Cocktail: Is Saif Ali Khan Bollywood only romantic hero?
New Delhi: Many feel that there is a similarity between ‘Love Aaj Kal’ and forthcoming movie ‘Cocktail’, but co-producer Dinesh Vijan denies it, saying that to ensure that the film has an individual identity; they opted for online medium to introduce it.
"We wanted the film to get its own identity and we went online in a big way. Our trailers went viral. The trailer caught on and the music has done well, which has worked in our favour and the film has promoted itself," Vijan, who co-owns Illuminati Films with Saif Ali Khan, told IANS.
Even though both films are love stories, they have nothing in common except for the team
"Someone recommended that these days all the sequels are doing so well, so why don't you call it 'Love Aaj Kal 2', so you will get a big opening. But I feel that there is no similarity. The only way you can call 'Cocktail' a 'Love Aaj-Kal' is because it is an 'aaj kal ki love story'. Other than that there is nothing similar," he told IANS.
Imtiaz Ali ‘Love Aaj kal was a modern day love story told through the relationship between Saif and Deepika Padukone. Director Homi Adajania roped in the same lead pair along with debutant Diana Penty for his triangular love saga ‘Cocktail’.
Written by Imtiaz, the film, releasing Friday, also has Boman Irani and Dimple Kapadia.
"The team is same. But they have come together to tell a different story," said Vijan.
Bollywood is still relying on its 40 plus actors to play the romantic lead unlike Hollywood, which casts actors as per their age and appearance. Recently released ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ is an apt example of it; the makers didn’t hesitate to replace the ageing Tobey Maguire with Andrew Garfield, but Bollywood has still not garnered that courage.
Despite a whole new bunch of actors coming into films, Saif Ali Khan remains one of the prominent actors of the romantic-comedy genre. In fact, the producer Dinesh Vijan went on to say in an interview with PTI that "The romantic comedy genre belongs to Saif, he can do such films with ease as his comic timing is phenomenal.”
Such situation just shows the lack of talent on part of the new actors. Older heroes can be easily accepted in the action genre, mainly because of the image they build over the years, but romantic-comedy is something that is associated with younger actors.
Shah Rukh Khan couldn’t play the quintessential lover boy anymore, Aamir has long left doing cheesy films and Salman Khan is all set to become the new Rajinikanth, so Saif is the natural choice as other prominent actors such as Ajay Devgn and Akshay Kumar were never seen fit for this category.
Saif good comic timing is his strength which satiates the need of a suave, cool guy who can make the girl laugh all the time, but his ‘ole ole’ days are gone. Contemporary filmmakers need to develop relatively younger breed into the typical lovers if the industry wants better actors to replace Saif Ali Khan. (With inputs from IANS)
