May 24, 2010 (Sampurn Wire): Priyadarshan now has one of the biggest flops ever of his Bollywood journey in the form of ‘Bumm Bumm Bole’ but surprisingly even the failure of the film hasn’t made any news whatsoever. Now this is even worse because it only goes on to show that no one even cared if this Darsheel Safary film found an audience for itself or not. The film was panned by critics, rejected by audience who bothered to watch it over the weekend and was totally off everyone’s mind as the week progressed.
Though many have questioned if releasing ‘Bumm Bumm Bole’ a week before ‘Kites’ was a sane decision, I have an entirely different take on the situation. Given the fact that even a regular release would have resulted in similar fate of ‘Bumm Bumm Bole’, a ‘hidden’ release like this has ensured that if there have been no bouquets, then there are hardly any brickbats either due to unawareness quotient. A high profile release would have only resulted in quite a few uncomfortable questions being pitched to Percept Pictures and Priyadarshan, something that has been avoided due to entire media focus on ‘Kites’.
Remaining three films of the week – ‘Admissions Open’, ‘Kushti’ and ‘Vroom’ – struggled to complete a week at the box office and garner even a combined total of 1 crore. All three being poor products in any case, their disastrous response didn’t shock anyone at all. In fact release of these films only makes one wonders that why don’t more and more film makers release such films directly on home video. If in West, when even a Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas starrer like ‘Thick as Thieves’ can release directly on DVD, why can’t a Rajpal Yadav film follow the same route? A theatrical release with not even five patrons in theaters is not just an embarrassing sight; it is also a terrible waste of time, money and energy.
Point to ponder?
Having said that, as of now even the DVD release of ‘Admissions Open’, ‘Kushti’ and ‘Vroom’ is not going to bring in any cheers to audience either, whether in big or small cities.
— Rudhir Burman / Sampurn Wire
