Movie critics under fire from Bollywood filmmakers

Coming down heavily on Indian film critics, Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar said reviewers need to understand cinema in depth before assessing them as the onus of drawing audiences to theatres partly lies on them especially in case of small budget and off-beat productions.

"Film reviewers in India use witty language and nasty one-liners while reviewing the film. Before doing so they need to understand the basics of cinema, of filmmaking as there reviews decide the fate of a film," Karan told reporters on the sidelines of FICCI Frames 2010 conference here.

"For small budget films like Dev D, A Wednesday reviews do matter as audiences get influenced and accordingly decide whether to watch a movie or not. While in case of big films the starcast, the budget or the banner itself draws the audience to cinema houses," he said.

"Film reviews commercially do not matter for films that have big budgets and big starcast," Karan said.
     
"The reviews do bother me personally.. but it is just for two weeks or so. I feel the reviews done here in India need to be more honest and creative," he opined.

Director-producer Anurag Kashyap said, "the reviewers in India need to go beyond finding faults or loopholes in screenplay...or things like cinematography was good/bad or the performances of the actors and all... They need to know cinema...and then criticise it.. as it becomes a learning lesson for us."