The Nawazuddin Starrer ‘Thackeray’ Fails to Impress the Audience

The political biopic Thackeray is based on the life and times of the Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, starring one of the best talents in Bollywood today, Nawazuddin Siddiqui. However, the film fails to impress the audience, who like to watch more of Bollywood potboilers like Simmba, even if that means tolerating a sloppy script, which lacks sense, and the movie full of Ranveer Singh’s loud acting. Surprisingly, Thackeray did well in its Marathi version but failed in the Bollywood version miserably. As far as the Hindi version is concerned, the film is disappointing the audience and reaching nowhere when it comes to collections. Thackeray was released on January 25, 2019, together with the Kangana Ranaut starrer Manikarnika, which was a super duper hit at the box office. Maybe the timing of Thackeray was all wrong. Or the audience is not interested in watching a political biopic unfolding on the big screen?

The collections

Based on the latest reports by leading newspapers and online movie review portals, Thackeray managed to make just Rs. 1.20 crore for the Bollywood version on the fifth day at the box office. Later on Tuesday, the collections further plummeted 20 percent to 25 percent. It is a great setback for the producers of the political biopic. Thackeray until now managed to make a total of Rs. 13.05 crore at the box office. Now, that is for the Hindi version, and it is expected that the movie will not go above the 30 crore mark in all the versions.

When it comes to the Bollywood box office collection of Thackeray, the results are extremely disappointing when it comes to business. Now that does not make the film essentially bad. It is not necessary that a film that fails to make money at the box office has a bad story to tell or lacks the ingredients of a good movie.

Mixed reviews

The movie received mixed reactions from the audience and the critics. Then, Siddiqui’s performance has been well received by both cinema lovers and critics alike. And why not because the actor proved his mettle in films like Manto, ManjhiThe Mountain Man, Badlapur, Black Friday, Firaaq, and many more. Besides movies, the actor showed that he has acting prowess when he performed the role to perfection, playing Mumbai’s underworld don in the popular Netflix web series, Sacred Games, based on Vikram Chandra’s novel of the same name.

When it comes to this biopic, it narrates the story of Bal Thackeray and his rise to fame – from working as a brave and aggressive journalist to a leader in Maharashtra, who succeeded to create controversies and managed to inspire the political scene in India. Nawazuddin plays Thackeray to perfection while Amrita Rao plays Meena Thackeray, the leader’s wife. Abhijit Panse directed the movie and penned down by Sanjay Raut. The film also stars Sudhir Mishra in a pivotal role.

If you are a movie buff, and judge films based on its storyline, script, and performance, then watch Thackeray. Ignore box office collections because a successful film making crores such as Simmba is essentially not a masterpiece.

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