity can fluctuate, comedy requires precision down to 0.0001 and years of riyaz.”
Abhishek Banerjee adds that the genre leaves actors exposed. “In comedy, you’re on your own. You have your dialogues, your co-actors of course, but timing is everything. Nobody can teach you comic timing. If you don’t have the funny bone, it will fail.”
To me, Kareena Kapoor, Tabu, Kriti Sanon are no different from Shah Rukh, Salman, Aamir Khan-Rajesh Krishnan
9:34 AM
Wary of bracketing Crew as female-centric movie, director says Tabu, Kareena and Kriti’s crime comedy is driven by gender-agnostic story
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; March 22, 2024)
How do you bring three of Bollywood’s biggest heroines on screen together? Get a solid story, and rope in a director who can pull it off.
Result: Rajesh Krishnan’s Crew, starring Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kriti Sanon. But the director is wary of bracketing it as a female-centric movie. To him, it’s a humorous story told well. He begins, “Nothing convinces harder than good humour. I don’t have it in me to sell a movie as female-centric. I don’t know what that genre is. Everyone wants to know the story, and a story like this is gender-agnostic. To me, Kareena, Tabu and Kriti are no different from Shah Rukh [Khan], Salman [Khan] and Aamir [Khan]. The story is about three underdogs.”
In this underdog story, three flight attendants, who have not been paid for months as the airline is on the verge of bankruptcy, devise their own means to make money. He gleefully says, “Three meek air-hostesses go from hum kya hi kar lenge to maloom hai, hum kya kar sakte hai?”
But the director promptly points out that it’s more than a crime film. At a time when there have been multiple instances of airline staff being treated disrespectfully by entitled passengers, he hopes Crew will make viewers rethink their behaviour before they get on their next flight. “They say namaste, wear a smile, and have to be nice to you. That doesn’t mean they should be snapped at and asked, ‘Where is my alcohol?’ I have been surrounded by so many sassy women, and they’ve raised me well. I don’t take basic human dignity for granted. Here is a story of three mature people fighting [the odds] with their brains. These three women are done taking nonsense.”
If Krishnan got a sharply written comedy, he also got actors who would elevate it further. Crew’s trailer shines bright with the easy chemistry between Kapoor, Tabu and Sanon. “They have inherent chemistry. What united them was they all thought my jokes were funny. They understood the intent of the film. Each had their own devices and made the material on paper land. Sometimes, they would do a brilliant take, then at some point they would start laughing because it was so funny and spoil the take. In comedy, we do our best work when we don’t take pressure, make some mistakes and don’t take ourselves too seriously. So, I didn’t interfere with their process. I would get the technical bits out of the way first and then do extensive readings of what they are to shoot that day.”
The director considers himself lucky that he got immense support for the comedy—be it from actors Diljit Dosanjh and Kapil Sharma who agreed to play pivotal roles, or producers Anil Kapoor and Rhea Kapoor who pulled out all stops.
“We shot on tarmacs that civilians haven’t even seen—be it in Goa airport or Abu Dhabi airport. Anil Kapoor and Rhea Kapoor got us the necessary permissions. Once we were shooting in Goa, and a mob of 50 came to see Tabu, Kareena and Kriti. I almost panicked, but thankfully, our producers knew the on-ground challenges and had put the best people on the job.”
This is not a race, ki ek saal ke andar second part nikaalo, says Rajesh Krishnan on Lootcase 2
8:17 AM
Rishabh Suri (HINDUSTAN TIMES; March 4, 2021)
Rajesh Krishnan’s first feature film, Lootcase, was the sleeper hit of 2020, and with murmurs now about a second part being in the pipeline, the director says ideas are indeed being explored.
“You have to look at every project on its merit; if the story can stand on its own two legs. I am sure every time Rohit Shetty (filmmaker) makes a sequel to Golmaal, he evaluates apne aap mei kahaani sahi hai ya nahin. It’s easy to fall into the trap [and think] that after the original, regardless of how the second one is, people will come to watch, thinking Rohit ki films mein stars honge,” he reasons.
Giving another example of a popular film’s sequel, he adds, “Raju (Rajkumar Hirani, filmmaker) made Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), a sequel to Munna Bhai MBBS (2003). The way they looked at it was if it could stand on its own. That’s the standard we are trying to put into Lootcase 2, there are ideas.”
