The Hamming Birds (down the years). Review on Five Worst Actors of Bollywood Movies

As I sat down to make a list of the worthies who should figure in this list, my curious elders (viz., my dad and granddad) started to chip in with their suggestions and “Generation gap” took on a whole new meaning. So in reverence to them, I let them make their own lists and am duly posting them here for appreciation by readers of their respective generations. There was only one criterion that I insisted upon – that they had to be successful actors who had atleast a few notable films associated with them!

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*Dadaji's picks:

1. Rajendra Kumar

   
   




2. Bharat Bhushan

   
   




3. Pradeep Kumar

   
   




4. Dev Anand

   
   




5. Raaj Kumar

   
   

My expert comments: I would have loved to add *Dilip Kumar, but Dadaji would hear nothing of it.  Ok, so Rajendra Kumar was known as roti surat since he perennially had a constipated look on his face whether he was emoting for a emotional scene or a romantic scene. He just couldn’t handle the “angry” scenes since he had a rather weak voice which could not convey the rage effectively. Bharat Bhushan was a lucky chap to have worked in some of the best musicals opposite some of the topmost heroines of his time – Meena Kumari and Madhubala. But he had a fixed wooden expression for all his scenes. Ditto for Pradeep Kumar. Dev saab may have got away with his total lack of acting skills on the strength of good directors, good scripts, excellent music and Kishore Kumar’s vocals. But that was in his heyday. Then he started writing the scripts himself, directing his own films, Kishore Kumar, SD / RD Burman passed away – shorn of all the reflected genius, the façade was completely blown away. Raaj Kumar mistook flamboyant dialogue delivery for acting. *Jaani, * somebody ought to have enlightened him that the dialogues are written by the dialogue writer and that the actor’s job is to emote and make the character look believable.

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Then it was Dad’s turn to make his own list: (with my criteria still intact)

1. Shashi Kapoor

   
   




2. Feroz Khan (and Sanjay Khan and Akbar Khan)

   
   




3. Jeetendra

   
   




4. Dharmendra (particularly in his later years)

   
   




5. Manoj Kumar

   
   

My expert comments again: Shashi Kapoor relied on his boyish looks in his first few years, but then as age set in…. sigh! The Khan brothers seemed to compete with each other in the hamming department. Jeetu “Jumpin Jack” was in his element doing the white shirt-pant-shoes-socks dance steps, but ruined the melodramatic scenes with his screeching and constipated expressions. Dharam *paaji showed some streaks of brilliance in his early years in films such as Samadhi and Satyakam, but later somebody must have told him that he has a flair for comedy. Paaji took this compliment a trifle too seriously and ever since, he has been on a buffoonery trip. And what can one say about Manoj Kumar, of the flat dialogue delivery and hand-covering-his-face tragic scenes – only his direction could be worse than his acting!

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Finally, having satisfied Dad and Granddad, I could make my own list in peace, focusing on people of my own generation. In my list, I tried to refrain from mentioning the names of the illustrious offspring of some of the aforementioned stalwarts, since you can’t do too much about your genes, can you! (If you observe closely, every single star son/ daughter of the names mentioned in Part A and B above, have not exactly earned top acting honors!) So that left out Kumar Gaurav,  Suniel Anand, Puru Rajkumar (and his brother), Kunal and Karan Kapoor, Fardeen Khan, Zayed Khan, Tusshar Kapoor, Sunny and Bobby Deol and Kunal Goswami ;-)

*My top picks for the honours:

1. Jackie Shroff

   
   




2. Aftab Shivdasani

   
   




3. Abhishek Bachchan

   
   




4. Akshay Kumar

   
   




5. Salman Khan*

   
   

Jaggu dada is one of those who believe in the “one expression for each type of scene” funda. Since he does not claim to be a thespian by any stretch of imagination, he gets away by hamming away in all his films. Aftab has a funny grin and a funny frown – these are the only two expressions he uses alternatively in his scenes. Not to mention that he seems to have of late become fat and podgy and is likely to lose his “cuteness” (if any) once he crosses30. Abhishek, poor thing, has just not been able to inherit the genes of his parents. He tries to ape Hrithik in his dancing and romantic scenes and resorts to rolling of eyes in all the other scenes, coming across as a miserable failure. Akshay Kumar just can’t seem to get it right. Ok a few flashes here and there, maybe in Aankhen, Main Khiladi tu Anari, etc. but broadly he too has a flat dialogue delivery and displays some lewd and vulgar body movements to pass off as acting. Salman Khan – no I won’t mention the bare body part, his last few films have him adopt a casual, almost uncaring attitude. While his early films did show some sincereity, he seems to have discarded all that in exchange for gimmicks.

Some names which I have to leave out with a heavy heart are Akshaye Khanna, Govinda, Sanjay Kapoor, Chandrachur Singh, Atul Agnihotri etc.

Finally, it would be pertinent to note that with so many worthies clamouring for attention, I have studiously excluded the king himself lest this review too (like my previous one) stir up a controversy and a barrage of NR ratings by his loyalists tsk, tsk!