The Hindu Business Line : Daddy Dearest moves on

Bachchan, as the older man, was worthy of being watched, because of the many reasons we've always watched him: to all of that, he added a gravitas, which matched his pepper and salt persona.

Sweet talking: A still from Cheeni Kum.

One of the myths Bollywood is blowing apart at the seams in 2007 has to do with `the formula': that terror of keeping things the same has receded significantly. It is beginning to craft stories never been told before (they may be blatantly lifted from Hollywood, or `inspired' by avant garde European cinema, but that's another story), in an explosion of styles.

Experimentation is the name of the new game. And it's impacting not only plots, but protagonists too. And the one man who is revelling in this new-found freedom is Amitabh Bachchan. All his characters in his past few movies have been just that — characters — not cardboard cut-outs of roles he has played before.

This year's two most interesting characters are, without a shred of doubt, Buddhadev, the acerbic, opinionated chef from Cheeni Kum, and Vijay, the brooding, intense photographer from Nishabd. R Balki, adman turned first-time director, was very clear that he would do the film only if Bachchan said yes to the role, which has shades of Jack Nicholson's character in As Good As It Gets. But Bachchan has a tougher role in Cheeni Kum: he has to prove to his potential girlfriend that he, at 64, has enough `dum' to do more than just kiss her! To which end, he is made to run in a London park, breathless and all, even while Tabu is busy laughing her head off.

Buddha wears the chef's whites with élan. He rules his restaurant with an iron hand, keeping the velvet glove for the love of his life. He also exchanges deep philosophical notes about life and love with his neighbour, a little girl who is dying of cancer. Those conversations, after a point, become cloying and irritating, but while they last, Bachchan shows just how good he is at wowing the ladies, whether it is the six-year-old Sexy, or the 34-year-old Nina.

Nishabd's Vijay falls madly in love with a girl, just out of school, who also happens to be his daughter's friend. Ram Gopal Varma positions Bachchan at a level where he is made to look straight at newcomer Jiah Khan's long legs, with a mixture of longing and regret. What anyone else would have made sleazy, becomes desire dignified by the character's awareness of the people he belongs to: it's another matter that he loses his head totally, and is then made to, unbelievably, withdraw from the brink. But that's more the director's failure, than the actor's.

Everybody's favourite patriarch

After his resurrection in the movies, post Kaun Banega Crorepati, Bachchan had become everybody's favourite patriarch. He towered over the much shorter heroes who wooed heroines, cracked the whip, and made sure everyone stayed within boundaries set by tradition and convention. Both in Aditya Chopra's Mohabbatein, and Karan Johar's Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (K3G), he played the strict older man to the hilt. And in both, he lorded over Shah Rukh Khan: he played a quasi father-in-law in the first, and a stepfather in the second, but remained the strong father figure.

In both he disapproved of SRK's character. SRK plays a music teacher in Mohabbatein, who thinks most problems can be solved by love. Big B believes the same thing can be done, but only through discipline. In K3G, he is incensed by Shah Rukh's choice of bride. Kajol is very distinctly from the other side of the tracks, and neither as moneyed or as sophisticated as he would have wished, from his khaandaan's bahu.

Bachchan, as the older man, was worthy of being watched, because of the many reasons we've always watched him. To all of that, he added a gravitas, which matched his pepper and salt persona. He was equally effective in Veer Zaara when he added some light-heartedness to the mix, as a `special appearance'. He plays SRK's hearty Punjabi elder and better, with the still-gorgeous Hema Malini as spouse, and shakes as mean a leg as the others in the mandatory bhangra song. Funny, in all his outings, he has never played SRK's own father; so very apt, considering all the buzz about their `strained relationship' in the media.

But there came a time when we started getting tired of watching Bachchan as baap. Directors began running out of ideas on how they could build in difference in Daddy Dearest. There were a few more outings in which he appeared as the good, noble, self-sacrificing father. In Viruddh, he battles a callous system and wins, after the death of his son; in Baghban, he excels as the father who is taken advantage of by his own greedy sons, and treated badly; and in Baabul, he fights to get his cruelly widowed daughter-in-law a new life and a new partner. But it was clear that the whole father thing was running ragged.

It was equally clear that we didn't want to see him Being Very Bad: Boom's near psychotic don, who leered at the bare legs of barely-clad women, and killed people without batting an eyelid, was roundly rejected. We wanted to see Bachchan as someone who could be a little disreputable but who ultimately restores order. The bidi smoking cop in Bunty Aur Babli can rock the dance floor in Kajra re, but we clap as heartily when he shows the two crooks, played by Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee, the error of their ways. We were okay with him having some adult fun, even a string of lovers, like he did in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, as he sweet talks his way through as many girls as there are days in a week, as the swaggering Sexy Sam.

In Cheeni Kum, he moves away from the burden of always being the older, the wiser. He has a mother who lectures to him. A little tyke does ditto. Even his to-be father-in-law is six years younger. What he is allowed to do here is revolutionary: he is a lover, merely, and everything he does is geared towards winning the woman he loves.

At 64, he is the sexiest thing about the movie.