Twitter
Advertisement

Simmba, Dabangg, Zanjeer: What makes the khaki so attractive?

More often than not, super-cop films have set the cash registers ringing

Latest News
article-main
Amitah Bachchan in Zanjeer, Salman Khan in Dabangg and Dabangg 2, Akshay Kumar in Rowdy Rathore, Ajay Devgn in Singham and Singham returns
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

Jab tak baithne ko na kaha jaaye, sharafat se khade rao. Yeh police station hai, tumhare baap ka ghar nahin.” This powerful Salim-Javed dialogue spoken by Amitabh Bachchan (Inspector Vijay Khanna) in Prakash Mehra’s Zanjeer (1973) was perhaps one of the earliest times when a cop achieved superstar status in Bollywood. 

Over the years, actors like Dharmendra, Shashi Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Sunny Deol, Anil Kapoor, Govinda, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn and Akshay Kumar have played the men in uniform. 

If Prakash Jha’s GangaaJal (2003) dramatically retold the 1980 Bhagalpur blindings, Rajkumar Santoshi’s action thriller Khakee (2004) revolved around a police team’s (Big B, Akshay Kumar and Tusshar) mission to escort an accused terrorist from a small town in Maharashtra to Mumbai while outwitting a rogue cop gone bad. However, it seems as if the box-office success of Salman’s Dabangg (2010) and Ajay’s Singham (2011) and their respective films’ sequels, in a way, triggered off the super-cop genre. And the introduction of Veer Sooryavanshi, played by Akshay in Rohit Shetty’s next, Sooryavanshi, indicates that it’s here to stay.

Cop movies are commercially viable

So what is it about the men in uniform that appeals to filmmakers and cinegoers? Veteran distributor and trade expert Amod Mehra points out that the khaki-clad protagonist makes such a movie more commercially viable. He explains, “In the good old days, we had dacoits. But with the end of the era of daakus, you can’t make Sholay or a Hatyara. In modern times, when you have the hero taking on the villains, he can’t be a normal person. It helps a lot when he’s a police officer.”

At the same time, we have also seen that the industry follows a herd mentality to some extent. Like the success of a comedy or a horror or an action flick saw several films of the genres being made subsequently. Singham and Singham Returns (2014) hitting the right notes have seen the creation of Simmba (2018) and now Sooryavanshi (2019). And if hero cops have a franchise, a heroine can’t be far behind as Rani Mukerji’s policewoman Shivani Shivaji Roy returns with Mardaani 2, four years after her hit outing, Mardaani (2014).


(Ranveer Singh in Simmba, Aamir Khan in Talaash, Priyanka Chopra in Jai GangaaJal, Tabu in Drishyam, Rani Mukerji in Mardaani)

Viewers can relate to the protagonist

Another reason a cop hero works is that his identification is faster. As Mehra points out, “Whether he’s a righteous officer or a corrupt one, no time is wasted in establishing the character and the course of the story moves faster.”
Also, the middle-class audience that comprises a large portion of cinegoers can relate to the leading man. So, while we had poor hero and rich heroine characterisations in movies of the bygone era, a policeman as the hero isn’t lost in the divide.

The story has to be topical

Of course, content continues to play an important part and the story of the man in uniform has to be relevant with the times. Whether it was Aamir Khan’s Ajay Singh Rathod taking on the arms smuggling from across the Rajasthan border in Sarfarosh (1999), his Surjan Singh Shekhawat investigating a mysterious accidental death in Talaash (2012), Bajirao Singham’s fight against black money in Singham Returns or Sangram Bhalerao’s quest to punish rapists in Simmba, filmmakers are ensuring that their subjects resonate with the movie-going audience. Like Salman’s Chulbul Pandey borrowing inspiration from a former real-life cop in North India, John Abraham, too, is playing one based on Rajeev Kumar Yadav, who led the 2008 Batla House encounter in his upcoming film, Batla House. And given that Akshay’s Veer Sooryavanshi is an ATS (Anti-Terrorist Squad) officer, one can be sure filmmaker Rohit will explore a relevant story idea yet again. As the blockbuster director said during the trailer launch of Simmba, “A cop film will work only if it includes a reflection of what’s happening in society. You can’t show vague things in such a movie, you have to deal with a problem that is there in society.”

Moreover, filmmakers are ensuring that their content appeals not only to single- screen audiences, but also to families and multiplex patrons. As Mehra points out, “The rape sequence in Simmba is not shown in a crude manner. Moreover, the overall entertainment quotient in such films ensures that family audiences, too, can watch them in theatres. So, while there were comedians in the earlier movies, in cop flicks, the comic relief is incorporated by sidekicks, who are also men in uniform.”

Successful cop outings in recent years

  • Simmba (2018)
  • Singham Returns (2014)
  • Dabangg 2 (2012)
  • Talaash (2012)
  • Rowdy Rathore (2012)
  • Singham (2011)
  • Dabangg (2010)

Notable women supercops

  • Priyanka Chopra in Jai GangaaJal (2016)
  • Tabu in Drishyam (2015)
  • Rani Mukerji in Mardaani (2014)
  • Madhuri Dixit Nene in Khalnayak (1993)
  • Rekha in Phool Bane Angaarey (1991)
  • Dimple Kapadia in Zakhmi Aurat (1988)
  • Hema Malini in Andha Kanoon (1983)
Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement