While plenty of the Hindi films that I reviewed in 2022 could be described as bland but inoffensive, there were still enough stinkers to warrant making a list of the biggest duds. Without further ado, here are my eight Worst Bollywood Movies of 2022.
Ram Setu makes the cut as an example of what happens to a potentially good film when you target it for the lowest common denominator. There’s lots of evidence that writer-director Abhishek Sharma knows what a better version of his Akshay Kumar adventure flick would have looked like, but Sharma takes the easy way out to avoid hassle.
Plan A Plan B and Cobalt Blue both suffer from awkward dialogue delivered poorly. The juvenile sex jokes of Plan A Plan B sound like they were from the screenplay’s first draft, while Cobalt Blue‘s characters speak as though they are reading lines from the novel from which the film was adapted.
I’m a little conflicted about putting Heropanti 2 on this list because it is 100% the most fun Hindi film of last year, but it’s also a complete mess. The plot makes no sense and neither do the characters, yet it’s a raucous and silly good time. I’ve re-watched the scene where Tara Sutaria shatters a mostly full bottle of Champagne by tossing it onto the ground rather than setting it on a table like a normal person god knows how many times.
Govinda Naam Mera is what happens when twists and attempts at audience misdirection go out of control, resulting in a muddled story populated by inscrutable characters.
The dingy thriller Cuttputlli winds up on the list for fetishizing violence against women and for being hypocritical about police brutality, which is only bad until the hero of the story wants revenge on a suspect. Then it’s okay. Also, 54-year-old Akshay Kumar plays a character who’s supposed to be 36.
Double XL is easily the biggest disappointment on the list (no pun intended). I had high hopes for this comedy starring Huma Qureshi and Sonakshi Sinha as a pair of women who overcome weight prejudice to pursue their dreams, but the screenplay feels like a rough draft that offers little insight about an important subject.
By the time the credits rolled on the final film on this list, I knew it was going to be my worst movie of the year. I had trouble imagining any other film that could come from such a morally corrupt place, and thankfully I was correct. My Worst Bollywood Movie of 2022 is Hurdang.
Hurdang stars Sunny Kaushal as a violent, privileged cheater whom the film positions as a poster-child victim of an affirmative action policy that seeks to redress caste discrimination. The movie contends that because some students might have to alter their paths to stable, desirable middle-class government jobs, it’s better to perpetuate a discriminatory system. In Hurdang, there’s no contradiction between the meritocracy that the film contends exists and a hero who steals exam answers. It’s a garbage movie that’s truly the worst of the worst of 2022.
Kathy’s Worst Bollywood Movies of 2022
- Hurdang – stream on Netflix
- Double XL – stream on Netflix
- Cuttputlli – stream on Hulu
- Govinda Naam Mera – stream on Hulu
- Heropanti 2 – stream on Amazon Prime
- Cobalt Blue – stream on Netflix
- Plan A Plan B – stream on Netflix
- Ram Setu – stream on Amazon Prime
Previous Worst Movies Lists
- Best and Worst Bollywood Movies of 2021
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2020
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2019
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2018
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2017
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2016
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2015
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2014
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2013
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2012
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2011
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2010
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2009
- Worst Bollywood Movies of 2008
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