The Kunal Kemmu-Rasika Dugal starrer had released last year on an OTT platform, amid controversy that the platform didn’t give the film much publicity. That it went on to perform well is another story. Krishnan says he isn’t trying to hide or reveal anything at this point. “This is also art, not just business. It’s not a race ki ek saal ke andar part 2 nikalo! Neither Raju nor other guys, who have made successful films, looked at something and said we have to release the next part within six months,” he says.
The film fetched the filmmaker a lot of praise. Recalling one phone call in particular, he shares, “In a week’s time after the release, I got a call from a strange number, and he asked, ‘Am I speaking to Rajesh Krishnan?’. I said yes. He said, ‘Fantastic film, congrats,’ and introduced himself as Aamir Khan. We were in lockdown, everyone was frustrated, hence I thought someone is screwing around. I said that and he laughed, adding that he will video call. It was Aamir! He said he enjoyed the film. We have worked together before on some commercials. Suniel Shetty and Vidhu Vinod Chopra called, too.”
Have OTTs become a dumping ground?
8:19 AM
Rishabh Suri (HINDUSTAN TIMES; November 30, 2020)
OTT platforms emerged as a saviour for everyone during the lockdown. With theatres closed, they gave makers a chance to release their films.
While the ups were numerous, the downs are now in full effect. It started with Sadak 2, which boasted of a cast such as Sanjay Dutt and Alia Bhatt, but didn’t meet the hype. Akshay Kumar’s Laxmii, too, wasn’t welcomed with open arms. Drive, starring Sushant Singh Rajput, also released last year to a cold response. Rumours suggest that an OTT platform, set to release Varun Dhawan-Sara Ali Khan’s Coolie No 1, has demanded a screening for their content team.
The question arises: have OTT platforms realised that maybe they were being treated as a sort of dumping ground?
Trade analyst Taran Adarsh says it would be wrong to call these platforms that. “Like hits and flops at box office, likes and dislikes on OTTs are part of the game,” he says.
Makers, on their part, too, refuse to admit that OTT platforms are being used to just get a project off their back. Anand Pandit, who has backed Abhishek Bachchan-starrer The Big Bull, says, “It is unfortunate that some films were not received well by the public. That doesn’t mean OTTs are dumping grounds. It’s very difficult to sell a film there. We have only a few major OTT players in India. They all need only one new film in a quarter, or one film in two months. Whereas theatres have two-three coming out every week.”
What’s interesting is that smaller films such as Lootcase managed to garner eyeballs instead. The director of the film, Rajesh Krishnan says, “The audience is extremely discerning and aware of their choices. You are competing with the best content from all over the world.”
Aparna Acharekar, programming head, ZEE5, on her part, says, “Now, there is accessibility to content, which was earlier limited to select circles of film festivals.”
As for the OTTs being overused by makers, she says, “OTTs pay significant amount of money to either acquire or produce these films, and hence it’s not completely true. If we produce, then we have complete creative control. Also, none of us declare what subscriptions/hits we got.”
For Lootcase, I wanted a kind of humour which was accessible yet intelligent-Rajesh Krishnan
8:51 AM
Nishad Neelambaran (HINDUSTAN TIMES; August 16, 2020)
For many, a movie with a plot that revolves around a bag full of money might sound too cliché. However, what the makers do with the plot and how they tell a story with it is what makes the difference. And one such film is Lootcase. Directed by debutant Rajesh Krishnan, the film stars Kunal Kemmu and Rasika Dugal in lead roles. The film also features Gajraj Rao, Ranvir Shorey and Vijay Raaz in pivotal roles.Speaking about his debut film, which recently released on an OTT platform, Krishnan says, “Lootcase has a certain simplicity to it. When you do ad films for 20 years, you learn to be simple rather than complex.” He further adds, “The whole attempt was to keep things as simple as we could and get into a kind of humour which is accessible but, at the same time, intelligent. I’ve grown up watching Malayalam films, and they are shining example of how movies have to be made.”
