Evil villains like Mogambo and Gabbar are a thing of the Past; Indian cinema now has a new breed of more Believable and better developed negative

characters

With changing times Hindi cinema has developed new trends. The angry young men of the ‘seventies and ‘eighties’ gave way to the candyfloss

loverboys who rule till today with a few exceptions like Baazigar and Johnny Gaddar. Meanwhile the evil- minded bad guys moved on from being mere

caricatures of an evil boss, issuing orders and shelling out cheesy dialogues. The Gabbars, Mogambos, Loins and Shakaals turned into Cyrus from

Being Cyrus, Langda Tyagi from Omkara or Raghavan in Aks.

Sriram Raghavan, director of Johnny Gaddaar says “Since contemporary films are getting more believable, so are its bad guys. A caricature like Ajit’s

Loin does not offer enough characterization for the audience to connect with him. Having such a character becomes more like a spoofâ€'.

Ananth Mahadevan, who played the surprise bad guy in Khiladi and has made several suspense films, believes the change in techniques of

filmmaking have influenced the change in Hindi cinema’s baddies. “Today we have leading men like Akshay Kumar playing the baddie in Ajnabee and

Shah Rukh Khan starting that way in Baazigar and Anjaam. These guys are not playing black characters; they are playing normal people with grey

shades,â€' he says. Mahadevan is of the opinion that this attempt to draw reality into a negative character has broken the myth of a traditional bad guy

and left the perceptions open for audiences.

The angry young man was always defiant of societal norms and carried a level of negativity. Even though he had erring ways, people admired him for

his courage to stand up and fight the odds. Perhaps that transcended into contemporary actors having the liberty to play characters with negative

shades. Neil Nitin Mukesh, who played the anti-hero in Johnny Gaddaar, believes that playing the bad guy today is like two sides of the same coin. “If

a good guy suddenly turns bad amidst the plot of a film, people are shocked. Likewise, if they are used to seeing an actor play the good guy and he

suddenly pops up with an evil role they are taken aback. Why is he doing so? But the whole point is, if this actor is able to carry the bad guy image

successfully, it works and people like it,â€' says the young actor.

However, when actors play bad in their quest for being versatile they take a risk of being stereotyped as baddies, which can hamper their acting

opportunities. Irrfan Khan, who has played the bad guy in films like Haasil and The Killer, got tired of his negative image. “I was struggling to find

varied roles. My image from playing the villain was just keeping all the good roles away from me. Thank God, I was able to do films like Life In A...

Metro and The Namesake that have broken the ice,â€' said Khan as he breathed a sigh of relief.

Irrfan also added that playing the villain with a streak of comedy really helps the actor connect with the audience. “When you are the bad guy who

can make someone smile, you are not hated,â€' he says.

Comedy is the flavour of the season. 2007’s big hits like Partner and Om Shanti Om used this genre liberally. It’s no rocket science to know that a bad

guy in a comedy cannot be stone-cold. Just like any other character in the film, the villain also needs to be funny. Anees Bazmee, director of No

Entry, has incorporated a similar more likeable image for his film Welcome. RDX, the powerful mob head in the film is played by Feroz Khan with a

funny side to him. “RDX is the big daddy of all bad guys, he has an attitude but he is not a caricature. He is a quirky villain who plays the trumpet,â€'

explains Bazmee. He is also of the idea that contemporary bad guys are much better off with a sense of humour and compassion for loved ones.

With Paresh Rawal, the late Amrish Puri, Shakti Kapoor and the likes turning comedians the bad guys of Indian cinema are few and far between. But,

both Sriram Raghavan and Ananth Mahadevan share a passion for the classic characters that were portrayed by actors like Pran, Jeevan, Prem

Chopra and others in yesteryear hits. “I miss someone like Ajit saying ‘Mona Darling’. These were such charismatic characters that you liked them in

spite of their evil intentions,â€' says Raghavan. While Mahadevan feels, “The villain today is more complicated. The simple equation of bad guy

troubling good guy and good guy defeating bad guy and saving the day works no more. It’s kind of sad that our cinema does not have a space for

icons like Pran and Amjad Khanâ€'.

At the end of the day, Hindi cinema has lost out on immortal lines like ‘Kitne aadmi the’, ‘Sara sheher mujhe Loin ke naam se jaanta hai’ and

‘Mogambo khush hua’. But on the flip side it has leaner, meaner and more believable bad guys.

Screen India