Opening Doorz

By Martin D’Souza | Opening Doorz Editorial | March 06, 2017

The pressures on filmmakers to shun good actors!
A big shout to Vipul Amrutlal Shah for believing and persisting with Vidyut Jamwal for Commando 2. The pressure of Return On Investment is so huge these days that filmmakers and production houses are ditching actors who have done wonders in the first instalment of a movie by moving to ‘brands’ to have BO returns of Rs 100 crore and more. While that is hugely acceptable, what is not is that in a creative field like movie making, if your heart is not in the right place and audience not your target, somewhere things will not balance out. You may get your Rs 100 crore, but at the cost of sacrificing your ‘creative instincts and juices’ which is what makes you a filmmaker in the first place.

Take the recent case of Jolly LLB 2. The first instalment won rave reviews from critics and audience alike. It also won a National Award but yet, the makers decided to create another Jolly! Arshad Warsi was super fabulous in Jolly LLB. Akshay Kumar is a good actor. But had it been Arshad and not Akshay, Jolly LLB 2 would have been far superior to what it turned out to be. I only hope there is no other ‘brand’ that will be tried out for Jolly LLB 3.

Vipul Amrutlal Shah… talent-centric!
Coming back to Vipul Amrutlal Shah, it takes courage to do what he did. To give an actor who has yet to find his footing, his complete confidence to shoulder the responsibility of Commando 2. Vipul, to me, you are the real Badshah of Bollywood.

That is what is required in this industry. How long will filmmakers bank on ‘brands’, most of who have crossed the 50 mark. At 50-plus, Amitabh did Suryavansi and look at how the film bombed. Soon, he donned the father and grandfather avatar and his career graph has been continuously on the rise since then. We now need to build the younger lot of actors, who will give ROI. And Vidyut is one who has carved a niche for himself in the action genre. No Khans, Kapoors or Shroffs come near this dynamic ‘action ball’ when it comes to stunts that defy gravity.

At most, we see cameras panning the backs of the actors in a fight scene. Not so with Vidyut. The camera is full on him in a wide angle, capturing every detailed movement. There could have been cables attached, but he does make them look stylish on screen. With Bruce Lee eyes and Jackie Chan moves, he certainly is the star to look out for in the action genre in Bollywood. Only thing, the story line needs to be as impressive as his stunts!

When the villain was walking the ramp!
In Commando 2, the villain was a damp squib and this is what flattened the plot to a great extent. Esha Gupta did not have a single sinister expression on her face, nor a mean trait in her body language. It was like a ramp walk for her for some fashion designer and that is where the film took a hit.

Rewind to Commando and you will see that Jaideep Ahlawat’s powerful performance as the bad man added tons of weight to the script and also complemented Vidyut’s mean action stunts in the deep jungles. Ahlawat’s performance dominated throughout. The last villain who really put the fright into the viewer (after Gabbar Singh) was Vidyut Jamwal himself in Force. In Commando, Ahlawat’s Amrit Kanwal Singh came close to Jamwal’s Vishnu. It was a class act worth going miles to see.

For the third edition, I do hope Shah prepares a crisp script that will match action with meanness. That is the winning formula of the Commando series!

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