Joker (2012 film)

2012 film by Shirish Kunder

Joker

Directed by| Shirish Kunder
Written by| Shirish Kunder
Produced by|

* Farah Khan
* Cape of Good Films

Starring|

* Akshay Kumar
* Sonakshi Sinha
* Minissha Lamba
* Shreyas Talpade

Cinematography| Sudeep Chatterjee
Edited by| Shirish Kunder
Music by|

* Songs:
* G. V. Prakash Kumar
* Guest Composer:
* Gaurav Dagaonkar
* Score:
* Shirish Kunder

Production
companies

* Hari Om Entertainment
* Three's Company Productions

Distributed by| UTV Motion Pictures

Release date

* 31 August 2012 (2012-08-31)[1]

Running time

| 103 minutes[2]
Country| India
Language| Hindi
Budget| ₹47 crore
Box office| est. ₹35.87 crore[3][4]

Joker is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language science fiction comedy film directed by Shirish Kunder and also his second directorial venture after Jaan-E-Mann.[5] The film stars Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha. The film released worldwide on 31 August 2012, and received negative response upon release. The film was declared a "Disaster" at box office.[1][6][7]

## Plot

[edit]

Agastya "Sattu" is a scientist, working on the development of a communication system to communicate with aliens. But Agastya loses the faith of his seniors and is allotted a deadline of one month to conclude his project with some substantial results.

In the meantime, Agastya is informed by his girlfriend Diva about his father's illness. On hearing this, they both reach his native village, Paglapur, whose colourful inhabitants include his brother, who speaks gibberish, a kid who thinks he is a lamppost, and everyone else who think that World War II is still going on and fears the Germans.

Soon after reaching there, Agastya finds that he was called on a false pretext of illness by his father. They called Agastya, so he could make the village a better place and connect it with the outer world.

Upon learning the truth, Agastya decides to move back to the US; however, after hearing the plight of the inhabitants of Paglapur, who are ignored by the government because the village is absent from the demarcated map of India, he decides to come up with a solution for the problem.

As the story proceeds, Agastya comes up with a quaint idea pertaining to the crop circle and the arrival of aliens in his village to garner recognition for his otherwise isolated village undergoing a plight of neglect ever since independence.

With frames moving ahead, Agastya along with other villagers creates a crop circle in Paglapur and spreads rumors about the arrival of aliens in the village. And from there, amid tremendous media hype, takes over some hilarious sequences knitted around UFOs and fictitious man-made aliens.

In the end, the whole joke about the fake aliens is found out, and at the end of the movie, real aliens come and give the village the gift of oil.

## Cast

[edit]

* Akshay Kumar as Agastya "Sattu" / Rajkumar (Joker)
* Sonakshi Sinha as Diva
* Shreyas Talpade as Babban
* Minissha Lamba as Aanya
* Gurpreet Ghuggi as Bobby
* Darshan Jariwala as Baba (Agastya's father)
* Asrani as Guruji
* Sanjay Mishra as Rajaji
* Vindu Dara Singh as Sundi
* Pitobash as Kachua
* Alexx ONell as Simon[8]
* Chitrangda Singh as a village dancer in the item song "Kafirana"
* Farah Khan in a Guest Appearance
* Vrajesh Hirjee as villager
* Aarya Babbar as Majnu Tangewala (cameo)[9]
* Kanchan Pagare as Uttam Pradesh Minister PA

## Production

[edit]

### Development

[edit]

Shirish Kunder had the project in development for several years before finding financial backing and hit films, and had to negotiate for use of the specific title which Kunder stated is important to the script itself.[10] The film is being produced by Farah Khan, Shirish Kunder, and Akshay Kumar under the banner of Three's Company and Hari Om Entertainment.[11] The film was shot in 3D using 3D cameras, however in June 2012, it was announced that the film was no longer in 3D any more, since Ra.One and Don 2 have taken the goals, if Joker flopped it would be a loss on the whole crew, therefore the film will only be released in 2D format.[5] According to director, Shirish Kunder, "It is an underdog story about how individuals make it big in life and in the process, get help from aliens from a fictional planet".[12] Shreyas Talpade will play Akshay's brother in the film.[13] Female lead opposite to Shreyas will be played by Minisha Lamba,[14] who will enact the role of an innocent TV reporter.[15] Sonakshi will also perform an item number in the film.[11] American actor Alexx ONell was also signed to play a role in the film.[8]

