Joker

About the film

Joker is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language science fiction comedy film written and directed by Shirish Kunder in his second directorial venture after Jaan-E-Mann. The film stars Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha. The film was released worldwide on 31 August 2012 to negative reviews and was a disaster at the box office.

Plot

Agastya "Sattu" is a scientist working on developing a communication system to communicate with aliens. However, he loses the faith of his seniors and is given a one-month deadline to conclude his project with substantial results.

In the meantime, Agastya is informed by his girlfriend Diva about his father's illness. On hearing this, they both reach his native village, Paglapur, whose colourful inhabitants include his brother, who speaks gibberish; a child who thinks he is a lamppost; and others who thinks World War II is still ongoing and fears the Germans.

Soon after arriving, Agastya finds that his father had called him on a false pretext of illness. The villagers called Agastya so he could make Paglapur a better place and connect it with the outside world.

Production

Shirish Kunder had the project in development for several years before finding financial backing and hit films, and had to negotiate for use of the specific title which Kunder stated is important to the script itself. The film is being produced by Farah Khan, Shirish Kunder, and Akshay Kumar under the banner of Three's Company and Hari Om Entertainment. The film was shot in 3D using 3D cameras, however in June 2012, it was announced that the film was no longer in 3D, since Ra.One and Don 2 have taken the goals, if Joker flopped it would be a loss on the whole crew, therefore the film will only be released in 2D format. According to director, Shirish Kunder, "It is an underdog story about how individuals make it big in life and in the process, get help from aliens from a fictional planet". Shreyas Talpade will play Akshay's brother in the film. Female lead opposite to Shreyas will be played by Minisha Lamba, who will enact the role of an innocent TV reporter. Sonakshi will also perform an item number in the film. American actor Alexx ONell was also signed to play a role in the film.

The first schedule of shooting was initially slated to take place in Ludhiana, however the location was changed to Chandigarh. The shooting began on 14 February 2011 in Chandigarh. The crew finished the 19-day schedule on 12 March 2011, finishing 40% of the production work. The second schedule started on 17 May 2011 in Mumbai and concluded in June 2011.

Music

All songs featured in the film, except one, are composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar in his Hindi film composing debut. The song "Jugnu Banke Tu" sung by Udit Narayan was highly appreciated among all songs.

Music Aloud said: "He may or may not have composed the tunes for the controversy-ridden soundtrack of Jaan-E-Mann, but when GV Prakash Kumar actually got to do a credited debut in Bollywood, it turned out to be a rather uninventive one" and rated it 5/10. Score Magazine, gave it 2 out of 5 stars stating, "You know something is wrong with an album when the instrumental tracks immensely outshine the vocal tracks. I must mention that each of the songs has a strong underlying melody but gross injustice is done to them by Shirish Kunder's lyrics."

Reception

Joker received negative reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 0% of 6 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 2/10.

Soumyadipta Banerjee of In.com gave 0.5 out of 5 stars and said "Not only that the aliens are weird, the whole movie seems be in some weird planet after a point of time". Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the film 1 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Joker is a crude joke of a film that will leave you in tears unless you have a stomach strong enough to digest such unmitigated junk." Film critic Taran Adarsh also gave it 1 out of 5 stars and labelled it as a complete "disaster" and a "joke of a film".

Key details