Watching Main Hoon Na was a pleasurable revelation. Mindless masala that entertains, peppered with image and expectation defying acts by most of its players. Most notably Shahrukh Khan!
For once, though he is the main protagonist, the movie does not revolve solely around him, the script is not besotted by his presence, the director seems not in awe of him, he is not given 4 sheet dialogues after every 15 minutes in the movie, he is not sobby and teary eyed forever. For once his costars have more punch-lines and juicier scenes, for once he is shorn off all his mannerisms, doesn’t overshadow the proceedings, hog the limelight, bask in forcibly obtained attention, for once it doesn’t appear that he is all out to ‘bag’ the next award, for once a movie starring him has a balanced team of actors instead of being a monochromatic, blinkered SRK starrer.
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Experimenting with the unknown is a hobby one must cultivate at some point in life. Hence the need to embark on the onerous journey of discovering a few other movies of Shahrukh Khan, that aren’t as unbearable as the others, which means that watching these movies is not like the usual SRK movie experience, akin to sitting locked in a small, ill-ventilated, closed and stuffy room, in the company of someone wearing stinking socks.
Like a peacock is proud of its feathers, SRK ought to be proud of his following movie appearances too, besides Main Hoon Na:-
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Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam
Need I say anything more after, “I own this VCD”. Simply because such a hysterically funny performance is a rare occurrence, and we are privileged enough to breathe air in the very century it occurred. One cannot remember for a long time prior to and after this movie, that one could have laughed so uncontrollably due to an individual.
My fav scenes :-
# Ticking off his secretary (Ms. Nice Cleavage) who tries to make a pass at him, and then behaving like his modesty has been severely outraged
# All his confrontations scenes with Sallu.
“Tu yun muh uthake mere ghar mein kyun chala aata hai, Saala Body Builder kahin ka.”
- “Tum baar baar shirt kyun utaar dete ho? Aur woh bhi sabke saamne! Aaj se tum shirt bilkul nahi utaaroge.”
# Then there is the monologue with a statue of a horse (I doubt if I loved any other scene in cinematic history more than this one), where he complains that Madhuri don’t talk to him after leaving his home and sends a letter instead. “Chitthi bhej deti hai!! Main kya Dilli mein hoon?”
The role is of a jealous, insecure man suspicious that his wife is having an affair with her best friend, thus resulting in unintentional hilarity throughout the movie. A tour de force performance, if you ask me.
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Baadshah
SRK seemingly loves to take personal digs at other actors in his movies, often he has picked on Sallu, Aamir and Akshay Kumar. In Badshah while climbing the walls of a skyscraper, wearing some special shoes, he mutters to Twinkle, “Mujhse aise stunts kyun karaatein hain? Main kya koi Akshay Kumar hoon?”.
He is a bumbling detective herein, and once again is a laugh riot. His blind act and the operation therefore is total madcap fun.
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Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na
A teenager who cheats, lies and cons his close relatives, the girl he likes, and everyone around him, later repentant. A character startlingly well written, and true to life, extremely well executed. Why can’t we see more of such an SRK?
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Variety has never been the hallmark of SRKs performances. Say SRK and variety in the same breath, and his fans mention Dil Se and Asoka before the breath is over. I viewed Dil Se and Asoka with much concentration, squinted hard but could not find in them the much ballyhoo-ed variety, and found him as monotonous as Avtar Gill is. However, the one movie where he was markedly different from his other factory produced ones was
Devdas
Wherein his drunken scenes were very well studied and enacted. Though he cant be compared to the legendary manner in which Dilip Kumar did it in his Devdas, nevertheless the following are some scenes that no actor (mayhaps Ajay Devgan, wish he was Bhansali’s Devdas) of this era could have done with such aplomb,
the ‘I-I-I Object’ scene,
at his father’s funeral,
and of course the entire dying sequence right from in the train with Chunnilal (amazing expressions when he discovers he has coughed out blood), in the tangaa recollecting his past, till his slow painful death outside Paro’s haveli.
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Passable mentions:-
Darr: Girls actually sympathized more with Rahul’s character even though he tortured and tormented the giddy cute Juhi Chawla. Which actually speaks of a strong character portrayal. Unfortunately, the stammer stuck on till all movies upto Main Hoon Na.
Maya Memsaab
Notice the bits where SRK as a college going boy gets nervous and fidgety before his object of lust - a much elder, much married woman, with whom he is itching to have an affair. And then the transition to a confident working guy who couldn’t give a damn about her death during the police interrogations. Ketan Mehta’s indulgent rendition of Madame Bovary has various scenes by SRK some equally enjoyable and others equally over the top.
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In a recent interview, when asked how was it working with a woman director for the first time, SRK admitted that most of his male directors were like women anyway!
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. Likewise, SRK seems to have had mediocrity thrust upon himself working in all those dreadfully cute ‘baby-pink’, Johar-Chopra movies. So my list of fav. SRK movies definitely doesn’t include DDLJ, KKHH, K3G, Mohobatein, and the likes. (when sorrow comes, they come not in single spies, but in battalions)
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