### Filming

[edit]

The first schedule of shooting was initially slated to take place in Ludhiana, however the location was changed to Chandigarh.[16] The shooting began on 14 February 2011 in Chandigarh.[17][18][19] The crew finished the 19-day schedule on 12 March 2011, finishing 40% of the production work.[20] The second schedule started on 17 May 2011 in Mumbai[17] and concluded in June 2011.[21]

### Casting

[edit]

Shrish Kunder wanted to cast Asin Thottumkal as the female lead but, she was not able to adjust the dates for the film so, producers cast Sonakshi Sinha opposite Akshay Kumar. Shreyas Talpade and Minissha Lamba were later cast in pivotal roles.

## Reception

[edit]

Joker received negative reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 0% of 6 critics' reviews are positive.[22]. Soumyadipta Banerjee of In.com gave 0.5 out of 5 stars and said "Not only that the aliens are weird, the whole movie seems be in some weird planet after a point of time".[23] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTVMovies.com gave the film 1 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Joker is a crude joke of a film that will leave you in tears unless you have a stomach strong enough to digest such unmitigated junk."[24] Film critic Taran Adarsh also gave it 1 out of 5 stars and labelled it as a complete "disaster" and a "joke of a film".[25]

## Music

[edit]

Joker

Soundtrack album by

G. V. Prakash Kumar

Released| 27 July 2012 (2012-07-27)
Recorded| 2011
Genre| Film soundtrack
Language| Hindi
Label| Sony Music India
Producer| G. V. Prakash Kumar
G. V. Prakash Kumar chronology
| Saguni
(2012)  | Joker
(2012)  | Thaandavam
(2012)

|
|

All songs featured in the film except one, are composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, in his Hindi film composing debut. The song Jugnu Banke Tu sung by Udit Narayan was highly appreciated among all songs. [26]

All lyrics are written by Shirish Kunder.

Track listNo.| Title| Singer(s)| Length

|
|
|

1.| "Kafirana" (Composed by Gaurav Dagaonkar)| Sunidhi Chauhan, Adarsh Shinde| 5:00
2.| "Jugnu"| Udit Narayan, Kavita Krishnamurthy| 4:10
3.| "Sing Raja"| Silk Route| 3:50
4.| "Yeh Joker"| Sonu Nigam| 4:40
5.| "Tears of Joker"| Instrumental| 3:20
6.| "Alien Arrival"| Instrumental| 2:48

### Audio review

[edit]

Music Aloud said: "He may or may not have composed the tunes for the controversy-ridden soundtrack of Jaanemann, but when GV Prakash Kumar actually got to do a credited debut in Bollywood, it turned out to be a rather uninventive one" and rated it 5/10.[27] Score Magazine, gave it 2 out of 5 stars stating, "You know something is wrong with an album when the instrumental tracks immensely outshine the vocal tracks. I must mention that each of the songs has a strong underlying melody but gross injustice is done to them by Shirish Kunder's lyrics."[28]

## Accolades

[edit]

Award  | Category  | Recipient  | Result  | Notes

|
|
|
|

Golden Kela Awards | Worst Actress | Sonakshi Sinha | Won  | Also for Rowdy Rathore, Dabangg 2 and Son of Sardaar
Golden Kela Awards | Worst Film | Shirish Kunder | Won  |

