Pirates of Bollywood

Shardul Bhardwaj

“This is your cue to start the remember-that-film game. And counting tropes, just as the characters of this film start skimming up ropes on ships (no, this is not Pirates of the Caribbean) and swinging from trees in jungles. Or walking the plank, and dancing in forest clearings, dressed in the kind of clothes best described as pirate-cool.” — Shubhra Gupta

This is Pirates of the Caribbean without a pirate or Caribbean. — Raja Sen

If the film is a reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean, courtesy various shots of pirate ships, it also takes inspiration for its primary character from the popular Hollywood film series. — Charu Thakur

These are some of the country’s top critics whose shortsighted film reviews have partially presented us Thugs of Hindostan. Their repeated lack of ever grounding the films of Bollywood and where they come from is probably the reason we have cinematic murder called Thugs of Hindostan. Bollywood, since its very inception, has tried to model itself on Hollywood, whether it be studio setups, star power or administrative operational setups.

The American funk rock band 

Red Hot Chilli Peppers encapsulated the plight of the world well and it befits Bollywood’s description: 

“The sun may rise in the East but at least it’s settled in a final location/ Space may be the final frontier but it’s made in a Hollywood basement.”

The sun has been resting in the Hollywood basement for ages. Owing to America’s soft power, the metro population has imagined ghosts, aliens, superheroes and pirates through films like ET, Conjuring and Pirates of the Caribbean. After keeping this context in mind, it becomes abundantly clear as to why we have had films like Krrish, Ra.One and Thugs of Hindostan. To sell a superhero, pirate, horror or an action film, the makers need to adhere to certain standards of Hollywood, and, at times, copy things. It’s a pointless exercise to stop the criticism at films like Thugs as mere copies of Hollywood films. The criticism should be on the larger market forces who have made it imminent that films in Bollywood be made which look like grotesque copies of their grand Hollywood counterparts.

It’s painful to see that in a land which has had folktales around heroes like Beer Kherwal, Bidu Chandan, Chital Singh Chatri, etc. we have to fall back on Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean to model a character in a story dealing with the overthrow of East India Company. In a land which has boasted of community-based heroes deriving strength from their communities and the collective, it is almost baffling to see how we, in our Bollywood films, have time and again fallen back on the cliches of a Hollywood consumerist society. Each superhero or Jack Sparrow is always in need of the cutting edge murderous technology to save the day. The murderous weapons in the hands of villain and hero clashes and leads to whole cities going down in ashes. It is the multiple blasts and buildings crumbling that regale and entertain the audiences. We have continued that romance with tall buildings falling and the hero walking away from blasts in the background through films like Krrish and Ra.One. The only difference is that our audiences go in expecting to see the Empire State Building come down but find a cheap copy of the Empire State crumbling to pieces.

As Hollywood tries to break its own, done and dusted ways of making superhero films with movies like Deadpool, Bollywood is bent on copying from films like Pirates of the Caribbean, which came out in 2003. This disaster in the form of Thugs of Hindostan cannot just be the moment where critics and audiences start howling about copycat nature present in Bollywood. It’s a moment where this industry as a whole needs to pause and think whether in the midst of all money making, is there a need to forge a singular identity or is that a task better left to the simple-minded so called “independent filmmakers”? It’s a moment for us to reflect on how long this entertainment is going to last when a better version of most entertaining Bollywood films already exists? Will Bollywood, like most other products of our nation, ultimately be subsumed by America and Hollywood?