Bollywood 6-month report card: Polarising Chhaava, spunky Sitaare Zameen Par and the terrible Sikandar, here's the best and worst of 2025 till now

Indian Express

a day ago

At the halfway mark, Bollywood can boast of only one blockbuster, Chhaava. Yes, count it.
The other big-budget movies starring A-listers (Jaat, Raid 2, Sky Force, Kesari 2, Deva, Sikandar) check the hit, semi-hit, average, average, flop, disaster boxes respectively.
The fifth iteration of the broad-risque Bollywood comedy franchise, Housefull 5 (if you don't count Masti and its many copies), is on the path to being labelled a success. The film is still in theatres, so a final verdict is awaited, but it looks as if it will roll over into safety.
The very middling family entertainer 'Bhool Chuk Maaf', with Rajkummar Rao in the lead, is a hit. It comes from the Dinesh Vijan-Maddock stable, which gave us one of last year's few hits in horror-com 'Stree 2', and it nestles in the same loud family entertainment zone that has become one of Bollywood's two safe spaces, the other being louder films which come waving the flag.
Six months, only one blockbuster, a handful of hits, and a profusion of pits.
Is Bollywood continuing its dismal dive? At this exact time last year, it was the same situation: the two big box office winners of 2024, Stree 2 and Pushpa 2, came in the second half of the year.
That Chhaava, in which Vicky Kaushal plays Chhatrapati Shivaji's son Sambhaji, would be a box office monster was a no-brainer. The Laxman Utekar directorial which has an actor bringing his A-game to a plot soaked in nationalistic fervour, while at the same time showing those bad Muslims in worse light, is exactly the kind of film which has been doing well in these times, and who cares if a riot or two and more polarisation is the outcome?
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Chhaava's roaring success proves a couple of things: that today's audience can only become a mass if the film has the potential to cause hysteria both inside and outside theatres; and that evil Mughals are still the most favourite whipping boys in Hindi movies. Props not just to Kaushal for straining nobly through 40 climactic bloody minutes, but also to Akshaye Khanna, who managed to down-size Aurangzeb, soorma eyes to the fore, without cracking up. Roaring tiger, whimpering dragon.
It also proves that patriots declaiming high-decibel speeches still have mfn (most favoured nation) status. But not all patriots are equal: Akshay Kumar's air force officer couldn't make 'Sky Force' soar (no enough crude jingoism, no vile Muslims); the same star masquerading as a Malayali lawyer who stood up against the British after the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy also couldn't get 'em roaring.
Sunny Deol's uber-violent desi-Western 'Jaat', in which his dhai-kilo-ka-haath does all the talking as he goes about smashing rows upon rows of desh-ke-dushman, did get them roaring, though. The film could easily have been called 'In Which Sunny Goes South', as it replaces parathas and lassi with idli and sambhar, and Punjab with Andhra. The only thing missing is the iconic handpump, but pumping fists is Sunny's forte, and has always been. Cue, Gadar 3?
Shahid Kapoor's badass cop saga 'Deva', a remake of Malayalam film starring Prithviraj Sukumaran's 'Mumbai Police', inexplicably not called one, was flat; the star, who had a good 2024 with sci fi comedy 'Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya', was stiff and colourless in this one.
And the Salman Khan starrer 'Sikandar', meant to get his fortunes back on track, was so bad that it was terrible, and rightfully crashed and burned. Clearly, big Bollywood continues to struggle, and it isn't hard to see why.
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All the talk of rationalising spiralling film budgets is so much hot air: the astronomical star fees, and their massive entourages make returns that much more difficult. This has been an on-going problem, and it shows no signs of abating.
Why doesn't Bollywood learn from other industries, especially Malayalam, in which the focus is the plot, and not the star? Isn't it beyond high time? Just look at the series of hits that have emerged in the last six months, starting with L2 Empuraan (also dubbed in Hindi), Thudarum, Tourist Family, Alapuzhaa Gymkhana, among others: all very different in tone and tenor, but never losing sight of the ultimate objective of making a solid, mindful entertainers.
But more than anything else, it is the presence of multiple streaming options, with new films dropping within weeks, that has brought Bollywood to its knees. Why would anyone, in these post-pandemic scrunched budget times, spend so much for so little?
Even indie-spirited big studio films like the Reema Kagti-helmed 'Superboys of Malegaon' (produced by Kagti, Zoya Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani), which I found not half as smart or moving as the original Faiza Khan documentary 'Supermen of Malegaon' couldn't find a big enough paying audience in its theatrical release, and had to resort to its Prime Video home to discover a bigger catchment.
Not that OTT exclusives, which were meant to change the game, have covered themselves with glory. Even the kindest critic can find nothing good to say about 'Nadaaniyan', a staggeringly bad Netflix original starring debutant Ibrahim Ali Khan and Khushi Kapoor; equally awful was the Saif Ali Khan-Jaideep Ahlawat heist drama 'Jewel Thief', also on the same platform.
Prime Video has done better, with Boman Irani's self-assured directorial debut 'The Mehta Boys', in which he plays loving daddy to Avinash Tiwary's self-absorbed son. Karan Tejpal's 2023 'Stolen', which dropped on Prime last month, uses real-life incidents of kidnapped babies to examine the multiple divides in India: I didn't fall in love with the film, but it is no massage-the-starry-ego-vehicle, and that is the only way films that hope to command our attention, as well as our wallets, should be made.
Zee's film slate, up until now, has given us one film which is a stayer: Mrs, directed by Arati Kadav, and toplined by Sanya Malhotra. The faithful remake of Jeo Baby's Malayalam The Great Indian Kitchen, is less raw, more sanitized than the original, but there's no doubt that it speaks up for women who find themselves stuck in domestic ruts, having to leave their dreams behind. Of the others, Babil Khan's 'Logout', added to a recent spate of films about the dangerous maws of social media-created self-worth. And 'Costao', based on the real life exploits of a Goan customs officer, reminded us that Nawazuddin can still make us watch.
I will leave you with 'Sitaare Zameen Par', the desi remake of the Spanish film 'Campeones'. It is the kind of film which can only be green-lit by a big star, with its stated intention of creating awareness about a section of society which needs urgent visibility and understanding. It isn't perfect, it is unapologetically message-y, but gets the job done while spreading hope and cheer.
The spiritual successor of 'Taare Zameen Par' has Aamir Khan leading from the front, sometimes more than strictly necessary— the script keeps finding excuses to insert him in scenes—but he shares space with infinite good grace while making fun of himself, platforming a wonderful bunch of neurodivergent young adults with spunk and character as the real heroes.
It is still running in theatres, but the smart money says that it will be a hit. And Aamir, by declaring ahead of the film's release that it will not come out on OTT and will only be available in theatres for the foreseeable future, could just have hit upon the one crucial thing that may save the movies in the long run: if you want to watch it, buy a ticket, and get into a theatre.
The only-in-theatres declaration needs confidence in your film, and belief in its potential, something Hindi film producers seem to have lost the capacity for, in their craze for the oversize lollies held out by deal-making streaming platforms: if you've got your money upfront, it's pointless investing time, money and thought over a film.
But remember the old adage? No pain, no gain. Take that risk, give it your best shot, make that movie showcasing your story not showboating your star, and we will, I promise you, show up.