Raees: Shah Rukh Khan needs to redefine his image. Can Raees do this?

The last time SRK played a mobster, in Farhan Akhtar’s Don series, he was evidently out of his comfort zone – which in the superstar’s case is the safety net of a KJO-YRF mush pill for the lovesick teenager. For most of his cinematic innings lasting over 25 years, SRK has relished playing a chick magnet. Each time he has attempted a departure from his lover-boy image he has paid the price, evident in the failure of better and well-meaning films like Swades, Paheli and Fan. All tanked simply because the audience refused to accept him in more realistic roles. His efforts to stay in-tune with the times with experiments like Ra.One also failed. One look at today’s Shah Rukh Khan and you instantly know something isn’t working. What’s wrong? On the surface, nothing is wrong at least with his choice of filmmakers. Every few years, he joins hands with directors with proven success record. This includes Karan Johar, the Yash Raj banner, Farah Khan, Rohit Shetty and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. With Farah and Shetty and to some extent the Don series, he projects a 70s-style mass entertainer on the lines of a Manmohan Desai fun trip, a formula that Raees aims to mimic.

What’s worth pointing out is that, in Raees, SRK may well have touched upon something that he should have done a long time ago – to either be a part of a film that can start new conversations or co-opt ones that middle-class India is talking about. Here, it’s the very fact that the film is based in Gujarat. No conversation in India these days is complete without the mention of Gujarat or Gujaratis, a trend kick-started, of course, in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rise to power. This is the key difference between SRK and the other long-reigning Khans, Salman and Aamir who have found a way to connect with the masses by either doing films that ignite a campaign or piggyback on a wave of trending topics, be it nationalistic and sports or religion and Pakistan. For this reason, SRK’s recent Dear Zindagi – in which his life coach protagonist was an outpouring of WhatsApp aphorisms and Instagram pulp philosophy quotes – became an instant hit with the multiplex-goers. That even staunch feminists raised no red flag over his ‘How Dare A Man Rescue A Woman’ act is a tribute to his boundless charm and contemporary relevance.

Raees: It’s a bit of a surprise how Shah Rukh Khan, the urban sophisticate and wizened philosopher among the Khans, can connect with interior India at all.

But his new release Raees is for a completely different set of audiences than those who signed up for Dear Zindagi. These noble men and women reside mostly in smaller centres and it’s been a while since SRK has served them. The Dilwales and Happy New Years were for them. It’s a bit of a surprise how Shah Rukh Khan, the urban sophisticate and wizened philosopher among the Khans, can connect with interior India at all. What do they see in him? Raees, reportedly based on a real-life Gujarati gangster called Abdul Latif, is SRK’s long-pending gift to his mofussil fans.

It contains all the action-packed drama that an Amitabh Bachchan blockbuster of the 1970s had. Also, it’s a film pointed at the Muslim constituency, who make up a bulk of this country’s cinema ticket-buying populace. On the other hand, the educated, urban fans of the star will definitely want to have a dekko out of sheer curiosity but may end up feeling disappointed, even cheated, by Raees. But the small-towners will grab it without questioning, showering it with box-office kisses.

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In all likelihood, the box-office figures of Raees will be monitored closely by not only the media and audiences but also by SRK himself. Stars like him may have the ability to recover unscathed from failures but who can resist a box-office boffo? Certainly not SRK, who at 51, is hungrier for success than ever. It would be misleading to think that the superstar, who’s far more intelligent than he lets on in his films, is not aware of where he stands today. This is no career wrap-up but a crossroad where reinvention, if not divine intervention, is needed that can help him catch up with the other Khans and a steadily rising number of younger and raring-to-go stars. Some years ago, Salman Khan revived his sagging fortunes as a reborn action star with Dabangg and Aamir Khan as the new-age Manoj Kumar.

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Post-2000, SRK is floating about with no formula in sight for the first time since the 1990s when he became India’s official romance king. Is he in experimentation mode? Probably. Karan Johar thinks he’s undergoing “career metamorphosis.” Not to forget an important question that’s bound to play on the mind of any ageing superstar: that of legacy. Those who criticised the famous resident of Mannat as just another Rajesh Khanna (lording over Aashirwad) have been effectively shut up by his dizzyingly long stay at the top. Now, he needs to silence those who believe him to be nothing more than a mindless entertainer and smile spreader. Unless you are one of those who views his giving millions of people a reason to smile as his sole legacy.

(Shaikh Ayaz is a writer and journalist based in Mumbai)