Salman Khan is not a first-rate actor. The list of his ordinary performances is much longer than that of his two most prominent like-aged counterparts, Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan. Beyond doubt, however, is Salman Khan’s superstardom.
His ability to cast a spell on his fans was evident during his brief appearance in a post-interval sequence in Siddharth Anand’s spy action drama Pathaan earlier this year. When he shared screen space with SRK for a few minutes, theatre audiences left their seats and celebrated the coming together of the two Khans. As long as the fun lasted, it was impossible to say who the bigger star was.
SAMJI GETS IT WRONG
A few months after Pathaan, Khan is back with his solo hero offering, Farhad Samji’s action drama Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, a remake of Siva’s Tamil language film Veeram. Samji had previously directed Pop Kaun?, a Disney+Hotstar comedy web series with seasoned actors marred by poor writing and ordinary direction. His last big-screen offering was the embarrassingly bad action comedy Bachchhan Paandey, the remake of Karthik Subbaraj’s Tamil language film Jigarthanda. Before KKBKKJ hit the marquee, some might have thought that Samji won’t get it right again. Those who did were right.
SUPERSTARDOM ON SALE
KKBKKJ, in other words, is below-average fare that tries little beyond marketing Khan as the film’s centre of attraction. Khan romances a far younger girl (Pooja Hegde), displays his painfully limited dancing skills, does a mostly-routine job in action sequences, shows off his physique that he always does, and tries to sell a film with a half-baked script with the sheer appeal of his superstardom.
Despite being a thorough disappointment, KKBKKJ has attracted viewers in good numbers so far. The Eid release has collected an estimated Rs 67 crore in its first three days of business in India alone. On Saturday and Sunday, the film collected an estimated Rs 25 crore and Rs 26 crore, respectively, a sign of excellent growth after a relatively slow start with collections of close to Rs 16 crore on Friday. If KKBKKJ becomes a significant success, the box-office verdict will be the result of its 57-year-old male lead’s ability to attract audiences with less-than-ordinary content even today.
RETURN AS THE SOLO HERO
Statistics show that Salman Khan has delivered some of the biggest Bollywood hits ever since Sooraj Barjatya’s romantic musical Maine Pyar Kiya became a blockbuster in 1989. Not all his big successes have received three and four stars from critics nationwide. But he has made masses gravitate to the theatres during the good phases of his now-long career. He has returned to prominence and silenced his critics, as he famously did after his failures with blockbusters like Prabhu Deva’s action thriller Wanted (2009) and Abhinav Singh Kashyap’s action comedy Dabangg (2010). His career, in short, has been interesting to watch. It has often made one wonder how and why he is so incredibly successful.
Before he returned as the male lead in KKBKKJ, Khan hadn’t appeared in the central role for a while. Moreover, his last two films in which he appeared in the central role had nothing much to write home about. Prabhu Deva’s Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai, a 2021 hybrid release, was an impossible-to-like cringe-fest. Dabangg 3, the third film in the Dabangg franchise also directed by Prabhu Deva and released in 2019, was almost as unimpressive.
His brief appearance in Pathaan in the cleverly constructed sequence reminded the viewer of his stardom, the power of which had allowed him to deliver both reasonably likeable and highly mediocre hits in the past. The film became an all-time blockbuster, thus ensuring that the duet of the two Khans was widely watched and liked. The sequence possibly made a small contribution to the box-office numbers of KKBKKJ during the first weekend.
Even if KKBKKJ does good business, it will be seen as one of those films that worked because of the superstar’s mass appeal – and a generous dose of good luck. Despite his limitations as an actor, Khan has delivered far better performances in the past. Among them are Kabir Khan’s 2015 comedy-drama Bajrangi Bhaijaan in which he is a devotee of Lord Hanuman, and Ali Abbas Zafar’s Sultan (2016), a sports drama film in which he is a fictional wrestler. His performances in BB and Sultan reveal signs of hard work and sincerity. That is the route Khan must take more often.
The author, a journalist for three decades, writes on literature and pop culture. Among his books are ‘MSD: The Man, The Leader’, the bestselling biography of former Indian captain MS Dhoni, and the ‘Hall of Fame’ series of film star biographies. Views expressed are personal.
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