What’s the worst Hindi movie of all time? A Google search for a list after the year 2000 throws up several claimants to the dubious honour. Humshakals, Tees Maar Khan, Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, Love Story 2050, Karzzzz, Himmatwala and Tubelight are among the films that find mention on different lists. However, there’s one that never misses a spot on any. It’s Jaani Dushman – Ek Anokhi Kahani.
The 2002 release directed by Rajkumar Kohli, according to viewers, is so bad that it calls for a repeat viewing to just make sense of the quality of the brain that went into making it. Sarcasm for it flows uninhibited. ‘It’s a pity that it didn’t win an Oscar’, says one social media post. ‘…Be warned. This is not for the faint of heart or for those who bang their heads against hard objects at the slightest provocation, asking for mercy.’ says another. ‘it’s so bad that it’s good’, goes yet another.
Well, viewers can be harsh. When films don’t always go as intended and live up to their tickets’ worth, they would. They can be unfair too. But Jaani Dushman – Ek Anokhi Kahani certainly messed up things really bad. So bad that one person allegedly made his son watch it many times to rid him of his addiction to films. After it bombed at the box office, the director quit making films. The careers of some actors ended. And the movie remained a staple for memes and jokes.
In hindsight, it had everything right. Rajkumar Kohli – he is no more – was known for his star-heavy, high-drama movies. His earlier commercially successful works such as Nagin, Badle Ki Aag, Jaani Dushman (of 1979) and Raj Tilak boasted of an assemblage of big stars of the day. For this one too he had roped in the rising stars of the time Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty, Sunny Deol, Manisha Koirala along with Raj Babbar, Aftab Shivdasani, Sharad Kapoor, Sonu Nigam (making his acting debut), Arshad Warsi and the legendary Amrish Puri. It was the re-launch vehicle of his son Armaan Kohli and he surely wanted it to be a blast of a movie.
The basic plot premise was borrowed from Nagin; the title was a repeat of his blockbuster Jaani Dushman (Ek Anokhi Kahani being the weak addition) and it was inspired heavily by the VFX of Hollywood chartbusters Matrix and Terminator. It had everything that works in a mainstream masala Hindi fare – love, revenge, horror, fantasy, folklore, reincarnation and, of course, the perennial fascination of the Indian audience, Nag-Nagin, the shape-shifting, time-travelling serpents.
Nothing could go wrong with such an assemblage, right? But then we don’t count in factors such as storytelling, treatment, narrative consistency, plausibility and the limits of the audience to suspend disbelief. In its ambition to be grand the movie let go of common sense. It ignored the fact that a film works when the core idea appeals to people; the add-ons are only an experience multiplier. The former can stand on its own but not the latter. It clearly went over the top with garnishing while bread remained insipid.
Exaggerated acting, cheesy dialogues, melodrama, poorly executed VFX and logic-defying plot points – all combine to make Jaani Dushman – Ek Anokhi Kahani a cringe-worthy fare. To be fair to the director, it could have been a trend-setting movie if it had gone right. If only he had spared attention to scripting details more!
Is it the worst movie made? No. We have many others competing for that space. The critics are surely being unfair by singling it out for special treatment.
(By arrangements with Perspective Bytes)
