A Look Back at the Worst Films of 2022

Radhe Shyam

The hero is a world-known palmist (he is called ‘India ke Nostradamus’), whose favourite
dialogue is, ‘I just want flirtationship’. Also, he is great at following girls on his bike. Basically, our
hero is a commitment-phobe and a fuckboy, who has devised a ‘logical explanation’ to justify his
actions. The heroine’s hobby is to lean out of moving trains and ask random strangers to hold on
to the scarf tied to her waist. Her favourite dialogue? ‘Mujhe sambhal paoge?’ She has
questionable mental health.

Heropanti 2

Another addition to the Tiger Shroff multiverse, Heropanti 2 is a sequel no one wanted or
anticipated, or was prepared for. It is a martial-arts video peddled as a movie replete with stolen
set pieces, and requires its own genre and dictionary to convey its ludicrousness. Tiger Shroff
deserves an entire award show dedicated to him for mastering the art of not letting any kind of
expression show on his face ever, and it’s been eight years and eight films. Also, it is also quite a
feat to actually make a movie with a screenplay and plot skimpier than Urfi Javed’s designer
clothes. Just sample one scene: There are a few grenades that explode right next to Tiger’s feet
and it manages to only tear apart his shirt (and logic), that too in a way that best showcases his
chiseled abs. But by the time you reach this scene, you have been through so much mental
trauma that you don’t even react to the bizarreness of it.

Rashtra Kavach Om

If you thought Heropanti 2 is the worst thing that has happened to films in 2022, you were
wrong. Ahmed Khan, the director of Heropanti 2, goes on to produce a movie that manages to
dwarf even the Tiger Shroff saga with its cringe quotient.
This is a movie where Aditya Roy Kapoor debuts his gorgeous, beefed-up physique and attempts
at becoming an action hero. But his take on the ‘lean and mean killing machine’ is unintentionally hilarious. In one physics-defying scene, he shoots out of the water without any reaction force, and jumps onto a ship. In the climax, he throws a humongous chain at a flying helicopter (that too with one hand), hooks it, and stops it. One needs an actual kavach to save one’s brain cells from Rashtra Kavach Om.

Raksha Bandhan

This delusional regressive cringe-fest unfolds like a Russian Doll of nightmares. Lalaji is
‘burdened’ with four sisters: one is fat, one is dark-complexioned, one is a tomboy, and one is
fair and pretty.
Of course, the fair one is the apple of his eye as she is regarded as a better bargain in the
marriage market. After a tragic event, he has a change of heart, he screams about the perils of
the dowry system, and decides that his sisters should become educated and independent.
Please note, he decides that for them as well. The women have no agency whatsoever in this
film. Freedom is a Raksha Bandhan gift. The most problematic thing about this movie is that it
projects a toxic chauvinistic man as a lovable, endearing, and even righteous character. It takes
real guts to conceive, create and release a movie like this, especially in this day and age.

Liger

It is a story of a Mumbai migrant. It is the story of an underdog. It is a story of a MMA fighter.
But essentially, it is a story of a guy with a stammer and a toxic mother trying to land a rich girl.
The plot as well as the treatment is as unique as any ’90s movie. Vijay Deverakonda debuts his
gorgeous body, but acting is not a fancy-dress competition, and there is a bit more to it than just
looking the part. The celebrated pan-India star proves that his acting talents are at best
mediocre. However, the real problem is the storyline, rather the lack of it. Here, plot holes are
strewn together with near-invisible threads of the story. The icing on this layered shit fest is a
robust dollop of misogyny that puts the hero on the verge of physically assaulting women on
multiple occasions and normalizes rape jokes and dialogues like, “Maine tujhko pregnant karke
chhoda kya?”

Code Name Tiranga

Durga (Parineeti Chopra) is an undercover RAW agent who is part of a special-ops team. She is
on a mission (code named Tiranga of course) to hunt down Khalid Omar, the mastermind of the
Parliament blast.
Apparently, she is the best in the business. But in the first two missions, she manages to mostly
kill civilians while her actual targets escape. What could have been a cool movie with a kick-ass female protagonist like Kill Bill or Anna or La Femme Nikita turns out to be a spiritual sequel of Dhaakad. Writer-director Ribhu Dasgupta meticulously drains out every ounce of logic, intelligence, and reason from the plothole-riddled script. ‘Empowering women’ by ‘letting them’ kick some ass is one thing, for that you can start kickboxing classes, but to make a movie you need very different skill sets.

Images: T-Series, AA Films, Zee Studios, Reliance Entertainment