Mardaani and five other Bollywood films with bad dialogue-baazi

There are many things that work differently on screen than they do in real life. For instance, in onscreen winters, a chiffon sari is protection enough even if you’re standing on snow-covered Alpine peak. Fights result in photogenic bruises that don’t disfigure heroes’ faces and when heroes talk, it’s not conversation but dialogue-baazi. While in Hollywood, the emphasis is to make dialogue as crisp and normal-sounding as possible, in Indian mainstream cinema, there’s no place for realistic chatter.

In the past, Bollywood dialogues were more poetic and lyrical than anyone’s everyday speech. Today, they’re more dramatic, filled with flourish, flair and menace. Sometimes, dialogue writers make onscreen characters immortal with words the writers put in the actors’ mouths. After all, who can forget “Mere paas maa hai!” from Deewar, and Gabbar Singh asking, " Arri O Samba, kitne admi the?" in Sholay?

But often, in an effort to be memorable, dialogue writers coin phrases and conversations that become memorable for all the wrong reasons. A recent example of dialogue-baazi gone wrong is Mardaani. Although the film is yet to release, the trailer is out and we hear Rani Mukerji’s character use the most unusual analogy to explain herself. Like at one point in the trailer we hear her character say, “Chuho ko pakadna ho toh chuha banna padta hai, Kutto ko pakadna ho toh kutta aur sher ka shikar karna ho toh sher.” Now, why she is talking about the entire animal kingdom is difficult to guess from the trailer but we are hoping that the other dialogues from this  film are not equally off the mark. And since we are taking about awful Hindi movie dialogues here are five unforgettably bad dialogues from Bollywood:

1. R… Rajkumar Silent ho ja … varna main violent ho jaonga (Shahid Kapoor)

Most dialogues from Prabhu Deva films are loud and brash and spoken in a pierce-your-eardrum decibel  for maximum impact. This particular dialogue by Shahid Kapoor’s character in R…Rajkumar is no different.  But, while Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and other macho heroes could have made a dialogue like Silent ho ja … varna main violent ho jaonga work with their personas, Kapoor seems like a little kid trying to enact his favourite matinee idol as he delivers this line.

2. Rowdy Rathore

Mai jo bolta hu, wo mai karta hu aur jo nahi bolta..Wo mai definitely karta hu (Akshay Kumar)

Yet another Prabhu Deva film, this whole movie is full of these hammy, senseless lines that do their best to pack a punch, but instead leave you nonplussed. For instance, what the hell does “Apun ka phatka, 440 ka jhatka” mean? Why would someone fart at the sound of a name (“Naam sunte hi pichwade mein bhukamp aa gaya na?”) and even if they do, why is this the topic of conversation? Then there was the “Don’t angry me”, which showcased the way we are transforming English here in India.

3. Singh Saheb The Great

Sardar jab dushman ko pakad leta hai na toh uski hadiyan tad tadane lagti hai….Tad Tad Tad Tad Tad Tad Tad Tad Tad Tad Tad Tad… (Suuny Deol)

While no Sunny Deol film is ever complete without an outrageous sardar dialogue or joke, this one is perhaps the funniest of them all (although unintentionally). As we see Deol’s character catch hold of a baddy and begin to threaten him with this dialogue, everytime he says ’tad-tad-tad-tad…’ we actually hear the bad guy’s rib break into pieces. If you haven’t watched it yet, click here.

4. Dabanng

Hum tum mein itne ched karenge … ki confuse ho jaoge ki saans kahan se le … aur paadein kahan se (Salman Khan)

Gross as this Salman Khan dialogue sounds, it was a win with audiences, many of whom threw coins at the screen in Mumbai theatres. Khan, like Sunny Deol, is an old hand at dishing out corny dialogues with intense melodrama. In Dabanng, this was used to great comic effect in most parts of the film. This one, however, we could have done without.

5. Shootout at Wadala

Police ki goli mein itna loha hai ki ek baar thok di toh khoon mein kabhi iron ki kami nahi hogi  (Anil Kapoor)

While the writer pretty much equates iron capsules with bullets but that isn’t the only absurd dialogue in the film Shootout At Wadala. Here are some other dialogues from the film that will make you really happy if you skipped watching it:

“Meri bandook se nikli har goli pehle mujhe salaam thokti hai … aur phir mere nishaane ko”

“Itna maroonga ki dard ko bhi samajh nahi aayega ki kaunse zakhm se bahar nikloon.”