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on 2007/8/30 22:53:38
Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag is finally rolling out of his factory on Friday and the much awaited shoe trial of Jai as Gabbar or in this case Babban waits to be seen.
Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag is finally rolling out of his factory on Friday and the much awaited shoe trial of Jai as Gabbar or as in this case Babban waits to be seen. Babban’s character sketch reads like an over-enthusiastic formula script describing Babban as Mumbai’s nihilistic new leader ruling the fetid underworld. And what meets the eye on screen is what one expects. Against a green screen, a mooring expression fades in. An enraged image of evil and everything that could be gory resides in Babban’s expression and gear. And even though, the maverick of madness, Ram Gopal Varma pleads on how his Sholay begs to differ from the original, his monster Babban, failed to rise above the quintessential Bollywood villain, the daku.
“But of course he is cruel and looks shabby. He is the dacoit, the destroyer. He is the villain of the movie and he will fall in the end. You don’t have to be a great foreseer to tell that,” Ramu asserts. In an industry where formulistic scripts and eye candy sell, the Bollywood baddie with his larger-than-life histrionics, loud immoral acts of viciousness, a costume drama wardrobe, makeup and hair and of course his resounding fearsome laugh, remains the only constant.
From Amjad Gabbar Khan in Sholay to Amrish Mogambo Puri in Mr India, Sadashiv Amrapurkar’s ruthless eunuch in Sadak, Anupam Kher as Dr. Dang of Karma and Kulbhushan Kharbanda as Shaakaal in Shaan were all larger than life and a perfect foil for the do-gooder hero. And even scripts have gone shorter and cinema grown real, the good old baddies haven’t gone in for an image makeover.
Bollywood bad man Gulshan Grover is proud to be in this league of extraordinary men. “The average Bollywood villain is often uncouth and dresses in fancy clothes. He enjoys complete supremacy from everywhere and walks with his entourage. All this makes that the role for the villain is well-scripted,” Grover says, adding that his best villainous act was of course Kesariya Vilayati, ‘Bad Man’ in Subhash Ghai’s Ram Lakhan.
And though many agree that the Bollywood bad boy has dumbed down with the RGV underworld treatment, many like Ghai, feel that the charisma of the Bollywood baddie never fades but returns every two to three years. “Our villains epitomise fear. Who can forget an Ajit’s Mona Darling in Zanjeer and the very versatile Amrish Puri’s Mogambo or Chuniya in Saudagar. They are the real protagonists of any movie and viewers never get tired of them,” he opines adding, “even after a slump, they’ll be a Naseeruddin Shah doing a Mastana in Bombay Boys and now a Babban in Aag.”
So is it ironical to see a RGV churn out a Babban after a D or an archetypal throwback to the villains of old-over- the-top characters who were pure bad? You decide!
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