One Underwhelming Performance does not make Aamir a lesser star

Thugs of Hindostan is released. Its not a movie review of Thugs of Hindostan as there have been hoards of movie reviews after the release of the movie, social media saw almost everyone becoming a self made movie critic. The movie reviews started pouring in even before the first show of the movie ended. Negativity for this particular movie was something unheard of before in the history of Indian Cinema. There was criticism from the Indian critics, the social media fans of other movie stars. It felt as if everyone was waiting for this man to fail, as if they derived an intoxicating pleasure to see an Aamir Khan movie under perform and as if they were venting out all their frustrations in life on the movie. 



Thugs of Hindostan is a commercial entertainer and for me it delivered what it had promised to be. It had great action scenes, big scale, terrific background score, the intimidating Amitabh Bachchan after a long time showing spark as the Angry young man and of course the ever reliable Aamir Khan who simply jumped into the role of 'Firangi' and made it his own. Of course, it was not the greatest Aamir Khan movie, however commercial movies are only made to entertain. Thugs of Hindostan delivered entertainment. King size Entertainment.

So, what made this movie face so much criticism from all quarters and the Indian critics. Firstly, social media criticism mostly is a paid troll where a section or a group can target anyone with negativity, they just make fake accounts just a few days before they start to target a person or a particular movie, plan a strategy and troll unconditionally. This movie faced it from the rival star fans who amusingly took pleasure in bashing Aamir Khan's movie rather than concentrating on their own star's movie. How can you bash a movie of other star and improve your own favourite star's performance? Secondly, the Indian critics. The great Indian critics. Social media has given rise to a few self proclaimed critics who hardly have a knowledge of Indian cinema or even cinema, however declare themselves as the biggest knowledge banks of cinema. They change their priorities or favourites every Friday as and when they receive freebies from any PR agencies of movie stars. The Indian critics bashed the movie calling it logic-less, devoid of soul, content etc etc. No issues with the critics if they disliked the movie and gave a harsh rating. However, the same critics gave even worse movies than this a better rating and called them as entertainers. How we wish they could have been consistent. When you judge two commercial movies with different parameters just for your personal gains, it really makes us question the credibility of these self proclaimed critics. Another aspect is that people still associate an Aamir Khan movie to be content driven, to have a message, to be ticking all the boxes of humanity, idealism, spirit, emotional content. To see Aamir Khan in a complete commercial entertainer looked odd for them. Aamir Khan had just set too high a standard for himself and here he was not competing with anyone else, he was only competing with himself. 

The foreign media has been much more welcoming of the movie. They understand the efforts that went into the movie making, they understood that making a movie of such big scale is no child's play, they did understand that commercial entertainer is meant to just entertain. Nobody questions the logic in a movie called "Avengers" where everything is possible in the name of "Socio-fantasy" or Sci -Fi Fantasy. Even the response to the movie from countries like Russia where Indian movies are almost alien is welcoming. So, the movie mostly didn't click with the regular audiences in India and the NRI's who see the movie after reading the reviews. But, don't forget that Aamir Khan has huge following in foreign nations even among the people who are not from Indian origin. Example, Turkey, China etc where the film is yet to release and is expected to do well. 

Lastly, one underwhelming performance from Aamir Khan does not make him a lesser star, not even an inch. Tell me any star or sportsman who has not had a bad day. One failed innings of Virat Kohli does not make him a lesser batsman, one bad performance of Rafael Nadal at the grand slam does not put a question mark on his celebrated career. Aamir Khan has single handedly changed the face of Indian cinema and brought a huge respect, credibility to Bollywood, not only in India, but also in countries where Bollywood was hardly known. He has consistently given great cinema, given the most number of classics in the last 30 years of his amazing career. He still has all the box office records such as the highest grossing Indian movie worldwide to the highest grossing Bollywood movie domestically against his name. All the top five Indian movies in IMDB top 250 movies are of Aamir Khan. He achieved unreal success and credibility. Thugs of Hindostan is not a failure for Aamir Khan, it is only a temporary glitch that every great man has faced in his career. He will strike back strongly and continue to give us wonderful movies, amazing performances and memories. 

Even as I conclude this, I would like to state that Thugs of Hindostan is not done yet. The movie is yet to release in China and Turkey. China, as we all know is the biggest movie market now in the world if you consider a single nation. Aamir Khan's cameo performance movie Secret Superstar did astonishing business there and Dangal, well Dangal business is just a dream. I am confident that Thugs of Hindostan too will work in China and Turkey. There would be no self proclaimed critics too, no rival fans to create negativity, there will be only real audience to enjoy and judge the movie. Who knows, by the ends of its China run, the movie might register itself in the list of one of the biggest worldwide grossers from India. If that happens all those who had spread the negativity for the movie would be "Thugged" by Firangi.

With Aamir Khan, you never know. He has always surprised us. What was impossible for others, he turned into a reality. He is still the Biggest movie star in the world. He still continues to rule the hearts.