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b "Joker release date confirmed, to arrive on 14th September, 2012". 29 October 2011. Bollywood Hungama. Archived from the original on 22 January 2011. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
2. ^ "Joker (PG)". British Board of Film Classification. Archived from the original on 21 December 2014. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
3. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 11 September 2012. Retrieved 8 September 2012.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
4. ^ "Joker Second Day Business". bosofficeindia.com. 2 September 2012. Archived from the original on 29 December 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
5. ^ a b "Akshay's 'Joker' will be first full-fledged 3D film". The Indian Express. 27 October 2010. Archived from the original on 31 October 2010. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
6. ^ "'Joker' trailer to release with 'Cocktail'". mid-day.com. 9 July 2012. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
7. ^ "Akki's back in the game". Deccan Chronicle. 19 September 2012. Archived from the original on 22 September 2012. Retrieved 19 September 2012.
8. ^ a b "Alexx O'Nell in Shirish Kunder's 'Joker'". The Times of India. Indo-Asian News Service. 12 April 2011. Retrieved 20 April 2011.
9. ^ "Meet JOKER's 'Majnu Tangewala'!". Yahoo! News. 28 January 2012. Archived from the original on 7 October 2016. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
10. ^ "Akshay Kumar in Shirish Kunder's Joker". Sawf News. 15 August 2010. Archived from the original on 18 August 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2011.
11. ^ a b "Sonakshi To Do Item Number in Joker". NDTV. Press Trust of India. 10 February 2011. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
12. ^ "I don't get Farah's cinema: Shirish Kunder". 17 March 2011. Archived from the original on 20 March 2011. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
13. ^ "Shreyas to play Akshay's brother in 'Joker'". CNN-IBN. Indo-Asian News Service. 10 January 2011. Archived from the original on 17 January 2011. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
14. ^ Tuteja, Joginder (2 February 2011). "Minissha Lamba joins Joker". Bollywood Hungama. Archived from the original on 22 January 2011. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
15. ^ "Minissha to play innocent TV reporter in Joker". 21 March 2011. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
16. ^ "Shirish to begin shooting for Joker in Chandigarh". IBN Live. Press Trust of India. 31 January 2011. Archived from the original on 15 October 2012. Retrieved 20 April 2011.
17. ^ a b "Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha's Joker Second Schedule Starts in May". Sawf News. Archived from the original on 13 May 2011. Retrieved 20 April 2011.
18. ^ "Shirish Kunder to begin shooting Joker from 12 February". Business of Cinema. 11 January 2011. Archived from the original on 24 March 2012. Retrieved 20 April 2011.
19. ^ "Are you ready for this Joker?". Rediff. 2 February 2011. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
20. ^ Singh, Manisha Pradhan (15 March 2011). "Akshay Kumar & Sonakshi Sinha starrer Joker 40% complete". Business of Cinema. Archived from the original on 16 March 2011. Retrieved 20 April 2011.
21. ^ Aikara, Anita (10 June 2011). "Star Diary". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 18 April 2024. Retrieved 19 July 2011.
22. ^ "Joker". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media.
23. ^ "Joker is just weird!". In.com. Archived from the original on 1 September 2012. Retrieved 14 September 2012.
24. ^ "Saibal Chatterjee's review of Joker". NDTVMovies.com. Archived from the original on 2 September 2012. Retrieved 1 September 2012.
25. ^ Adarsh, Taran. "Joker (2012) Hindi Movie Critic Review". Bollywood Hungama. Archived from the original on 26 April 2012.
26. ^ "WATCH: Akshay Kumar in Jugnu from Joker". Archived from the original on 12 March 2014.
27. ^ "Joker – Music Review". Music Aloud. 31 July 2012. Archived from the original on 6 August 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
28. ^ "Music Review :: Joker - Highonscore". Highonscore.com. Archived from the original on 3 October 2022. Retrieved 17 November 2021.

## External links

[edit]

* Official website
* Joker at IMDb
* Joker at Bollywood Hungama (archived)

* v
* t
* e

Akshay Kumar

Producer|

* Breakaway (2011)
* Joker (2012)
* OMG – Oh My God! (2012)
* Bhaji in Problem (2013)
* 72 Miles (2013)
* Antar (2014)
* The Shaukeens (2014)
* Singh Is Bliing (2015)
* Airlift (2016)
* Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (2017)

Related articles|

* Awards
* Filmography
* Cape of Good Films
* Grazing Goat Pictures

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