David Lagachu
5. Salman Khan in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999)
This one might be a shocker for some but there are valid reasons to put Salman here in the list and that too for a film which is considered as one of his career defining. Assuming that everyone has already seen the film at least once let me take you back to the climax where Vanraj (Ajay Devgan) escorts his wife Nandini (Aishwarya Rai) to meet Sameer (Salman Khan), her first love. It was the most poignant scene of the film; Ajay Devgan takes over the scene with his emotive eyes and Aishwarya Rai displays the right amount of ecstasy and sadness but Salman Khan was lost in a jolly world of his own. His failure to bring out the right emotion at the right moment stands out like a sore thumb. Had it not been for the brilliant direction of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, that one moment could have ruined the film completely. Check out the film once again especially the climax if you still have any doubts in your mind about Salman’s flaw as an actor in the film.
4. Aamir Khan in Dhoom 3 (2013)
Even great artists have their limitations and Aamir Khan found out his limitation when he signed on to play the baddie in the third installment of the popular Dhoom series. To begin with he never fitted the bill for the role of a villain with a heart of gold. His predecessors include hot and sexy stars like John Abraham and Hrithik Roshan and he is no match for their sex appeal. And for a ‘Dhoom’ villain it’s all about appealing to the eyes, it has nothing much to do with acting. Even in the acting department Aamir fails here. He makes such ridiculous faces, may be in an attempt to look cool, throughout the film which only evoked laughter rather than awe. The film also doesn’t match up to the previous two versions in its entertainment value thus leaving Aamir in a no-win situation. It was clearly a bad career move for the otherwise Mr. Perfectionist.
3. Abhishek Bachchan in Raavan (2010)
The combination of Mani Ratnam and Abhishek Bachchan have earlier given us memorable films like ‘Yuva’ and ‘Guru’, so there was a lot of expectations from the dynamic duo. However, all the expectations came crumbling down once the film released. To put it directly ‘Raavan’ is a disaster of epic proportions. The whole team is to be blamed for the failure, barring the excellent cinematography by Santosh Sivan and V. Manikandan, but Abhishek Bachchan got the toughest deal out of it. ‘Raavan’ was simultaneously made as ‘Ravanan’ in Tamil with a slightly different cast and Vikram played the role of Veera in it. Vikram won the South Filmfare award for best actor which further highlighted Abhishek’s inept performance in the Hindi version. Bachchan tried his best but failed to bring out the inner demons of his character.
2. Shah Rukh Khan in Happy New Year (2014)
SRK’s role in ‘Happy New Year’ (HNY) can be termed as a ‘desperate’ one to hold on to his superstardom. While his stardom is still intact and will be in the near future too, the same cannot be said about the quality of his films anymore. He is particularly unbearable in HNY. HNY is directed by Farah Khan in whose earlier film ‘Om Shanti Om’ (2007) he got a chance to showcase his newly built six pack abs and drove the nation crazy. Seven years later he still seems to be stuck in that mode of focusing more on the physical and less on the substance of the film. The film’s story is a mix mash of several Hollywood hits like the ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ series and the ‘Step Up’ series, so the question of originality was already out of the window. SRK kicks ass, dances and does his usual romantic bits but HNY is a film of which no ‘India waale’ is proud of.
1. Salman Khan in Tubelight (2017)
Salman Khan was both the best and the worst thing in Kabir Khan’s ambitious war drama ‘Tubelight’. The presence of Khan in a movie guarantees solid buzz and anticipation but the same star power proved to be a curse for the film. There is no point in denying that Salman is at best an above average actor and acting is where he falters big time in this film. He played a childlike character in a childish manner which became the unbecoming of the film. He was just being himself in the film just like in most of his other roles; devoid of any seriousness. And despite the light hearted approach of the film to a serious subject like war his performance lacks the right amount of tomfoolery and empathy necessary to highlight his vulnerability and thus fails to establish a connect with his audiences. The result was out there for all to see.
