Why is Tiger Zinda Hai and Salman Khan given a royal ignore at the 63rd Jio Filmfare Awards 2018?

Since many decades, the terms ‘commercial’ and ‘critically acclaimed’ have been used to denote two different kinds of films. The films that come under the latter category usually sweep all the awards. The commercially successful films meanwhile take away all the rewards! Mostly, they get shunned by the award ceremonies. But there have been times when commercially successful films have got critical acclaim and hence, have won awards. And rightly so! Last year’s Dangal won 4 awards at the 62nd Jio Filmfare Awards 2017. Even Dabangg managed to win the Best Film at the Filmfare. And the reason I am specifically taking the instance of Filmfare Awards is because it is considered to be the biggest of all the award ceremonies.

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But this time, the Filmfare Awards nominations have turned out to be a disappointment. For the biggest grosser of the year, Tiger Zinda Hai, has been royally ignored. Starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, this Ali Abbas Zafar directed film is all set to cross the Rs. 330 crore mark. One can argue that it earned so much as it released during the holiday period. But the film is doing great even after the Christmas and New Year season was long over. This shows that the audiences have loved the film thoroughly. The performance of Salman Khan was splendid and even Katrina Kaif has got the most positive response in a long time. Ali Abbas Zafar handled the film brilliantly. Even the supporting actors were great, with Paresh Rawal arguably delivering one of the best performances of the year. Music was another highlight of this film. Tiger Zinda Hai boasted of one of the best music album of the year. ‘Swag Se Swagat’ is the party anthem of 2017 and ‘Dil Diya Gallan’ won hearts all over. Atif Aslam sung it like a dream. Shockingly, none of these aspects even secured a nomination! For the category of production design, four technicians have been nominated – Anita Rajgopalan Lata, Donal Raegan Gracy for Raees, Parul Sondh for Daddy, Siddharth Sirohi for A Death In The Gunj and Subrata Chakraborty and Amit Ray for Rangoon. Rajnish Hedao, Snigdha Basu and Sumit Basu could have been easily nominated in this category for their work was also quite impressive. The only category where Tiger Zinda Hai secured a nomination was in the action category.

It’s disheartening to see that even today, blockbuster grossers don’t get the respect that they fully deserve. Tiger Zinda Hai was a fine piece of cinema in all aspects and the way it has got sidelined is really shocking and unjustified!