One Two Ka Flop!

Komal Nahta

So what is new. Another big-budget starcast film has bombed.

Shashilal Nair’s One 2 Ka 4 couldn’t even manage a decent opening. Collections only declined by the day.

Why would a film, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla, fail to even open to full houses? That it did not find favour with the audience is not shocking. It deserved to be rejected because there wasn’t anything worthwhile in the film to sustain audience interest.

What is terribly shocking is that the opening show recorded collections as low as 50 per cent and 40 per cent of capacity.

Or is it really?

An analysis is called for here. Shah Rukh and Juhi Chawla, as a pair, have never really caught the fancy of viewers.

Raju Ban Gaya Gentlemen was such a supreme disaster that its business kept on declining every week in circuits like Delhi-UP.

Declining? How is that possible, you ask. Simple. The distributor had to pay cinema rental deficits because the film couldn’t even collect enough to pay the rent.

Then, anyway, Yes Boss, the other Shah Rukh-Juhi starrer did quite well in Bombay. But its English title, among other things, kept business in other territories quite low.

Duplicate, like Yes Boss, did reasonable business in Bombay -- as all comedies do -- but the other distributors, even today, shudder at the mention of the film’s name. So horrific were their experiences.

SRK and Juhi’s home production, Dreamz Unlimited’s Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, was almost a case of Nightmarez Unlimited for its distributors, who made heavy losses in this Shah Rukh-Juhi starrer. Again, its Bombay territory fared better.

Yash Chopra’s Darr was the pair’s only hit film. But then, Sunny Deol also played a lead role in the film.

The second reason for the poor opening of One 2 Ka 4 was the frivolous title. The Indian audience attaches a lot of importance to a film’s title. That is also one reason why we have producers registering good titles the minute they think of them, even if they are not planning any films with those titles immediately.

One 2 Ka 4 suggests precious little except golmaal.

With Shah Rukh Khan, people expect more substantive films. Please don’t get me wrong. By substantive, I don’t mean devoid of comedy. The Khan is exceptional in comedies. But surely, a better title would have made a difference?

Juhi Chawla’s marital status might not have made too much of a difference to her starrers because she neither confirmed nor denied her marriage to Jai Mehta.

But her motherhood is common knowledge. The audience doesn’t appreciate married heroines romancing heroes. Given that, how do you expect them to enjoy a lady, whose newborn child has just recently made news, romancing the hero?

As gender-biased as it might sound, this does not hold true for our heroes.

So we have Anil Kapoor, Sunny Deol, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and so many others -- all daddies in real life -- romancing heroines on screen and being accepted warmly.

Yet another reason for the unexciting opening was the film’s music. It did not gets its due. At least three or four songs composed by A R Rahman are good tunes. But they didn’t really scale the popularity charts as much as they should have.

Again, I suspect, this could have been due to the unattractive title and Juhi Chawla. Which is really unfortunate because Juhi’s performance in the film is exceptionally good!

Finally, of course, all these negative points would have not reared their ugly heads if there was at least one strong point that could have overshadowed the aforesaid low points.

As the trade pundits put it, “Film ki kundli hi kharaaab thi.” (the film’s horoscope itself was inauspicious).

Amen.