New Delhi: Young actor Imran Khan sports an erection and spouts profanity in a sharp urbane comedy as megastar Amitabh Bachchan revives a popular 70s avatar in Friday's two big releases that bring together two contrasting genres of Indian cinema.
The irony of 'Delhi Belly' and 'Bbuddha Hoga Terra Baap' lie in their approach towards dialogue. "Stop this marriage! This girl has given me a blowjob!" says Vir Das who plays Khan's flat mate in the slick rom-com. Its songs are a hit with youngsters even before the release of the film.
'Bhaag DK Bose' was a massive hit with youths for its veiled profanity. But a genteel Bachchan on Friday will settle for polite 'beeps' even as he kicks some serious butt in the reprisal of a role popular with a largely middle-aged fan base.
As multiplexes woo the spending middleclass audience with cinema that appeals to an India divided in their choice of films, actors in 'Delhi Belly' find themselves attracting a different set of fans. They comfortably flit between English and Hindi dialogue and willingly slip in to sex scenes that Bachchan's colleagues would shy away from three decades ago.
The marketing team is promoting the film as a nostalgic look-back on Bachchan's 'angry young man' days when he always drew first and never missed a shot from the hip holster. He plays a Paris hitman in the film that sees him wearing some really vocal floral prints.
His audiences love him despite a string of lukewarm comeback films. Bachchan's director is the 45-year-old Tollywood veteran Puri Jagannath who has made moderately conservative films with stars such as Nagarjun, Allu Arjun, Chiranjeevi and Ravi Teja.
He is up against Abhinay Deo who has gone into a new Jim Careyesque territory with DB and made a film that is an ensemble of smart riposte and crude toilet humour. The film is about three flat-mates accidentally caught up in a crime.
Bachchan and Khan, who are four decades apart in age, compete for Friday's box office crown in two very different roles that define the conflict Bollywood faces. As it holds on to simpler times in the 70s, and revisits the era in various spoof projects, the film industry realizes it will lose its relevance if it didn’t change with the changing times. Will it be able to retain the best of both the worlds? Friday will tell, because god knows, the audiences are ready.
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