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Readers' Pick: Ten Bad Films You Love To Watch!
A lot of what we see on a weekly basis in Bollywood is bad, but some are so bad they turn out good.
We asked you, dear readers, to vote for your favourite bad movies, the ones you watch again and again for their unintended hilarity and pure awfulness, and here's the list.
You didn't put Gunda in, and that breaks my heart, but this is a fun list regardless:
10. Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna
An unending film as much about farce as it is about fidelity, this is a film packed with all manner of nonsense, from a kidnapper in a black jacket to Amitabh Bachchan dressed in every colour of the rainbow, from an angry and painfully hamming Shah Rukh Khan to awful dialogues.
Abhishek Bachchan was the best thing in the film, and that pretty much says it all.
9. Mohra
We're betting this is on the list because watching Naseeruddin Shah -- the man who excelled at playing a blind man in Sparsh -- intentionally overacting as the blind Mr Jindal is always worth several good laughts.
The only reason you, dear readers, want to watch it over and over, however, must have something to do with Raveena Tandon shaking her caboose in Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast.
8. No Entry
Clearly you aren't alone now, readers, in calling this a film so bad it's good.
Considering it was the highest grossing film of the year when it released in 2005, one can assume a significant percentage of the population was feeling masochistic.
Anyway, it has Bipasha Basu playing an oomphy call girl, which, well, helps.
7. Raja Babu
This could have been just another David Dhawan-Govinda collaboration, but the truly awful factor that makes it impossible to not be fascinated by this film was Shakti Kapoor playing the obnoxiously dimwitted Nandu, "sabka bandhu."
That and immortal songs like Sarkayi Lo Khatiya and Pak Chik Pak Raja Babu, where ChiChi goes Michael Jackson, make this a cable TV classic.
6. Koyla
This preposterous Rakesh Roshan film remains a blot on the superstar careers of Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit.
While it had hit songs and made money, the whole idea of Amrish Puri forcing himself on a nubile and naive Madhuri while she slept was just the first of much attempted rape in this film.
As a result Puri is climactically burnt alive. Oh, the melodrama.
5. Karan Arjun
This one's watchable over and over again simply because of Rakhee Gulzar's drunken-sounding calls of fury to her reincarnated sons.
"Meraay baitaay aayenge," she says in a disastrous accent, and come they do, all bloodshot eyes and ready for revenge.
Shah Rukh and Salman Khan haven't worked much since, and this monstrosity is one of the reasons why.
4. Disco Dancer
B Subhash's Disco Dancer -- the most successful Hindi film ever in Russia, among other things -- is a marvellously mad film, with Mithun as a dancing sensation called Jimmy.
There's too much to 'admire' about the film, but here's a climactic dialogue from Rajesh Khanna that should sum up the spirit of this film: "Agar tu nahin gaayega to teri Ma hamesha hamesha ke liye mar jaayegi." Okay then.
3. Tirangaa
Sometimes the starcast of a film, just by name, gives you a very good idea of its content.
In this Mehul Kumar film, for example, we have Raaj Kumar, Nana Patekar, Mamta Kulkarni and Varsha Usgaonkar, often all in the same frame. Ouch.
A ridiculously jingoistic film about a nuclear attack on India, this one is a whole different league of bad.
2. Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahaani
The original Jaani Dushman from 1979 wasn't a good film, but Rajkumar Kohli ensured it shone opposite this mindnumbingly bizarre 2002 remake.
A bunch of familiar faces starred, each at their worst, from Sunny Deol to Akshay Kumar to Manisha Koirala to Suniel Shetty, and while each of them tried hard to keep a straight face during this insanity, there was another 'actor' whose name is enough to give you nightmares: Sonu Nigam.
Not kidding.
1. Clerk
One of the reasons Pakistan is in constant conflict with India might have something to do with this unforgettable 1989 film, where we essentially brought in major film stars from Pakistan to an Indian film for the first time ever and cast them in what may be the single most ludicrous Indian film of all time.
It's quite impossible to do this film justice in a few lines, but picture Manoj Kumar foraging for batteries for his radio so a dying Ashok Kumar can come back to life on hearing Kadam Kadam Badhaaye Jaa. (And by come back to life we mean stand to attention and start marching. Naturally.)