Raees, Kaabil show changing face of Bollywood heroes

Mumbai - Kaabil and Raees showcase a welcome trend.

The Bollywood hero changeth. For sure, he continues to be an expert with his fists and can fell scores of adversaries single-handedly. Yet, there are significant signs of change for the better. He has his weaknesses, frailties and, frequently, does permit his heroine to be projected as much more than just a decorative object.
Last month's two eagerly anticipated films - Raees and Kaabil - did assign far more footage to the male leads. But whatever the quality quotient of either one of the films, there was at least a bid to present the heroine with a smidgen of sensitivity.
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Ever since Chennai Express, co-starring Deepika Padukone, Shah Rukh Khan has followed the policy of assigning the top billing to the leading lady. Hence, in Raees, Pakistani actress Mahira Khan is mentioned above anyone else in the opening credits. By the way, you also suspect that her role - of the girl-next-door soon to be his wife in a delicately-picturised nikaah ceremony - had to be largely edited out because of the cumbersome length clocked by the final print of Raees. According to insiders, the first cut may have extended to over four hours.
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Some of the early reports on the film's casting had mentioned that eminent character actor, Govind Namdeo, had been pencilled in to enact the role of Mahira's father. In the print finally released, he is conspicuous by his absence. What remains of Mahira's footage is insubstantial and abbreviated. Fortunately, she still comes off as a woman of substance who rises to her husband Raees' defence when he is confronted by one catastrophic crisis after another.
In addition, Raees, excellently incarnated by Shah Rukh Khan, is shown to involve himself in household chores like cooking a stew in the kitchen. In Ki & Ka, Arjun Kapoor had served as a practical handmaiden to his officegoing wife Kareena Kapoor. Evidently, heroes are no longer averse to wearing apron strings on screen.

Quite coincidentally, Hrithik Roshan is also allocated a cooking scene in Sanjay Gupta's Kaabil, as he converses with a police officer while rustling up a stir-fry, which he calls 'Vegetable Kolhapuri'.
Also, the blind, vendetta-thirsty Rohan Bhatnagar of Kaabil and Raees Alam of the eponymously-titled underworld drama are not beyond shedding copious tears when they are pushed into a corner.
There was a time when 'tragedy king' Dilip Kumar would allow the tears to flow on losing the love of his life, the most classic case in point being Bimal Roy's Devdas. Aamir Khan has occasionally allowed himself to weep and fret as he did on becoming a single father in Akele Hum Akele Tum. Without ever being obtrusive or with a gee-look-at-me obviousness, Shah Rukh Khan has gone lachrymose periodically - be it in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham or Jab Tak Hai Jaan.

Men can cry too, and now, a lifelike changeover has taken place from the persona of Amitabh Bachchan's Angry Young Man image of the 1970s and '80s. On a mission to demolish the establishment - read: filthy rich crooks, mafia bosses and corrupt politicians - he was the one-man army whose rage was explosive rather than implosive. Dharmendra, the quintessential tough guy with the heart of gold, would also flay his fists, never quite pausing to convey his anxieties and fears.
Incidentally, breaking into tears is one of the toughest acts before the camera. It's only a handful of actors - male or female - who can delve into their emotional memories and cry with eyes turning moist and then welling up with tears in a single, uninterrupted shot. From all accounts, Aamir Khan apparently builds himself into a state of acute sorrow and lets the tears follow naturally. A majority of actors, however, are still dependent on glycerine eye drops before the camera starts rolling.
Besides defining the softer sides of their heroes, Raees and Kaabil have other stray common points. If Hrithik Roshan is visually impaired, Raees, too, is heckled as "Battery" for wearing a pair of spectacles since childhood.

Oddly, both films allude loudly and clearly to Amitabh Bachchan. Indeed, every second Bollywood film does that nowadays. Raees incorporates a scene of Bachchan giving a tongue-lashing to Prem Chopra in Kaala Patthar. Kaabil includes a virtual mimicry act of Bachchan's distinctive voice. Plus, there are references to Big B's trend-setting TV show Kaun Banega Crorepati.
Designed as tributes perhaps to the Angry Young Man, both Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan, in their performances, are poles apart from the Bachchan style and swagger. They cook, cry and get marshmallow mushy - indicating, inadvertently perhaps, that the new age of the emotionally vulnerable hero is here, at long last. wknd@khaleejtimes.com