Hrithik dares to bend the rules: Times of India

Mumbai, July 22: In Bollywood, heroes are as heroes do. Most leading icons would rather not bend the heroic roles. One of them has finally dared to take a plunge.
In the eagerly awaited Koi Mil Gaya, Hrithik Roshan not only plays against all the rules of screen heroism, he also dares to take unthinkable risks with his career at a time when he can ill afford them. In the role of a physically grown up man with the mind of a pubescent, Hrithik evokes faint memories of the naïve and artless Raj Kapoor in Shri 420.

Kamal Haasan is a rare actor who has played a variety of roles, from a dwarf in Apoorva Sahodarargal to a physically/mentally challenged man in Pathinaru Vayathinile to a psychotic killer in Sigappu Rojakal.

But when Amol Palekar and Rajesh Khanna did the Hindi remakes of Pathinaru Vayathinile (‘Solva Saawan’) and Sigappu Rojakal (‘Red Rose’), they bombed.

It's very hard, if not impossible, for mainstream celluloid icons in Bollywood to stretch themselves as actors without hurting their images. Whenever they've tried to go beyond the prescription they've done so with immense trepidation.
The only leading man in modern times who has dared to play a truly evil character is Aamir Khan in Deepa Mehta's 1947: Earth. In this adaptation of Bapsi Sidhwa's novel on the partition of India, Ice Candy Man, Khan was cast as a Muslim rogue who turns cold-bloodedly communal and finally gets a Hindu girl kidnapped and raped by a Muslim mob.

The child in a man's body concept is not new to Hollywood. It was done with sensitivity by comic genius Robin Williams in Francis Ford Coppola's Jack.

But Hrithik is treading far more dangerous grounds here. In Bollywood, leading men can't afford to trifle with their iconic images beyond peripheral changes. Would the audience be willing to see the star assume a child-man's persona without relegating his performance to 'character' acting?

Hrithik himself is exceedingly nervous. "It's a performance that would either be fully accepted or fully rejected."

If Hrithik's walk on the innocent side succeeds, it would decidedly take screen heroism in Bollywood many steps ahead from where it's currently stagnating.