SRK stumbles with KANK

I am a sucker for SRK, and also for a good tear-jerker. KJ’s first film, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, I must have seen many times, so impressed was I with his clever use of Bollywood formulae. But his second film, the pathetic Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham showed that 2K2H was a fluke, never mind it sent Johar Jr laughing all the way to his ATM.That film, and the unbearable Kal Ho Naa Ho which he produced, should have sufficed to warn one off his future ventures, but when the next film once again features the reigning superstar and the man he replaced, plus the latter’s son who after 17 flops is suddenly hot property, it becomes very difficult to stay away from the movie.This despite friends warning me in one voice to stay away from the film, not spend my money on a lost cause. But as my wife and I reasoned, an SRK movie needs to be seen never mind if it’s good or bad. Adding to our hope was that the last few films SRK tried to be different in – Paheli, Swades, Veer-Zaara – may have tanked at the box office, but nevertheless were personal favourites.Still, nothing, NOTHING prepared me for the horror that KANK turned out to be. Even as a film on infidelity it was not path-breaking in any sense like, say, Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth was. It’s of no consequence that Karan Johar is unmarried and so failed at making a film on, well, failed marriages. If we go down that road, then only psychopaths or cops can make criminal films etc. A film-maker reflects the reality around him as he sees it.Which is why I wonder at the kind of married couples that surround Karan Johar. Are all his male acquaintances incorrigibly insensitive like SRK’s character is? And the married women lifeless and joyless automatons like Rani Mukerji’s character?The basic ingredient for such a film is the power to invoke audience sympathy, or empathy, in its protagonists’ actions, however mindless and unreasonable they maybe. And this is where Karan Johar fails miserably as director. Thanks to the cardboard nature of his lead characters, we remain mere audiences, totally uninvolved in the goings-on in their lives. Not caring if they lived or died.Which is why, KANK becomes the third film I couldn’t sit through in its entirety, the other two being Daud and Trimurti, both lemons. But KANK is the worst film I have seen, for it is made by a man hyped as the new generation’s hottest director and stars all the topline actors that money can buy.And the performances, or the lack of it. For the first time in an SRK film, the second hero, Abhishek Bachchan, steals the show with his subtle performance. Subtlety for King Khan, on the other hand, means twisting his facial muscles into a scowl, which he does in every second scene.It’s a landmark no less. When Hrithik was touted as the superstar to succeed SRK, Karan Johar pitted them both in one film, K3G, and we know who came out on top in that encounter. Alas, he fails to come to his friend SRK’s aid again. The younger Bachchan effortlessly puts one past the king, never mind the latter is there in virtually every frame, and has the best lines to mouth. Still, neither the actor nor the character he portrays connects with the audience.Dhoom 2, which pits AB Jr against Hrithik, should hence make for a great film, and could tell us who will take over the mantle from SRK.As for King Khan, he should take a few lessons from the man he displaced. Amitabh maybe 60 , but Sexy Sam still shows that one on one, he is leagues ahead of SRK. In both Veera-Zaara and KANK, he puts the main hero in the shade with just a few minutes of screen-time. Not for nothing does he go on and on like the Energiser Bunny.Or, keeping with the brand he endorses, should that be Eveready Battery?

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