Star parade

Bigger-than-ever budgets and grand canvases have made multi-starrers the in-thing for Hindi cinema, writes Vikramdeep Johal

The more the merrier—this seems to have become the casting credo of Bollywood’s big banners. Of the 12 principal actors in Nikhil Advani’s Salaam-e-Ishq, only one is an unknown, South African lass Shannon Esra (the gori mem paired with Govinda). The rest are all stars, veterans as well as relative newcomers, perfectly capable of forming a celebrity cricket team for a charity match.

If you think this cast is just too much, get ready for Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Eklavya: The Royal Guard. It features, hold your breath, Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Jackie Shroff, Jimmy Shergill, Vidya Balan, Raima Sen, Raj Babbar and Sharmila Tagore.

It’s quite a challenge for a director to bring out the best in several celebrated actors and ensure that none of them gets a raw deal. Hema Malini was shocked to see how abbreviated her role had become in Ravi Chopra’s Baabul. Moreover, no star should appear miscast or redundant (Sohail Khan and Isha Koppikar are the odd pair out in Salaam-e-Ishq). At times, starry tantrums and ego clashes can do untold damage to a film. On the other hand, if everything falls into place, the results are simply wonderful.

A movie with at least five stars in prominent roles — excluding the character actors, whether they like it or not — can be called a multi-starrer. Yash Chopra’s Waqt (1965), produced by his brother B.R. Chopra, was arguably the first of this kind in Hindi cinema. The quintessential lost-and-found drama had Balraj Sahni, Sunil Dutt, Raaj Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore and Sadhana.

Raj Kapoor’s piece de resistance Mera Naam Joker (1970) was also a star-studded affair. The "multi mania" reached a crescendo during the second half of the turbulent seventies. Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay and Shaan, Yash Chopra’s Kabhi Kabhie, Trishul and Kala Paththar, and Manmohan Desai’s Amar Akbar Anthony were in this mould, their common link being the one and only Amitabh Bachchan. Not to be left behind, Raj Kumar Kohli came up with Nagin and Jaani Dushman, while Manoj "Bharat" Kumar jumped on the bandwagon with his patriotic magnum opus Kranti. Krishna Shah went a step ahead, assembling an international cast for Shalimar— Dharmendra, Zeenat Aman, Shammi Kapoor, Rex Harrison, John Saxon and Sylvia Miles.

The trend waned in the 1980s as teeny-bopper love stories came in vogue. Several successful films of this decade were of the boy-meets-girl kind, having cute "freshers" in lead roles (Betaab, Love Story, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak). Among the few star parades that clicked were Subhash Ghai’s Karma and Rajeev Rai’s Tridev. With Amitabh mostly preferring to go solo in those days, doing double or even triple roles, there was not much scope for multi-starrers.

The 1990s, too, did not bring many bonanzas. The biggest blockbusters of this period — Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge —rode on the appeal of just one star couple each (Salman Khan-Madhuri Dixit and Shah Rukh Khan-Kajol, respectively). Subhash Ghai’s Trimurti was a disaster, but J.P. Dutta’s Border (1997) and David Dhawan’s Biwi No. 1 (1999) showed that some tried-and-tested cooks could together dish out a delicious broth.

The current decade has been a throwback to the 1970s in the casting department. Big B’s grand comeback as a superstar has played a major role in the trend’s return. No wonder he has appeared in a number of "super cast" movies in recent years, be it Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Khakee or Ram Gopal Varma’s Factory production Darna Zaroori Hai.

Virtually every genre has been bitten by this bug — comedy (No Entry), family drama (K3G), thriller (Dhoom and Dhoom:2), war (LoC) and horror (Darna Mana Hai).

With top stars having no hassles about doing supporting roles, distinguished character actors like Paresh Rawal and Om Puri are finding it hard to get meaty parts. Well, for better or worse, nothing succeeds like excess in Bollywood. As multi-starrers are the order of the day, it would be great if a film-maker manages to bring together the four big Khans — Aamir, Shah Rukh, Salman and Saif. Now that would be one hell of a casting coup.

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