The Actors we lost in Stars – Part 1 : Ajay Devgan

It was year 2002, an era of local cables on television. Dish TVs were not born in India yet and internet was in its infancy. The friendly local cable provided with enough channels to fulfill our thirst of drama serials, music channels and Indian cricket matches. On top of that, they showed us latest movies in the same week of their release on their local movie channels. 

In Jamnagar, we had Jay Cable and on one such Saturday night it was showing the latest Ajay Devgan and Akshay Khanna starrer Deewangee. Me and my brother watched it for nearly 30 minutes and just as we were going to switch off the television out of boredom, a stammering and reluctant Ajay Devgan on-screen transformed into a violent and cunning personality as he had multiple personality disorder in the story. It was an epic act which made us both his fan for life. This was the first time we were watching a film of so many suspense and thrills (after Gupt (1997), of course).

Here's that scene:

Those searing eyes. National Award worthy!

The same year Ajay Devgan came up with stellar performance in Legend of Bhagat Singh for which he won National Award for Best Actor. But the movie which made me really venerate him was Company (2002). It is the best underworld crimes movie in my book. And what made it so remarkable was the acting of Ajay Devgan. The intensity, the dialogue delivery and those deep eyes of Ajay Devgan would have got him a nomination in Oscars if the movie was released in America. Although he is the only actor amongst current A-Listers to bag 2 National Awards.
In fact, when you go back to late 90s he did remarkable acts in Kachche Dhaage(1999) and Zakhm (1998), latter of which got him National Award. One can only wonder after watching Zakhm, why Mahesh Bhatt left direction. But that's story for another day.

The next few years in mid-2000s were some of the best ‘acting’ years of Ajay Devgan. He was a strong SP Amit Kumar in Gangajal (2003), he was vulnerable and forlorn Manoj in Raincoat (2004) and lost king in Omkara (2006).

After 2006 we rarely got to see the real intensity of Ajay Devgan in movies. 

The last great Underworld movie

He is far superior actor than gets credit for, especially in dark roles. It was rumored that the director of Khakee, Rajkumar Santoshi made Ajay Devgan wear shades in most of the scenes so that his intense eyes don’t steal thunder from Amitabh’s angry old man act.

He started trying his hands at comedy. He didn’t seem to realise that he is not a natural comic actor like Akshay Kumar as many of his movies did ran successfully due to multiple cast and lame but comic storyline. Case in point: Golmaal (2006). A great comedy movie it was but not due to the comic chops of Devgan but that of Rohit Shetty, Arshad Warsi and Sharman Joshi.

The last great act!

After that came the era of run-of-the-mill action movies borne out of Salman starrer Wanted (2009). With that Ajay Devgan became Ajay Devgn and he couldn’t resist being a part of this wagon and did Singham (2011) and Singham Returns (2014). He would go on to do slapstick action comedy drama convoluted plots for the sake of money assosciated with this temporary genre of recent era. These movies would play on the star status of A-list actors and provide the viewer anything but a decent plot!

To be fair he did few movies like Once Upon a Time in Mumbai (2010), Aakrosh (2010) and Satyagraha (2013), where he was his former self again with powerful and impactful roles. Flashes of brilliance. But for every Sooraj Kumar of Rajneeti (2010) to get hopes high there is Jassi of Son of Sardar (2012) to get you disappointed.

So, did we lose Ajay Devgn, the actor to Ajay Devgn, the superstar?

Not the reason we fell in love
with Ajay Devgn

Not everything is Mr. Devgn’s fault. Even the audience rejected movies like Aakrosh and U me aur Hum (2008) where he gave some sincere performances. And chose to spend their money and whistles not once but twice for Bajirao Singham which only made him sign more and more Himmatwalas and Son of Sardars.

Please just stop with these movies

All hopes are still not lost for the actor we had fall in love with as the incredible failure of Action Jackson (absurdity screeni-fied) and Himmatwala (non-sense personified) might have jolted him to think over it.

And with a movie like Drishyam coming at the end of July, we may see return of the intensity of Ajay Devgn’s eyes in movies. Incidentally, Drishyam is all about visions that Ajay Devgn sees through a particular medium. I can only reveal it has one hell of a story if only director is able to present it well. Let’s not do with Drishyam what we did with Aakrosh where we killed a pretty decent movie because Ajay Devgn was not killing his villains after tearing his shirt.

Here's the trailer for the latest movie Drishyam

Here’s hoping to return of serious, menacing Ajay Devgan to screen.

PS: Years later I came across Primal Fear (1996) starring Edward Norton and Richard Gere. Deewangee was heavily ‘inspired’ by it. And Edward Norton got a nomination at Oscars for same role portrayed by Ajay Devgan in Deewangee. I saw both and I still feel Ajay was better.

PS PS: Aakrosh is also a copy of Mississippi Burning (1988). Ajay Devgn has a tendency to work in remakes of Classic Hollywood movies for unknowing Indian crowds.

Psst Psst: Drishyam is also a remake of Tamil and Malayalam movie starring Kamal Hassan and Mohanlal. I would urge you to watch the Tamil version to watch the master of cinema Kamal Hassan at play and also for its riveting story. And then watch Drishyam on 31st July to watch mesmeric Ajay Devgn at play.