Joker (2012 film)

Plot

Agastya (Akshay Kumar) is a scientist, working on the development of a communication system, to communicate with aliens. But Agastya loses the faith of his seniors and is allotted with a deadline of one month to conclude his project with some substantial results.

In the mean time Agastya is informed by his girlfriend Diva (Sonakshi Sinha) about his father's illness. On hearing this they both reaches his native village Paglapur, whose colourful inhabitants include a man who speaks in gibberish, another who thinks he is a lamp post and everyone else who think that the World War II is still going on.

Soon after reaching there, Agastya finds that he was called on a false pretext of illness by his father.

On getting apprised about truth, Agastya decides to move back to US, but after hearing the plight of the inhabitants of Paglapur, due to the brushing aside of the village by the government because of its being absent from the demarcated map of India, he makes his mind to come out with some solution for the problem.

As the story proceeds, Agastya comes up with a quaint idea pertaining to the crop circle and arrival of aliens in his village, in order to fetch a recognition for his otherwise isolated village undergoing a plight of neglect ever since the independence.

With frames moving ahead, Agastya along with other villagers creates crop circle in Paglapur and spreads rumour about arrival of aliens in the village. And from there, amid tremendous media hype, takes over some hilarious sequences knitted around UFO and fictitious man made aliens.

In the end, the whole joke about the fake aliens is found out and at the end of the movie real aliens come and give the village the gift of oil.

Cast

Development

Shirish Kunder had the project in development for several years before finding financial backing and hit films, and had to negotiate for use of the specific title which Kunder stated is important to the script itself. The film is being produced by Farah Khan, Shirish Kunder, and Akshay Kumar under the banner of Three's Company and Hari Om Entertainment. The film was shot in 3D using 3D cameras, however in June 2012, it was announced that the film was no longer in 3D any more, since Ra.One and Don 2 have taken the goals, if Joker flopped it would be a loss on the whole crew, therefore the film will only be released in 2D format. According to director, Shirish Kunder, "It is an underdog story about how individuals make it big in life and in the process, get help from aliens from a fictional planet". Shreyas Talpade will play Akshay's brother in the film. Female lead opposite to Shreyas will be played by Minisha Lamba, who will enact the role of an innocent TV reporter. Sonakshi will also perform an item number in the film. American actor Alexx ONell was also signed to play a role in the film.

Filming

The first schedule of shooting was initially slated to take place in Ludhiana, however the location was changed to Chandigarh. The shooting began on 14 February 2011 in Chandigarh. The crew finished the 19-day schedule on 12 March 2011, finishing 40% of the production work. The second schedule started on 17 May 2011 in Mumbai and concluded in June 2011. The film is now slated to release on 31 August 2012. The theatrical trailer was released on UTV Motion Pictures' YouTube channel on 11 July 2012 only online. Whilst it released worldwide on television on 13 July 2012, and also in cinemas along with Cocktail.

Casting

Shrish Kunder wanted to cast Asin Thottumkal as the female lead but, she was not able to adjust the dates for the film so, producers cast Sonakshi Sinha opposite Akshay Kumar. Shreyas Talpade and Minisha Lamba were later cast in pivotol roles.

Reception

Joker received negative reviews from critics. Based on 16 reviews, review aggregate site desimartini.com gave the film the verdict, "Apart from an interesting concept and a handful of funny moments, Joker is drag and doesn't work as a comedy or as a sci-fi caper. Skip it!" The site's average audience rating is 2/5. Independent Bollywood gave 2.5 out of 5 stars and said "A Funny and weird entertainer with message". Soumyadipta Banerjee of In.com gave 0.5 out of 5 stars and said "Not only that the aliens are weird, the whole movie seems be in some weird planet after a point of time". Saibal Chatterjee of NDTVMovies.com gave the film 1 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Joker is a crude joke of a film that will leave you in tears unless you have a stomach strong enough to digest such unmitigated junk." Noted film critic Taran Adarsh also gave it 1 out of 5 stars and labelled it as a complete "disaster" and a "joke of a film".

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film is composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, nephew of noted composer, A. R. Rahman. The song Jugnu Banke Tu sung by Udit Narayan was highly appreciated among all songs. Udit also received Kalakar Award for best male playback singer for this song The song titled I Want Fakth You from Joker was leaked online on 11 July 2012, along with the theatrical trailer which has been composed by Gaurav Dagaonkar. The song has been acclaimed by the audience, however the song is actually named Kaafirana and will be released under that title worldwide and also on the soundtrack.

All lyrics written by Shirish Kunder.

Audio review

Music Aloud said: "He may or may not have composed the tunes for the controversy-ridden soundtrack of Jaanemann, but when GV Prakash Kumar actually got to do a credited debut in Bollywood, it turned out to be a rather uninventive one" and rated it 5/10. Score Magazine, gave it 2 out of 5 stars stating, "You know something is wrong with an album when the instrumental tracks immensely outshine the vocal tracks. I must mention that each of the songs has a strong underlying melody but gross injustice is done to them by Shirish Kunder's lyrics."

Awards