Bollywood noirs: Will Badlapur break the Box Office jinx?

We take a look at some of the noirs that Bollywood has presented its audience with, to not exactly impressive results.

Ugly (2014)
Anurag Kashyap's travails, as far as the noir genre is concerned, has mostly followed a pattern - excellent critical acclaim, and unsuccessful commercially. As recently as December 2014, Kashyap's Ugly opened to Indian theatres, and received a quite-as-expected lukewarm response, mnonetarily. The film won several awards all over the world, but the Indian audience didn't seem too keen on going to the movies to watch Ugly.

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Mithya (2008)
Mithya, the 2008 Rajat Kapoor directorial, was made at a shoestring budget and had little to no expectations at the Box Office. The initial response at the cash was quite in tune with the filmmakers' expectations - it could earn basically nothing - but the film picked up later, largely due to word of mouth publicity. Mithya starred Ranvir Shorey, Neha Dhupia, Vinay Pathak and Naseeruddin Shah in lead roles.

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Manorama Six Feet Under (2007)
Director Navdeep Singh's 2007 release, Manorama Six Feet Under, was quite a Box Office debacle. The neo-noir starred Abhay Deol, Raima Sen and Gul Panag in titular roles.

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Johnny Gaddaar (2007)
A film that director Sriram Raghavan has received much acclaim for, Johnny Gaddaar hit the theatres in 2007, and proved to be everything but a commercial hit. The thriller was Neil Nitin Mukesh's Bollywood debut, and the Box Office failure couldn't do much to catapult the actor to the league of A-listers.

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No Smoking (2007)
This Anurag Kashyap neo noir sank without a trace, and is among the director's least successful films, commercially. The film stars John Abraham in the lead role, a corporate who struggles his way though the smoking addiction maze.

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Being Cyrus (2006)
The Homi Adajania film starring Saif Ali Khan, Naseeruddin Shah and Dimple Kapadia couldn't manage to earn much at the Box Office. The film's plot, necessarily more to do with drama at a psychological level than anything else, was thought to have been behind its commercial failure.

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Noirs, for the uninitiated, is a genre of films that are inherently crime dramas, but deal with more than just crimes. The stylish genre of films, in Hollywood, for example, has explored terrains like the attitude of cynicism, sexual motivations leading to a crime and the likes. The etymology of the word 'noir' pretty much explains what it is all about - 'noir' is derived from the French word for black, 'noire'. And true to its meaning, film noirs deal with a lot of darkness, as far as themes and props are concerned. Steeped in negativity and violence, too, at times, these films end up testing the amount of darkness that the psyche of the audience can tolerate.

While the film genre is quite popular in Hollywood, the Indian audience is yet to open up to the same. Most Bollywood noirs have failed to make a lot at the Box Office. The latest Bollywood release, Badlapur, is touted to be a noir. Whether or not it will be able to break the Box Office jinx for noirs is something that needs to be waited to be seen. We take a look at some of the noirs that Bollywood has presented its audience with, to not exactly impressive results.

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