Where are the Gladiators?

Fight scenes make the most interesting part of many films, as one is left wondering, who will triumph in the end. The need for well-matched actor pairs for conflict scenes in films, is huge

There are times when I go back to YouTube to watch the Rajkumar v/s Dilip Kumar tussle. Or I put on the DVD of ‘Parvarish’ to see the classic scene, where one brother played by Amitabh Bachchan wants his sibling to correct his path, played by Vinod Khanna. No, I’m not a 55-year- old living in his past. It’s just that the new age Bollywood does not offer such conflicts anymore.

The intelligent, subtle and tense at times conflict between Tabu and Ajay Devgan in ‘Drishyam’ was a great treat in a long time. Here are two of our most well-polished actors pitted against each other, and it is this conflict, which took ‘Drishyam’ to another level. But how many such movies are being made in Bollywood today, where two well-matched actors are pitted against each other?

‘Agneepath’ in 2012 was one such attempt, but the way the screenplay was revised for the new ‘Agneepath’, it lost the raging conflict or head-to-head fights as we call them. Yet ‘Agneepath’ remains the only last memorable man v/s man conflict movie of some calibre. One might want to push the case of ‘Badlapur’, but Nawazuddin simply steamrolled Varun Dhawan in that one.

In fact, not many of us would have heard of this small Sunny Deol surprise hit movie called ‘Right Ya Wrong’ released about six-odd years ago. This one had a very sincere pitting of Irrfan Khan v/s Sunny Deol and a surprised Sunny totally sidelines Irrfan, despite Irrfan stealing some brilliant moments in that movie too. You cannot just defeat Irrfan on screen, no, that does not happen.

And all of these movies are frankly some drops of rain in an otherwise totally long drought in terms of what I call as the ‘Gladiator’ movies. Our producers, directors and promoters are too busy looking at one horse subjects, where a certain Khan or a Kumar is glorified and presented. The hero in a lot of our new age movies is not really competing against anyone, he is just glorifying himself.

This is something, which Bollywood seriously needs to bring back to the screen. Look at the high range performers we have around us – Ranbir Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Irrfan Khan, Zeeshan Ayub, etc, and the list goes long enough. Why has no one ever thought of making kind of a ‘Saudagar -2’ with Irrfan and Nana Patekar heading the two warrior tribes? I know I’m talking dated stuff, but hey, look at the Box Office numbers of ‘Baahubali’, nothing is dated if presented with passion.

Why cannot someone dare to pit Kareena v/s Sonakshi or a Katrina v/s Priyanka and see who win rather than a Priyanka boxing at the camera as the loner leading lady? Where is the glory in that? On-screen conflict is the best visual popcorn you could ever feast on, and Bollywood seems to have totally lost track of this genre. I mean, the best way to see which one is better; Aamir or Shah Rukh is to pit them against each other no?

Which also brings me to this burning question about these modern superstars of ours, deep down self-obsessed chicken – Do they really have the spine to have their histrionics tested out by other matching star? Is lack of a good script another excuse to simply protect a false aura of being this big great shining star? Maybe to an extent, the answer I’m afraid of is yes.

It cannot be that there are not many directors or writers who would have never come up with conflict stories. They would have, I’m sure, but in this increasingly individualistic Bollywood, no star would probably pick up the gauntlet. But when they do, trust me, we get treated to phenomenal entertaining cinema.

If you do not understand what I am saying, then watch ‘Jolly LLB’ today. In the last decade, may I tell you, there has not been a better courtroom and histrionics battle between two well-matched performers. The catch is that neither Arshad Warsi nor Boman Irani, are considered stars, yet!

Rahul Deo Bharadwaj