‘If it’s not on the page, then it’s not on the stage’ is a maxim that Bollywood director Milan Luthria follows religiously.
However, this rule can be a hindrance in the famously chaotic world of Bollywood, where concrete scripts are rare.
The director of Baadshaho, a Western-style adventure about thieves trying to steal gold, won’t let it go so easily.
“We take time to make our films. We know the script has to go through five or six re-writes or we have to come back to it several times. It’s the simplest rules in the business, but I don’t know why there’s a dearth of writers in Bollywood,” said Luthria.
His films are laden with complicated protagonists and satisfying stories laced with emotions, pathos and rejection.
Luthria’s working style is simple: Make allowances for the fact that two people (the director and the writer) are working as a single unit in a film and have mutual respect for the creative minds at play.
“When you work on a film that’s written by somebody else, you can’t always trust your ego and demand that ‘I want it this way or that way’. With Rajat [Aroraa, the writer of Baadshaho] it’s never been like that. We have this rapport where we trust each other even when we are not sitting with each other,” said Luthria in an interview.
It’s not the first time that Luthria, who has grown up on a diet of ‘70s cult classics such as Deewar and Sholay, and Aroraa are collaborating. Their hits, Once Upon A Time in Mumbai and The Dirty Picture, were their winning combinations.
The importance of being armed with a solid script has never been as critical for Bollywood as it is now when star-driven films with questionable plots are being rejected with brutal force by the Hindi movie-loving audiences.
Barring modest-budget films such as Hindi Medium and Bareilly Ki Barfi, the box-office reaction to several star-driven films this year was lacklustre.
“Unfortunately, in our business, people are in a rush to make money and are in a rush to get the film going. Once they get an actor to commit, it is boom, boom, boom… The best in the business have proved that the time put into scriptwriting or into a film will always reap rewards,” he said.
Luthria has a strategy, too. When in doubt, take a break and re-visit the scenes to be filmed.
“Director Steven Spielberg once said: a director is like a duck. You see him gliding — very calm exterior, but when you look under you realise that he is paddling like his pants are on fire. I follow a philosophy that if I am not clear about something then I don’t shoot. When we began filming for The Dirty Picture, I knew something wasn’t right. So we stopped filming, took two weeks off and went off to Pune with my writer, discussed it and fixed the problem,” Luthria said.
The Dirty Picture, a film about a sexy starlet played spectacularly by Vidya Balan and her downfall under the public eye, remains one of Arora’s career highs and swept major awards in 2011.
But Baadshaho didn’t have any such dramatic self-imposed breaks.
Barring one shoot in Mumbai where Luthria called for a half-day break for a scene, the 60-day schedule in Rajasthan was smooth.
The ‘70s-set action flick — led by an eclectic mix of stars including Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi, Illeana D’Cruz and Esha Gupta — chronicles the adventure of a group of thieves who are hired to steal gold that’s been confiscated by the government.
A conspiracy hatched by a queen named Geetanjali (Illeana D’Cruz) to win back her legacy sets the heist into motion.
Devgn, who plays the criminal Bhavani Singh and an accomplice to Geetanjali, claims that Baadshaho appealed to him because his character was complex. In the trailer, the award-winning actor seems to have a soft spot for the Rajasthani royal and promises not to double-cross her. Greed isn’t in his DNA, he claims.
“Bhavani is honest, loyal but also has grey shades to him. He has so many layers to his personality and that’s inspiring for an actor. Until the very end, you don’t know who is with whom and who isn’t on your side here,” said Devgn over a Skype call.
But Baadshaho isn’t a heist film alone.
There’s drama, songs, action and daredevilry in it, claims the actor. So where there any egos at play? The actor, and director Luthria, said that everybody got along with everybody in this multi-starrer.
“We were lucky that everybody was comfortable with each other and that nobody had any hang-ups. We complemented each other. The level of competition was about us trying to make the product work. All the ingredients have to work for a film to appeal,” said Devgn. But the spoilsport was the harsh terrains of Rajasthan.
“The Rajasthan terrain can be really harsh. We were shooting even when there were dust storms. The moment we opened our mouths to speak, sand got in our eyes and mouths. It was very hot. There were no trees to give us shade and we used to travel 250km every day to get to our locations,” said Devgn. Vanity vans were parked far away, so that didn’t help either. But the motley group of thieves weren’t going to let harsh weather come in between a good film.
Gupta, who plays the femme fatale Sanjana and an integral part of the thieving club, claims that her role was physically taxing and exhausting but worth it.
“Sanjana is this badass bombshell. She acts all feminine to get what she wants. My look and the body language may remind you of Parveen Babi or Zeenat Aman, but she is never the damsel in distress. She doesn’t hesitate to pick up the gun or a fight,” said Gupta.
But the on-screen thugs survived to tell the tale. Their collective goal was to make a wholesome entertainer that’s filled with action, drama, songs and suspense.
“Baadshaho is a multi-starrer promises you more for your dollar or dirham. It promises more value for money. Now, is the time when people are rejecting slow, sluggish films. So I knew I had to make a film whose content would break the clutter. People are not going to make the effort to come to the cinemas unless they feel a connect and are promised an adrenaline rush. Baadshaho has plenty of that,” said Luthria.
___
Don’t miss it!
Baadshaho releases in the UAE on August 31.
