How Sanjay Dutt went from rowdy hero to reliable villain
Stills of Sanjay Dutt from Agneepath, Panipat, KGF Chapter 2, and Shamshera
Be it in real life or reel life, Sanju Baba has had a reputation of being quite a reckless and rule-breaking individual. After decades of playing heroes (mostly as gundas and policewallas), an aged and post-imprisonment Dutt has now embraced a villainous persona, as is evident from his recent roles in KGF Chapter 2 and Shamshera.
To quote Sanjay Dutt from Yasser Usman’s unauthorised biography Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood’s Bad Boy, ‘I was a wild guy. In fact at the slightest provocation I did things like taking out a sword. I hit a lot of people…’
The early films of Sanjay Dutt’s career wouldn’t age well for contemporary viewers. Who would even like to check out films with titles like Mardon Wali Baat or Mohabbat Ke Dushman. His offscreen bad boy persona fuelled by womanising and drug abuse would have further negatively affected the longevity of his career.
A feel-good formula: Then came Munna Bhai MBBS as a watershed moment. After years of playing a typical Mumbai gangster, the role of Munnabhai proved that Dutt can play a typical Mumbai gangster…with a heart. The light-hearted role proved to resurge his career to a new trajectory. With a Gandhian touch in the sequel, the Munna Bhai series succeeded as good PR for Dutt whose cases of illegal arms possession were still pending.
In 2007-2008, Dutt served 18 months of the 5-year-long sentence awarded to him by the Supreme Court. After being granted bail, Dutt sought out to reinvent his career yet again. No longer could he flex his biceps in tight gym vests. Age had started showing its signs.
Enter Kancha Cheena: After years of consecutive flops, Dutt earned acclaim for his antagonistic role in the 2012 remake of Agneepath. Succeeding Danny Denzongpa in playing the druglord Kancha Cheena, Dutt’s wide-eyed grin and shaved head (seemingly inspired by Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now) added a sense of genuine terror and ruthlessness. The role bore testimony to the fact that this time, Dutt could rebrand himself as a villain.
But in 2013, when the Supreme Court ordered Dutt to complete the 42 pending months of his sentence, Dutt tried to tick some bizarrely random movies off his bucket list. This resulted in hurried pre-jail production of critical and box-office duds like Policegiri, Zila Ghaziabad, and the heavily-panned Zanjeer remake.
A screen reincarnation: As 2016 approached, Dutt walked out of Pune’s Yerawada jail as a free man, intent on resuming his acting career. The 2018 biopic (or dramatised biopic as some might argue) Sanju proved to be a major redemption vehicle through which friend and director Rajkumar Hirani conveniently washed Dutt of all his misdeeds.
Since then, the actor has gone on to act in a mixed batch of films but what his recent filmography proves is that he is maybe better suited to play villains. For an actor who has perpetually had the ‘bad boy’ tag attached to him, it only makes sense.
Reliable villain: Villainous roles like the Afghan king Ahmad Shah Abdali in Panipat and a corrupt politician in Prassthanam failed to make a mark, but 2022 has proven to be Dutt’s year as the baddie.
Marking his Kannada debut with the blockbuster KGF Chapter 2, Dutt faced off against Yash’s hypermasculine hero Rocky Bhai. Dutt's character Adheera is a gangster who clashes with the lead characters over control of the titular Kolar Gold Fields. In a masala action flick with scenes featuring bearded men gunning and kniving each other down, Adheera stands out with a relatively bizarre aesthetic.
Clearly inspired by the medieval characters of the historical fiction series Vikings, Dutt’s Adheera often carries an Arthurian sword and sports a Viking-like reverse mullet coupled with tattoos in the Devanagiri script. Reactions to Dutt’s look can be polarising but it suits a larger-than-life potboiler like the KGF franchise, turning Adheera into some sort of a mythical character.
Daroga with a whip: This month, another highly-anticipated big-budget movie hits the screens with Dutt as the hero’s adversary. In the Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Shamshera, Dutt plays a khaki-wearing, whip-wielding daroga serving the British in the 1800s India. As a dacoit tribe wreaks havoc for the whites, Dutt’s Shuddh Singh serves as the British servant who can bring Ranbir Kapoor’s Balli in line.
The trailer promises another over-the-top outing for Dutt who brings on his Kancha Cheena grin to play a man who seems recklessly eccentric.
Regardless of how Shamshera performs at the box office, it is amusing to witness Dutt’s comeback this year. Ironically, his next project The Good Maharaja finds him essaying the titular role. But given the success he has had from Agneepath to KGF, it wouldn’t be surprising for him to play the bad guy in another blockbuster, who knows if it is named The Good Maharaja!