MUMBAI: A few days prior to the release of Gadar 2, Sunny Deol, an actor in Hindi cinema, celebrated 40 years in the business. There haven't been many performers who have remained reliable in the movie business for four decades and yet managed to pull crowds to the theatres while playing prominent roles, except Amitabh Bachchan, the Khans, and now, hopefully, Akshay Kumar. Prior to Gadar 2, nobody anticipated Sunny to be able to pull this off, but now that he has, it appears as though a new phase of his career has just started.

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Sunny is still channelling what he did in the 1983 film Betaab, which served as his breakthrough, while Amitabh Bachchan evolved from his macho action persona and moved on to films that allowed him to play a variety of characters.

The actor is now 65 years old, has undoubtedly aged throughout these 40 years, yet it looks that the cinematic grammar he used was timeless. The type of launchpad that was honored back then was Betaab, which also served as Amrita Singh's screen debut. At the time, there was real interest in finding out what Dharmendra's son was made of. Today, it would be perceived as nepotistic, with those involved apologizing for their privileges.

Curiosity also arose because Javed Akhtar's script for the movie was his first written independently after their breakup with Salim Khan. There was so much anticipation surrounding Betaab because RD Burman and Anand Bakshi produced some legendary songs for the movie. However, looking back, Betaab looks to be one of those movies that hasn't aged well, not because it's overly problematic but rather because it feels just too dated. In fact, it ended up being one of the biggest hits of the year and even had a golden jubilee. The 2023 release Gadar 2 could be similarly described, but that's a topic for another day.

The plot of Betaab is very straightforward: a boy and a girl from different economic backgrounds fall in love, and the woman's father, played by Shammi Kapoor, fights to keep them apart. However, everything ends happily ever after. Strangely, the movie, which could have made or broken Javed's career because it was the first time he had written the script for a movie alone, relied more on its soundtrack and locales than on its narrative.

Betaab was filmed in Kashmir with a strong emphasis on the surroundings. It's impossible that you haven't been told to go to "Betaab valley" if you've traveled to Kashmir at any point since the early 1980s. The movie served as Sunny's reel, showcasing him as the boy next door, action hero, lover boy, cute son, rebel, and everything else a popular actor would have needed in the 1980s.

He moves through the movie like his father's spitting image, riding horses, and kicking with no shirt on. Finding the specific elements that made a 1980s hit movie popular might be challenging. However, Sunny likely recognized what was working for him and stuck with it. Sure, we may conjecture, but there isn't a formula that ensures a hit movie. He is still performing the same action even after 40 years.

In his career, Sunny has experienced protracted periods of mediocrity where his movies either failed to connect with audiences or were simply too mass-market for them. However, each and every time he had a big hit (Ghayal, Damini, Ghatak, Border, and Gadar), it followed the same formula.  The formula is to throw punches with all of your might and shout loud enough to get the audience to pay attention to you. Both Betaab and Gadar 2 had it.

Sunny has stuck to his principles, unlike many other actors who have undergone their own form of evolution over the past few decades - Salman evolving from the endearing Prem to Bhai, Shah Rukh branching out from the stereotypical lover boy, Akshay Kumar switching from action to comedy to dabbling in a few other genres, and Aamir Khan evolving with every new project he chooses. Some might ask if he longs to stand out, but it appears that the actor is still dominating the box office using a strategy that is 40 years old. And why would he even attempt to be different if the box office, which is a sign that the general public loves it.

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Credit:- Indian Express