Happy Birthday Sidharth Malhotra: 7 roles that prove he can act

Sidharth Malhotra started his career with Karan Johar’s Student Of The Year in 2012. Stardom was easy breezy. But the roles he has chosen for himself have often let Malhotra down. Here are the ones where he made a mark. Shershaah (2021)

Sure, we honoured Vikram Batra with a Paramvir Chakra. But ask his family, if the medal comforts them when they remember Vikram every single day. To his credit, Sidharth Malhotra plays Vikram Batra with sincerity and honesty that shine through in every frame. In every frame, he is Rajesh Khanna in Anand and Aradhana. You know he is going to be missed sorely once he’s gone. Malhotra plays Batra as unforgettable. Boyish, helpful, sincere and endearing… There is not a duplicitous bone in this soldier and lover-boy. _Shershaah_ replays the events leading up to Vikram’s death during the 1999 Kargil war with brusque efficiency. It doesn’t take the war genre forward. That isn’t what this project set out to do. It aspired to bring alive a true hero’s saga, and it does that successfully. Full marks to Amazon Prime and Karan Johar for giving future generations a glimpse into a life that was short but oh-so significant. Mission Majnu (2023)

It seems the OTT is where stardom awaits SM. He is fully into his character in _Mission Majnu_, which streams on Netflix from January 20. SM plays a RAW agent moonlighting in Pakistan as a local. It’s a tricky role since the actor Sidharth Malhotra must not only play the double game but the character he plays Amandeep must also do the same, masquerading as Tariq in Pakistan. SM pulls it off with surprising ease and fluency. Ek Villain (2014)

Though ‘villain’ Ritesh Deshmukh walked away with all the critical acclaim, Sidharth as the grieving hero packed in a certain amount of florid intensity combined with some terrific stunts. This was one of Malhotra’s earliest successes. Interestingly in his other release _Hasee Toh Phasee_ the same year Malhotra happily allowed Parineeti Chopra to take centre stage. Hasee Toh Phasee (2014)

This quirky black comedy belongs to Parineeti Chopra, but Sidharth Mahotra puts in a sincere performance as Nikhil the sane part of the loverboy-wacko girl romcom. Although Sidharth Malhotra seems more taken up with putting his best profile forward on screen he struggles to subjugate his innate vanity and look sincere in his space and succeeds to some extent. One does see the actor identifying with his character’s wayward entrepreneurship and his sudden discovery of a protective warmth towards the zany girl who jumps into his life. Kapoor & Sons (2016)

This one featured a dreamlike ensemble cast including the great Rishi Kapoor, Ratna Pathak Shah, Rajat Kapoor and Karan Johar’s favourite Pakistani import Fawad Khan. But Sid Malhotra held his own, maybe because Alia Bhatt was also round. It was Leo Tolstoy who said it. “All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The family in Kapoor & Sons, played with magnificent eloquence by actors who know their job, is happy on the surface. But scratch the polished exterior, and you get frightening fissures. Fawad Khan effortlessly chews up Sidharth Malhotra in every scene that they appear together. Not that Malhotra doesn’t try. He does. But the effort shows each time Fawad is in the same frame. They play writer-brothers who have always been at loggerheads for reasons that appear silly and trivial. But that’s the nature of family secrets. They rip a relevance only in the discontinuity that creeps into family ties. A Gentleman (2017)

This zany spy thriller featured Sid Malhotra in two avatars, an ordinary nerdy working-class guy and a 007-styled secret agent. I’m not sure how well he succeeded in pulling off the dual personality. But Malhotra did display the potential of being a full-on filmi hero, lights, fights, camera, and plenty of action. The actor is fully aware that this is his do-or-die attempt at Cruise control. Malhotra gives it his best shot…the gun or the tequila, take your pick. He gets to do two different looks. But the two different expressions??!!….No problem… The assassin in Mumbai wears a grimace and the white-collar worker in Miami wears a loopy grin. Malhotra socks his punches and sucks on those over-painted lips like a fleamarket version of Tom Cruise. He even does a gay act in a bar with a government official (Chittaranjan Tripathy, excellent) to get confidential information. Aiyaary (2018)

Having Manoj Bajpayee as his co-star in this muddled war-espionage drama helped Sidharth negotiate the rocky terrain. He played Bajpayee’s protégé, and that’s the relationship they shared in real life as well. Manoj Bajpayee and Sidharth Malhotra play against each other with vitality and force, giving both heft and history to their parts of a veteran who won’t desert the cause and a junior who won’t stay within the corrupt system. The confrontation sequences between Bajpayee and Malhotra are a treat to behold, largely because they play not for effect but for reasons that come from within their conscience. Malhotra is especially surprising, fine-tuning his inner pain, channelizing the Ranbir rather than Ranveer within himself, to deliver a mellow blow to a system of governance that fosters corruption. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News,  India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and Instagram