Why Yuvvraaj did not storm bollywood films.
Yuvvraaj had been one of the big-budget films of 2008, directed by Subhash Ghai which did not storm bollywood films like Ghajini, or Singh is Kinng, or Race or Jodha Akbar. If the film is analyzed the reason for the mediocre business can be found.
Firstly the film had been too long. Subhash Ghai had created a legacy for making long films continuing for more than 3 hours, but most of the successful ones like Karma or Karz, or Khalnayak, had series of events to entertain the viewers. It did not happen in the case of Yuvvraaj. The locations of Austria, South Africa, UK amused the viewers but the message of unification with family bond was not strong enough to make the viewers enchanted.
The attitude of Salman Khan and Zaid Khan in duping Anil Kapoor to get half share of the property of their father was also not convincing. In Mithun Chakravarty, the solicitor in the film read out the will of the father of Anil Kapoor, everyone came to know that the entire property was gifted to Anil Kapoor, and others were given just 5 crore rupees each. Salman Khan required the property only to satisfy Boman Irani, the father of Katrina Kaif who created a condition to get his daughter married to Salman Khan only if he was a billionaire.
Salman Khan had no genuine cause of hatred against Anil Kapoor, so the plan for getting the entire property with Zaid Khan was not convincing at all. Zaid Khan tried to show his hatred against Anil Kapoor for not co-operating with him in proving the mental imbalance of his father at the time of creation of the will. But that too was not that impressive.
Anil Kapoor at times looked intelligent, at other times looked childish. His lips in the respective songs were of very high standard. The performance of Katrina Kaif and Salman Khan in respect of being sympathetic towards Anil Kapoor touched the hearts of the audience.
The biggest asset of the film was melodious music of AR Rehman, which was perhaps the best creation of 2008, considering the quality of music of Jodha Akbar, Jane Tu Ya Jane Na, Ghajini, etc. But the viewers these days cannot devote three hours in cinema halls only to listen to melodious music.
There was no action or comedy to breakdown the boredom created in the film which stretched for such a long period of time. Subhash Ghai has to learn lessons from Samir Karnik, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Abbas Mastan and other modern directors in understanding the pulse of the viewers, otherwise the huge effort in bringing forth social messages relating to unification of family members and enhancement of family ties will fall flat. Both the films Yadein with Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor and Yuvvraaj are examples of projects which had promise but could not blossom into trend-setting family dramas.
