Shahrukh Khan - An Ego Maniac. Review on Shah Rukh Khan

SRK – I had originally thought about writing a review on his last movie Ra.one but later, decided to write a review i.e. express my personal views about the man himself as well.

Whenever a movie starring Shahrukh Khan releases, the entire nation takes notice either by admiring it or criticizing it. Whether you love Shahrukh Khan or hate him, I’m sure you cannot ignore him because he is everywhere! On Talk shows, Radio, Media Events, Internet, Television…This man was omnipresent before the release of Ra.one. He promotes his all movies with the same enthusiasm but this time the financial investments were much higher. After all, it takes momentous efforts to make the Most Expensive movie of Bollywood!

Ultimately, Ra.one did recover its costs and managed to be a HIT; it had to be. Everyone who invested in the movie knew they cannot lose money when this man is involved because movie profit is not just about box office success these days. It’s a huge business deal involving overseas rights, music rights and various other rights. So when you have as “reliable brand” as Shahrukh Khan, generating a few hundred crores of investment is not difficult at all.

So! After investing hundreds of crores of rupees for his over ambitious project, what did he finally deliver to the audiences? A Sham. Yes, it was. The basic purpose of movie making is just one: Story Telling. But here, the purpose was ONLY to show off the stardom of SRK. It was all about him. So much, that other acclaimed senior actors (like Rajnikant, Sanjay Dutt, Priyanka Chopra) did pretty crap scenes which they otherwise would not have done for anyone.

What gives this guy so much power that he can deceive the nation of one billion people into believing a sham, an entertaining movie and also earn praise and awards (in future)? It’s his “Star Power”. India is a country obsessed with Stars; mainly movie stars and cricket stars. Once someone achieves much coveted “stardom”, they pretty much achieve status of God who cannot do anything wrong. There are other such Stars such as Salman Khan, Amitabh Bacchan who have achieved Godlike status but I bet; even they don’t manipulate the audiences as much as this guy does.

I can figure out few reasons why this guy achieved so much stardom despite his looks and questionable acting abilities.

- Fanatical Passion: This guy puts tremendous amount of passion in almost all his projects. If you watch his old movies also, when he was not a star, you will surely notice his passion. There are very few people who can put this much of dedication to their chosen area of work.

- The “click” factor: Yes, he “clicked” with the audiences. There are no rules in show business and if you click with people, they’ll accept you.

Smart Connections: Shahrukh scored in this area like no one has ever succeeded. In the beginning phase of his career, he enticed the Yash Raj productions. Then he took the help of Karan Johar and now, makes movies for himself! He has maintained an excellent rapport with the right people so that he can get the right rewards such as Filmfare awards :)

Now comes the negative aspects of this man.

Tendency to manipulate audiences and media: This has become his habit and it may work for him for few more years but if continued, it will result in the loss of goodwill for him.

- Reluctance of trying new roles: This guy plays pretty much same characters, of a “Hero”. He wants all the focus just on himself and nothing else, not even movie scripts. I’m sure he’ll never be interested in doing movies like “Taare Zameen Par” where script is the real Hero.

- Self Obsession: This has made him a Deceptive Ego Maniac which is disastrous for his own creativity. This guy needs to think beyond his stardom and at least attempt to make a genuine creative contribution.

L

Let's hope that this guy starts focusing on creativity and using his stardom rightly rather than the extravagant business equations.

Vaibhavi