Lootcase was compared to a Nepalese film Jatra, which released in 2016. So, did this make Krishnan nervous about taking up this project? “We had written the story some time in 2014. If you search for ‘films with bag full of money’, you will find about 40 movies. Somebody getting a bag full of money is a very middle-class thought. It is as clichéd as you can get,” he shares, adding, “Fundamentally, we saw a photo of a rickshaw driver in a newspaper, who had returned a bag to his passenger. We saw the driver’s face, and it was almost like he was sorry to return it without checking what was inside the bag. That is when we started to think about it, and when it was pitched to Kapil Sawant (co-writer), he said, ‘Aisa idea maine suna hai’. I said let’s push and see. You will fail at the max; let’s fail for free.”
Krishnan, who is also the director at Soda Films, is very particular about his cast. Even if it is for an ad shoot, he has managed to work with the right people for a project. He admits that he knew who they wanted to cast for this movie. “The casting team has done a fantastic job here. They actually did the difficult task. I practically had worked with 90% of this crew in some commercial or the other. In advertising world, the look is far more important than performance. There is literally no time for an actor to go out there and express, and that is where the casting team came into play. We did extensive casting except for Gajraj. Back in 2014, we knew we wanted the role of MLA Patil to be played by him,” the director reveals.
Ask him if he would continue to make ad films despite his commercial break, and he says, “Advertising is like Ranji Trophy, where you keep honing your skills. An ad film set is not any different from a feature film set. I would never give up ad films.”
Why Lootcase wasn't represented at virtual press conference is beyond me-Rajesh Krishnan
8:34 AM
As Lootcase eyes July 31 release on Disney+ Hotstar, maker Rajesh Krishnan on how he had no idea of movie's marketing strategy, including virtual presser
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; July 14, 2020)
Disney+ Hotstar announced that Kunal Kemmu-starrer Lootcase, one of the seven films that have been picked up by the streaming giant for digital premiere, will drop online on July 31. With this, ad filmmaker-turned-director Rajesh Krishnan's journey with his debut film reaches its culmination point. Ask him why the black comedy — which has been ready for the past two years — took so long to reach the audience, and Krishnan says, "A director makes the film, but he is not in charge of the advertising and promotions. I credit the studio for giving us 100 per cent freedom to make the film we wanted to. I would like to believe that the movie is as important to them as to me. We were shopping for a producer for long; the studio coming on board was a shot in the arm. Kunal had spoken to Vijay Singh [former CEO, Fox Star Studios] and made the film happen."
Fronted by Kemmu and Rasika Dugal, the film has a talented ensemble cast comprising Vijay Raaz, Ranvir Shorey and Gajraj Rao. Surprisingly, the lead actors were not invited to join Ajay Devgn, Alia Bhatt and Abhishek Bachchan, among others, as they announced the OTT platform's new slate during a virtual press conference last month. Kemmu had then expressed his disappointment on Twitter, noting that Bollywood is not a level-playing field. "This is a homegrown Fox film. Why our film wasn't represented at the virtual press conference is beyond me. They did not even ask us. Kunal and Rasika should have been part of the panel. It was upsetting, but, I don't understand the business of promotions. Kunal, Gajraj, Vijay and Rasika always believe the project is bigger than them. Kunal is the kind of guy who will say, 'This is Rasika's scene, so reduce my dialogues here'. So, I can understand why he wasn't upset," says the director.Krishnan believes Lootcase will be a departure from the slapstick comedies that the industry churns out. "[As an adman] I knew how to entertain in 30 seconds, but to do it for two hours was not easy."
Shammi Kapoor's song Aaj Kal Tere Mere revisited in Kunal Kemmu-starrer Lootcase
7:55 AM
Shaheen Parkar (MID-DAY; September 27, 2019)
Even as the debate over reboots of classic numbers continues, the makers of Lootcase have revisited the yesteryear chartbuster, Aaj Kal Tere Mere Pyar Ke Charche, from the Shammi Kapoor-starrer Brahmachari (1968). However, director Rajesh Krishnan explains at the outset that they have not tampered with the Shankar Jaikishen composition. "We have incorporated the entire track, as it is, in the film," he clarifies.The recently dropped teaser of the Kunal Kemmu-starrer sees the protagonist's adventures after he discovers a suitcase filled with hard cash. As his obsession with the suitcase piques the curiosity of those around him, the Mohammed Rafi ditty plays in the background. "Aaj Kal Tere Mere has quirk written all over it, especially when you use it in today's context. In the case of Lootcase, it helped us amplify the madness of the plot," explains the director.
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