This Friday, it’s the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi versus former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in the movie theatres. While Omung Kumar’s PM Narendra Modi is already embroiled in multiple controversies, the Lal Bahadur Shastri film The Tashkent Files directed by Vivek Agnihotri would prove to be no less contentious as it sheds light on Shastri’s mysterious death in Tashkent. Trade experts have different opinions of the film’s success.
Atul Mohan, says, “I doubt either film will interest audiences… Too much of politics already everywhere — TV, radio, newspaper, social media, day-to-day conversation, etc. People are bored already and why would they torture themselves further and that too after paying? Just hope that I am proved wrong and both films work.”
Trade analyst Girish feels one of the two films has a definite edge. “If the Modi biopic releases then the chances of the Vivek Oberoi starrer will have a higher chance to surge ahead of The Tashkent Files. PM Modi film is being planned as a wide mass entertainer release while The Tashkent Files is being planned as a niche, limited and urban release only.”
Agnihotri finds himself in a legal soup
It seems that the last-minute legal hurdles ahead of the film releases have become a new norm, even from supposedly sensible quarters. Director Vivek Agnihotri, whose film The Tashkent Files sheds light on the mysterious death of the former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, finds himself in a legal soup and that too from Lal Bahadur’s Shastri’s grandsons Vibhakar and Diwakar Shastri.
