Mithun Chakroborty has recently been awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in the 2024 National Awards. And it is curious that the actor is having a puja release as the protagonist of a movie after a long time.
‘Shashtri’, the movie, stars actors like Soham, Rajatava Dutta, Saswata Chatterjee, Debasree Roy etc apart from Mithun and tye movie is adapted from the short story of the same name by popular contemporary writer Debarati Mukhopadhyay. The movie had huge anticipation and is getting rave reviews and is lauded by fans as a proper comeback by Mithun.
But there is a problem. Two big budget Bengali titles have also released on the same day and are doing extraordinary business at the box office and both have much better hype than Shashtri. Mithun Chakroborty getting the Dadasaheb Phalke Award is a huge achievement for the actor but it will not work for the movie because it is released during the puja vacation. Had it been released during some other time, the news of the award would have done half the job of promotion and there would have been no competition as well.
It is good news for the Bengali industry that two movies are doing spectacularly well in theaters, but it is also disappointing that Mithun’s movie is not doing that well even if he gets such a huge award on the same day.