What happened to 1971 Beyond Borders at Box Office?

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1971 Beyond Borders to end up as disaster at Box Office. The Mohanlal starrer 1971 Beyond Borders  directed by Major Ravi is a 20+ Cr budget movie produced by Haneef Mohammed. This is Major Ravi’s 5th movie with army-war background.

 “1971 Beyond Borders” is the Mohanlal movie after three consecutive Block Busters. Then why is “1971 Beyond Borders” opened with low business at Kerala box office? Advance booking was dull. Even with high level marketing tactics the expectation within audience for the movie was too low. On the First Day it grossed only 1.85 Cr from Kerala which is unexpectedly low for a Mohanlal movie. We saw huge drop on 2nd day after the -ve public opinion. The film is disaster at Ernakulam mutiplexes as well. “1971 Beyond Borders” collected a low 1.84 Lakhs with 19.84% occupancy on the 4th day of its release from Ernakulam MultiPlexes. What worked against “1971 Beyond Borders”?

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Major Ravi’s image did worked against the film more than the film itself. His movies does have a negative label for having clichés and ‘nothing new’ melo drama mixed with war sequences. Note: Those sequences in “Mission 90 Days” which shows the family portion falls flat while the rest of the film is so good. His movie with Prithviraj, Picket 43, which avoided family drama did good business. The movie was engaging and well made. The family/romantic sequences in all his movie failed to impress audience. How curious is Kerala audience about a movie dealing with situations outside Kerala unless otherwise it is a comedy movie? Last year, Mammootty gave one of the biggest disasters of all time, “White”. Few years back, Joshy’s “Dubai” had the same fate. Anyway it is not the situation always. Mahesh Narayanan’s “Take Off”,  about a young woman’s struggle in midst of the ongoing civil war in Iraq, is doing good business. “Take Off” did able to make good impression right from its casting that includes Fahad Fazil and Parvathi Menon and then the trailer. The film opened with highly positive reviews from critics and audience.

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What else worked against “1971 Beyond Borders” other than Major Ravi’s image? If the opening was effected with his image, the second day was effected directly from his ‘direction’. It opened, as expected, with hugely negative reviews for its poor ‘outside the war’ sequences and the clichés. Anything positive came from the war sequences alone. It’s already too late for Major Ravi to change the gear. He must know his weaknesses.

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Even the directors like Shaji Khailas who avoided family drama and even songs while doing Action/Thriller movies with Mammootty and Suresh Gopi (The King, Commissioner, Tiger and many more), did add ‘family portions’ and ‘songs’ while doing movies with Mohanlal (Baba Kalyani, Narasimham, Naattu Raajavu). May be the same logic is what might be with Major Ravi. The ‘mass’ intro scene of Mammootty in “Mission 90 Days” is the only awkward moment in the otherwise ‘perfect’ thriller based on a real life story. Major Ravi’s best might be his first two films (Keerthi Chakra and Mission 90 Days) but his “Picket 43” is the best made film.

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We recommend: “Keerthi Chakra”, “Mission 90 Days” and “Picket 43” as his must watch movies.

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