The Hero is Back

The Hero is Back

There was a time when anything was possible, not in real life, but in Bollywood, Hero fighting 100 bad guys in one go and still winning, stopping the ticking bomb in time to save his family just by deciding which wire to cut ‘yellow or red’, escaping from prison without planning, surviving even after being hit by a dozen of bullets, like those bullets were his Sunday cereal breakfast.

But slowly these became a thing of the past and Indian hero started becoming more realistic in his nature. He became a salesman in Rocketsingh with a target to sale more computers. He became a bank manager in DTBHJ with a mid life crises where he is not able to woo a young girl, because of his age. He became an executive in a big cola company in Corporate, where he is thrown out of the window to die, when he started to raise questions which were dangerous for his organization.

His perpetual power to survive and fight the injustice, and win in the end of course, was slowly sucked out of him by the very writers who once upon a time gave him the above mentioned dreams. This happened partially due to the focus of film makers on the business generated by multiplexes. The usual audiences were educated, used to raise questions over the logic of movie all the time and a lot of them had exposure to Hollywood movies as well. So it was inevitable to change the concept of hero.

But one thing was forgotten, the audiences of the single screen, who wanted their share of dishum- dishum from a hero. They desperately wanted their hero to win in every battle he participated, they wanted the heroine to have no other options and come and fall in the strong shoulders of our mighty hero, and killing the hero was like worshiping the devil.

Enters Salman Khan with ‘Wanted’, a smash hit, where he played a ‘know all – seen all – done all’ kind of a guy. He came, He saw and He concurred. He brought with him the old larger than life kind of persona which was lost in the era of realism like Titanic was lost in ocean.

Taking the clue from it every Bollywood hero started becoming Rajnikant in his own style. Salman repeated this strategy with Dabang. But best hand was played by the makers of Buddha hoga tera baap, watching Amitabh Bachchan in that charming character, where he smashes every bone of every villain while uttering most tongue and cheek dialogues, and dances with videshi gories while flirting with Raveena Tandon and Romancing with Hema Malini. It was just the kind of movie a Bachchan fan can’t afford to miss. Even with a average director and a script which needed trimming and a good editor, the movie is entertaining for the families, the 2 scenes where Amithabh talks with Hema Malini makes you realize that even a bad director can’t make these two legends act bad.

However in coming weeks we are going to witness more raw action in the form of ‘Singham’ and then ‘Force’. It looks the macho is back and the party has just begin.