Chillar Party - I Love "Offbeat" movies

I watch a lot of movies comprising of all kind of genres. But I love to watch these offbeat movies which come with a different package as a whole. Recently watched the movie “Chillar Party” which on the first look seems to be a children’s special but packed with lot of sensible message for the grownups. The movie shows the grit and determination as well as the sensitivity and emotion with which the kids react to situations and the narration is perfect. The Story, Direction, Screenplay and overall taking of the movie is awesome.

The movie is a nice entertainer with lot of comedy blended with a social message. It shows the importance of values and team work in a narrative style with full of humor and emotion. In the movie, the way a kid reacts emotionally to his mom, when he realizes his mistake in creating trouble to others, shows the sensitivity of the kids. It shows with a touch of humor, how kids grasp the surroundings and try to imitate others. Finally in the climax, it says about values with utmost conviction, that the elders tend to forget what they study in books and tend to behave differently from what they are taught and what is good. Last but not the least, in the movie, the way parents love and support their kids is really commendable.

I am neither a specialist in writing a movie review nor I want to load you with the story in this blog. The main point I want to highlight is the reaction of the so called “Movie Critics” to such movies. The movie is given a rating of 2 out of 5 in Times of India (TOI). Rest of the critics are a bit considerate and praised the movie, but still rated the movie to average.  I know and I completely agree that everyone has their own opinions and they need not align with others. This is especially true in the case of a movie. But TOI reviews influence people to decide whether to go for the movie or not.

The TOI review states that the Indian Tweens are smart and are loaded with Cartoon Network & Hollywood and hence you need to have a story, adventure, drama and pace.  I don’t know what the critic means by saying the movie is lacking in Story, Drama, Adventure or Pace. May be Dabaang, Murder 2 or Singham have all the above which were able to get 4 star ratings from him. I think he missed the term “MASALA” without which a movie is not considered good by him. The most ironic thing is that this is the only movie in recent times which got a 2 rating whereas some movies which will make you mad got 3.5.

Whenever I read an article in newspaper, I try to read the comments and the reactions of readers about the article. When I have gone through the comments for this article, I couldn’t find even one who is in agreement with the critic. Some of the audience really felt bad that they would have missed the movie, if they just decided based on the Ratings. Anyhow, I am really glad that I don’t watch movies based on their reviews or ratings but based on my convenience.

One more point to highlight is the publicity of the movie which determines the success and hence the ratings. There are some real good movies for example Anjali, Little Soldiers (Telugu) , Pasanga (Tamil) and the famous “Taare Zameen Par”. I feel major factor in the success of Taare Zameen Par is Aamir Khan and his publicity expertise. The other movies like “I am Kalam”, “Stanley ka Dabba” etc. (forget for a second whether they are good or not) couldn’t make to box office or couldn’t even get noticed by general public just because of the lack of stars and publicity. Hopefully Salman Khan will grab some attention for “Chillar Party”, after all it is his production. 

Anyhow, "Chillar Party" is one more proof to the statement that 

“Children movies are much more mature than all the grownup movies put together.”

PS: I watch all kind of action movies as well, but unable to agree to the trend that the success of the movie is solely based on the commercial elements alone and to consider a movie to be hit, it has to fetch crores of rupees. Hence this blog post. :-)