Shamshera is not only crucial to Ranbir Kapoor but also to YRF & the film industry

Ranbir Kapoor, considered one of the brightest star-actors of the post- Rishi Kapoor generation, has not been seen on screen for four years. Some cineastes may find that absence patently bearable considering Shah Rukh Khan has been missing from the screen for four years and still counting.

Be as it might, the last we saw of Ranbir was when the world was different: his world and our world. There was no pandemic when Ranbir’s _Sanju_ released. He was also not married and back then most of those who knew him, thought he never would settle down with one woman. But like they say, wonders never cease. And who knows this better than Ranbir? Since Sanju his world has changed irrevocably. He lost his father and gained a life partner.

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Karan Malhotra’s _Shamshera_ comes to Ranbir’s career at a time when the movie business is going through an identity crisis. Will Shamshera work at the box office? Actually, it is not that hard to predict the outcome, if we go by the fate of most of what has come since the pandemic. Yash Raj Films, once considered the most illustrious production house in Mumbai, has gone through a stream of failures in the last two years: Yash Raj’s _Bunty Aur Babli 2_, _Jayeshbhai Jordaar_ and the biggest blow _Samrat Prithviraj_ have all been dismal failures.

In addition, Shamshera has to reckon with a throbbing thundering adversary. I am talking about the Russo Brothers’ _The Gray Man_, Netflix’s juggernaut of an entertainer with two of Hollywood’s most charismatic stars Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans taking each on in a battle that stretches across several continents and subsumes the kind of action pieces that makes us pine for the big screen.

Can Shamshera take on this Goliath?

Will Shamshera revive the fortunes of a production house that once was unerring in its judgement of what works? To answer this we must lay open the content being offered in Shamshera. The theme of father and son as outlaws fighting the British Raj is very Sanjay Dutt. In fact, Sanjay’s father the much respected Sunil Dutt used to specialize in these dacoit dramas where horsing around had nothing to do with cracking jokes.

Will Ranbir’s fan base accept him as bandit galloping into a sandstorm? Traditionally the Kapoor leading men, whether it was Raj Kapoor, Shashi Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, Randhir or Rishi Kapoor have never been seen as action heroes by the audience. Of course, Ranbir Kapoor is talented enough to be as trippy as he wants to be. But is the audience game for seeing him move the pieces on the chessboard?

It is interesting to note that Ranbir’s father the super-versatile Rishi Kapoor had played a coldblooded villain in Shamshera director Karan Malhotra’s earlier film, a remake of the Amitabh Bachchan gangster drama Agneepath. Rishi had been praised for his evil designs. Ranbir has neither the versatility nor the manoeuvring power of his father. He is no doubt a commendable actor. But can he pull off a Bandit King?

The film industry is divided in its opinion. While some of the directors Ranbir has worked with more recently, feel he can do “anything” one of his earlier directors thinks otherwise and that being convincing as an action hero is not about muscles or machismo but attitude.

Ranbir’s last screen outing as Sanjay Dutt in Rajkumar Hirani’s Sanju was a deeply flawed ridiculously bloated biopic. The plot of the semi-truthful biopic left us with many question marks. While it aptly focused on building up a case beyond the legal to substantiate Sanjay Dutt’s image as a victim of his own naivete, it brought into play characters and situations which had no place in the real Sanjay Dutt’s life.

The girlfriends whom we’ve all known through the years as being part of the Dutt folklore were hurriedly dealt with as though they must be gotten out of the way. Sonam Kapoor appeared to be playing an amalgamation of Tina Munim and Richa Sharma. Sanjay Dutt’s daughter from Richa Sharma was no part of the bogus biopic. No big deal: Dhoni’s brother didn’t figure in his biopic either.

The modus operandi of Hirani’s vexatiously duplicitous semi-fictional biopic was to blow up all the situations in Dutt’s drama out of all proportion\s and then whittle them all down to a whiny protest where the protagonist becomes the portrait of self-injurious victimhood.

The least that can be expected from Shamshera is that it would be a more honest film than Sanju.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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