Five Hindi films released over the Friday gone by - EK SE BURE DO, COFFEE HOUSE, PAL PAL DIL KE SAATH, SCHOOL DAYS and ROYAL UTSAV. As expected, all the five films have proven to be disasters at the box office with pathetic collections all over.

There has been literally no audience for each of the films, hence resulting in near-to-nil occupancy at theaters, whether multiplexes or single screens. Such horrific is the situation at the box office that majority of these films may well get discontinued over the first weekend itself. All of them being films that have been ready for quite some time and are now being brought back from the cold storage, they didn't find any takers in spite of zero competition from big or small releases.

Most of them being poor in content has only proven to be an insult to the injury. Let aside bad reviews coming their way, most of them have not even been reviewed by the critics, hence reflecting on how sad has their arrival been at the theaters.

The biggest film of them all could well have been EK SE BURE DO due to star value of Arshad Warsi attached to it. However, it has turned out to be a terrible film. The problems are aplenty here with the biggest one being that there is no storyline whatsoever. One wonders whether the film's director would himself struggle if asked to simply give a two line synopsis of the film.

The film was in the making for 5 years, something that gets reflected in each and every frame of the film. Not just it looks dated with extremely poor cinematography adding insult to the injury, it also seems clearly disjointed. Also, you can sense time and again that the director didn't have any control over the proceedings and shot scenes randomly depending upon availability of any actor, whether lead or supporting, that he could lay his hands on. No wonder, EK SE BURE DO turns out to be an extremely 'buri' film. It took 5 years to make this film though it would be a surprise if this one manages to stay even for 5 shows in theaters.

There were some hopes from COFFEE HOUSE considering the fact that with Ashutosh Rana in the lead, there were hopes of a reasonably quality outing. Sadly, this doesn't quite turn out to be the case as the film drags on as a TV serial and not once do you feel like watching a feature film. Now that's a pity considering the fact with so many characters in the film, the director could have played on smartly and got some fizz into the proceedings. However, nothing of that sorts happens with the film offering zero drama to it's audience. Typically, a film takes some time to establish it's characters, begin a story and generally ends with some conclusion. In case of COFFEE HOUSE, you don't get to see any peaks or lows. It is one flat narrative that stays on from start to finish. Worse, it is a boring narrative which only makes the situation further dull and depressing.

As for PAL PAL DIL KE SAATH, it arrived on one or two shows at a few multiplexes and neither Ajay Jadeja nor Mahie Gill were willing to revisit their ghosts of the past. A film which was made six years back, it suddenly arrived out of nowhere. However, no one was interested in this so called family film which was straight out of the 60s. It is quite obvious that Ajay Jadeja would have made up his mind to stay away from movies after his experience with PAL PAL DIL KE SAATH. Moreover, Mahie Gill too seems to have been so much shocked by the experience of working in this film that it took her six long years to return to Hindi films with DEV D and GULAAL.

SCHOOL DAYS has got some decent reviews coming it's way but sadly, the film has been watched only by critics so far. Auditoriums screening the film have met with zero audience occupancy and this movie about teenagers, which has hit the screens without any promotion whatsoever, has gone down without a trace. The other release of the week, ROYAL UTSAV, is set in pre-historic times and with soft porn as it's underlining theme, it has not even managed to entice it's target audience.

With the stand off between producers and multiplexes not really coming to any resolution in days to come, be ready to be subjected to such horrific affair for weeks to come. With big makers refraining from bringing their films to the theaters, it is only going to be small time films like the ones mentioned above that would grace the multiplexes screens in near future. -Sampurn Media