Road movies seem to be the order of the day in Bollywood

From time immemorial, the West has had a lot of influence on Indians. Ditto with films, which have been borrowing stories and concepts from Hollywood since long. The latest to have caught Bollywood’s fancy is road-trip movies. While they can be a lot of fun and are one of those genres in which you almost always get it right,  some films have not fared well at the box office.

The seeds were sown in Farhan Akhtar’s directorial debut Dil Chahta Hai which dealt with three friends.  While portions of the film saw the lead protagonist taking off on a road trip top Goa, you cannot exactly term the film as a road trip movie though it paved the way for more to follow.

Thereafter several filmmakers attempted to make films on similar lines and one film that recently stood out was Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met with Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor. Road-trip-meets-romance in Imtiaz’s film saw Kareena play the animated Geet who teaches Aditya (Shahid Kapoor) to live as they travel from Bathinda to Manali to Shimla.

“I wanted to make a road movie about the Indian landscape which has a very raw, powerful and naked beauty to it,” Filmmaker Dev Benegal, who made Road, Movie in 2009 had earlier said.

Thereafter, Lara Dutta turned producer with Chalo Dilli, a road movie about the protagonists who take on a bizarre journey through air, road and rail from Mumbai to Delhi, via Jaipur.

A veteran producer explaining the logic behind making road movies says, “These are the kind of films that are very popular in the West, the latest one being The Hangover, which was a huge success. Also ensemble cast films are the order of the day and if you rope in the biggest stars, you have a great commercially viable product.”

Director Zoya Akhtar is currently awaiting the release of her next film, starring her brother Farhan along with Hrithik Roshan, Abhay Deol and Katrina Kaif. While the film is about a road trip and the journey of three friends, it is also a slice of life film.

Actor Jaccky Bhagnani, who is a fan of this genre says, “I don’t think there is a trend of road movies. Whatever film becomes successful then a lot of films on those lines are made. Road trips are the tried and tested formula and they are always fun, full of humour and drama so it is always a safe bet to go with.”