With 'Badlapur', Bollywood has got its brand new, greatly promising realistic actor. Varun Dhawan, who plays the lead in Sriram Raghavan's revenge drama, has gone above and beyond in his portrayal of Raghu, a vengeful, unfortunate man.
*This story contains spoilers. If you have not seen the film yet, please come back to the story later.
It would be hard to believe that this is the same actor who flaunted his abs, biceps and the rest of his perfectly sculpted body in 'Student Of The Year'. In the scene where Laik (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is convicted of the murder of Yami Gautam and is being taken to the prison, Raghu (Varun Dhawan) comes close to him and insinuates that he had spent last night with Jhimli (Huma Qureshi), love interest of Laik. He says it with a sly smile. Laik passes him by and Raghu watches on with the smile diminishing and then suddenly turns and runs towards him with his hands out stretched. Laik is caught by the police in time, but the way Raghu's expression changes - from the sly smile to plane rage as the one in the scene when he first meets Laik in the prison and started to beat him - leaves an impact on the viewers. The whole scene is not more than 30 seconds and Dhawan changes his expressions with perfection parallel to that of Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
Varun in interviews had said that it was hard for him to catch up to Siddiqui's level of sincerity, but those who have watched the film would agree that the actor has successfully accomplished what he had set out to. It is hard, especially for Bollywood actors, to transform their image as Indian audiences tend not to like variations, but Varun has convincingly pulled off the variations of his character and how it ages in the film.
Dhawan is no more the young charming guy in this film; his character is much deeper than that. He uses his charming side to get ahead and fulfill his vengeful motives. In a flashback scene, a 22-year-old Raghu finds out that his girlfriend, Yami Gautam, is pregnant and with great strength of character he decides to get married. That same strength of character is evident in 40-year-old Raghu who is avenging his wife and child's murder step by step.
Another shocking scene is when after killing Harman (Vinay Pathak) and his wife Koko (Radhika Apte) Raghu goes and meets Laik at the spot he had decided with Harman. Dhawan tells Siddiqui that he had killed his friends and taken his share of the money. Siddiqui who is baffled looks into Dhawan's eyes and is scared, the feeling is shared by audiences as a wave of fear and excitement passes through the theater as they look into his eyes that carry a dark and incomprehensible stare in them.
The actor who seduced audiences with a smoldering body and a plainly sexy smile in 'Student Of The Year' and 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya' has vanished into this manipulative man shaken to irreparable limits by the loss of his family. Varun of 'Badlapur' is shown in a manner which has never been seen before. In the film, he has quite literally become his character.
The actor has, quite evidently, invested time and effort to make the leap from playing a romantic hero to accepting this aggressive character. Varun, who muddled through a forgettable films like 'Main Tera Hero' has finally found his breakout role in the much talked about film. With his recent role, he has proved that he isn't ready to stick to just one genre or a handful of character themes. Not ready to be pigeonholed by the industry, Varun is willing to pick a wide variety of roles and will continue to prove that he can act in any film which is offered to him.
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