Villainwise

M L Dhawan on the actors who have made a mark with negative roles

While doing negative roles, actors find a greater scope to show their histrionic prowess. Ashok Kumar was the first to explore a negative role in Bombay Talkies’ Kismat (1943). Later, Dev Anand articulated a different take on the hero with a series of films in the 1950s that cast him in shades of grey. In their films, both Ashok Kumar and Dev Anand had a morally acceptable justification for them. But Shah Rukh Khan changed all this in Baazigar and Darr. In Baazigar, he murders without remorse. In Darr, as a maniacal psychopath, he reduces the life of Kiran (Juhi Chawla) to a nightmare. With these films, Shah Rukh Khan set the trend of heroes doing negative roles.

Shahid Kapoor begins his journey into the world of crime for the first time in Vishal Bharadwaj’s Kaminey. As the blackguard extraordinaire, he stumps us with his cool, almost chilling devilry. He zooms up the ladder of stardom with his first negative role. He does everything that he should not do but comes out clean with his foray into devilry.

As a terrorist in Fanaa, Aamir Khan brought out the tragedy of his seesaw life of happiness and sorrow and ugliness and beauty. As the audacious guide (his cover for his nefarious activities) with a gift of the gab, he was superb.

In Being Cyrus, Saif Ali Khan targets a dysfunctional family and plays a Machiavellian game to destroy them and siphon off their huge assets. In Ek Haseena Thi, he was Urmila Matondkar’s boyfriend and turned out to be anything but that. As Langra Tyagi in Omkara (2006), he was considered first among the elite evildoers.

In Yuva (2004), Abhishek Bachchan shone as an utterly despicable cad who treated his wife like dirt — except when it suited him— and was too fist happy to be fit to live in the world of the civilised. Akshay Kumar in Ajnabee (2001) was an amoral scoundrel. The sheer absence of humanity in him made him stand out in the ‘Rogues Gallery ‘of Hindi cinema. In Humraaz (2002), Akshaye Khanna’s greed amounts to lust for pelf and he followed no principles in his mission of millions.

The gritty unflinching depiction of Mumbai underworld don Bhikhu Mhatre catapulted Manoj Bajpai to stardom in Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya (1998). Bajpai came up with a performance of such energy that it overshadowed everything else in the film.

In Khalnayak, Sanjay Dutt excelled as criminal Ballu Balram. When he escapes from the prison, Jackie Shroff, who plays a cop, sends Ganga (Madhuri Dixit) to infiltrate Ballu’s gang by masquerading as a dancing girl.

With his demented smile, edgy voice, sinister eyes, Dilip Kumar created a chilling persona of an evil zamindar (Jagan Nath) in Umesh Mehra’s Qila (1998). Modelled on smuggler Haji Mastan, Amitabh Bachchan in Deewar(1975) played a vengeful son of an honest man. From there, it is a one-way journey to hell.

Perhaps among the pithiest, menacing villains comes the name of Nana Patekar as Anna in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’a Parinda (1989). He shook the audience with a histrionic prowess not seen since Gabbar Singh of Sholay. Here was a man who stopped at nothing to achieve his ends and depicted a ruthlessness and brutality that shook one to the core.

Rajesh Khanna’s Sacha Jhotha (1970) came at a time when the roles of heroes and villains were strictly compartmentalised.

The original bad boy of Hindi cinema — Sunil Dutt — led the rooster of stars who achieved stardom with black deeds before Shah Rukh Khan and others entered the fray. His role as Birju in Mehboob Khan’s Mother India (1957) has gone down in the history among stardom’s most powerful portrayal of villainy.

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