Dec 28, 2004 11:40 PM
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(Updated Dec 28, 2004 11:42 PM)
I have done enough Shahrukh Khan bashing at MS. Not that I don?t like him? I simply admire this man. However, while writing the reviews, I try to keep my personal biases away. Looking at from neutral angle, he has several shortcomings, but still he rules? that?s the beauty.
SK does not have the versatility of Aamir or the physique of Salman. He is not a great fighter as Akshay, Sunil Shetty or Sanjay Dutt neither does he have the appeal of Saif? still he is far more popular than any other actor for more than a decade. There must be something about him that pulls audience to his movies.
That is his ability to make him look like a common man with common emotions, facing the every day trouble of love and being as helpless in front of challenges as the average audience. The audience identifies himself with Shahrukh. That?s why he is where he is today.
The following is my count down of top 5 films of Shahrukh and are purely my choices.
5. Main Hoon Naa
Some people may scream? what is this movie doing in this list? Well, this is a movie that simply proves SK?s star power. With a pathetic story line where the army chief says go and save my daughter so that I can make mission Milaap successful?(what happened to the army guys who used to say desh ke liye ek beti to kya, so betiyaan qurbaan?)? and action which lacked logic(remember the cheap imitation of Matrix action in climax?) and some awckward editing?. This movie was still a hit? why? Shahrukh hai naa?. The man the audience loves seeing and they got the value of every paisa?.
4. Baazigar
The movie that put SK at the top league of stars? a role not many new aspiring lead actors would have taken. A role that actually started a band wagon of heroes going the negative way. He was a daredevil and it payed him off well. This was also the beginning of a great on screen couple of Hindi cinema.
3. Devdas
Probably it?s a fascination of all lead stars with an inclination towards tragic roles to be a Devdas. Saigal did it. He was a big crowd puller. Result: Flop. Dillip Kumar did it. He was also at the peak of his career. The heroines were carefully selected to appeal the audience of east and south(Suchitra Sen and Vaijayanthimala). Result: Flop. Shahrukh also did it at a similar phase of his career with one actress who was well beyond her hay days and the other who has seen ups and downs every month?. Result: a mega hit.Again, star power speaks here and the way Shahrukh fitted himself to this role of the tragedy king.
2. Kabhie Haan Kabhie Naa
A role that seems to have been written just keeping SRK in mind. A spoilt brat, a guy who is head over heels in love and has no other work other than falling in love. He was raw and new in the industry and he brought life to this role by making himself the guy next door, dear to all. A guy, every girl will like to have as a boyfriend. The short roles like this in the first of 1990s actually created the star power.
1. Darr
Darr was one of those movies where the bad boy overshadowed all the rest. Here the bad boy was not strong and powerful, he was not ruthless(till the end) and still he created a havoc. The young Shahrukh Khan enacted the role to perfection?. A kind of performance every person who has ever done a negative role will be proud of. He was not afraid to experiment and he created variety during those years.
Most of the movies listed belong to the first half of 1990s. That?s because, that was the era, when he brought creativity to his performance and tried out new things. But alas, he became very stereotype(or was rather made so by the story tellers) to come with the same old repetitive performance. Hence this list does not include many of his box office grosser like K3G, DDLJ, DPH, KKHH, Mohabbatein etc, as all the roles were more or less the same.
Special mention of Anjaam. I hated him in the movie and he boiled my blood every time he came on screen. I think that is what I would like to see a character in a negative role. That was a phenomenal performance.
