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Return of the baddie Villains are back in form this season. Wicked, whimsical and wacky, Kancha Cheena, Rauf Lala, Gani Bhai and Jaykant Shikre have certainly captured the boxoffice with their vile antics, says Deepa Karmalkar
"Kancha Cheena doesn’t age, doesn’t fade, and he only hurts everyone ceaselessly. Notwithstanding his loud get-up — the earring and the black silk dhoti-kurta, for me the subtle and ingrained villainy of Rauf Lala worked far better. Kancha Cheena is so contrived; whereas Rauf Lala is effortlessly vicious. A spectacular performance by Rishi Kapoor," asserts Bhawana Somayaa, noted film critic and star biographer. While Rauf Ahmed, senior film journalist finds the casting of Rishi Kapoor "exciting", he feels Sanjay Dutt can carry off negative role with a becoming panache." Remember Khalnayak and Sadak? Sanjay’s personality suits these roles," he counters. The point is debatable and that the two villains of the film have become the talking point signifies triumph of the baddies.
Trade analysts, however, cite an entirely different explanation for the reappearance of villains, "For the past few years, filmmakers concentrated on making the so-called modern and multiplex cinema, which totally discounted action films. So the villain just faded out of focus. However, the return of action films also brought back the baddies. Prakash Raj’s wrathfully witty villain Gani Bhai in Wanted, set the ball rolling. His corrupt local politico act as Jaykant Shikre in Singham sent his star billing soaring. And now Kancha and Rauf Lala in Agneepath," trade magazine editor N. P. Yadav points out. Starting off with mythological villains like Raavan, Duryodhana, historical villains like Aurangzeb and the British colonists, the villain underwent many changes over the decades. "First, he was a deadly dacoit, then the manipulating muneem, shady smuggler, evil don, domineering patriarch, sex, money, circumstances, terrorist," enumerates Somayaa. The 1980s witnessed the rise of the angry young man, who was anti-establishment and taking up cudgels for the down-trodden. "Amitabh Bachchan’s Zanjeer unleashed a wave of action films which brought about the greatest negative characters on screen — the legendary Gabbar and the iconic Mogambo. The powerful villain lent the hero larger-than-life aura," explains Rauf.
At the height of popularity of the action genre, film distributors often ended up making "tiger or Shetty fights" mandatory in any of Dharmendra’s high action dramas, "That was to emphasise Dharmendra’s manliness and heroism," reasons Yadav. Fighter Shetty incidentally was the big, bald baddie, whose actions spoke louder than his words — his role rarely demanded him to speak or emote! He was the father of ace director Rohit Shetty. Hero-villain pairing has been a successful formula in films since the times of Dilip Kumar, handsome villain Pran made a good foil to Dilip’s romantic image, Madan Puri with his sadistic leer appeared in more than 300 films as the villain. Then Ajit redefined the concept of a villain with his suave don act in an all-white suit in his den with his moll, mouthing some corny dialogues. After Sholay, Amjad Khan and Amitabh Bachchan made a great jodi. "Gabbar owed his success to the powerful characterisation and dialogue," reflects Rauf. Bachchan was also successfully paired opposite Danny in many hits. But the best of them was yet to come. Amrish Puri’s Mogambo in Mr India rewrote the syntax of villainy, making him the biggest villains of the Hindi film pantheon.
"Out-of-the-box get-up, quaint mannerisms and the macabre humour made Mogambo the all-time great baddie," surmises Rauf. Amrish Puri was incidentally the first villain to merit Rs 1 crore billing for a film! However Ramesh Sippy, the creator of Gabbar, could not repeat the success story with Shaakal in Shaan. "Shaakal was too urbane, and not loud enough, he didn’t have many trappings of a villain and so he tanked," Rauf adds analytically. Amrish Puri and Sunny Deol struck gold together in many films. The villain provided a strong counterpoint to the hero and brought out the element of power in him, but with the emergence of multiplexes, the villain was quietly shown the door. Anti-heroes as villains Mushy romances, social intrigues and political thrillers dominated the theatres at the turn of the century. "There came a phase around 2000, when modern filmmakers were not interested in either the villain or the family members — they just wanted to focus on the protagonist. That sounded the death knell for villains," laments Somaaya. A new genre of gentle villains emerged in the form of Nana Patekar and Irrfan Khan, but their aura never extended beyond the film. Another reason for the extinction of villains was that the heroes turned anti-heores. After Shah Rukh Khan’s negative appearances in Darr and Don, many top heroes followed suit. Aamir Khan in Fanaa, Hrithik Roshan in Dhoom 2, Saif Ali Khan in Omkara, Farhan Khan in Karthik Calling Karthik, Akshay Kumar in Tees Maar Khan — essayed negative roles. "The absence of a real villain in Tees Maar Khan proved to be its undoing, what was the so-called Tees Maar Khan doing in the film? Who was he outscoring? He was busy pulling off some petty con jobs," shrugs Yadav. Looks like the return of the big villain is inevitable in the months to come. "This phase is also not going to last too long because the TV is constantly exposing real-life villains to us like those porno politicians. So let’s not overdo the villains in films please. We are overdosed on villainy anyway," cautions Somaaya. But for the moment, there’s no denying to its advantage villains and they are holding the court.
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Hrithik
Roshan may be the calling card of Agneepath, this year’s
first blockbuster, but even he couldn’t help hailing Kancha Cheena
as today’s Gabbar Singh. Dutt’s over-the-top villainy in the bald
and bulky guise of Kancha Cheena has certainly made a deep impact in
the theatres.
"The
entire society has become so negative with rampant incidents of rape,
road rage and violence. There is so much anger inside everyone that
when they watch the hero bashing up the invincible villain, they feel
vindicated. It is cathartic for them because they have only dreamt of
such super strength," observes Rauf. Cinema certainly mirrors
life and, the turbulent times we live in are getting translated on
celluloid.
