2008 was a particularly busy year for Ajay Devgn. Those were simpler times – he was still in the latter half of his second decade as a Bollywood leading man, and he still used the ‘a’ that disappeared from his name in the years to come.
On the back of two 2007 duds (Cash, Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag), in 2008, he had two Rohit Shetty releases (Sunday, Golmaal Returns), one by Rajkumar Santoshi (Halla Bol), a much-delayed multi-starrer named Mehbooba, and his own first directorial venture, U Me Aur Hum, which reunited him with Kajol on screen after almost a decade.
U Me Aur Hum would turn out to be one of the weaker films commercially for him that year, but one thing was apparent when you watched the film – he had a natural flair for film direction, at least from a technical perspective. Devgn displayed the ability to show rather than tell, as well as a penchant for employing fashionable cutting techniques.
Watch this one particular side-track involving a petulant teen who terrifies Devgn by turning up at inopportune moments, after Devgn’s character Ajay accidentally throws his ball off the cruise on which a majority of the first half is set. In the middle of a shady romcom-y wooing effort, the boy’s appearances are treated like an action thriller, which had the effect of amping up the comedy of that situation – the intended effect of that entire parallel sequence anyway.
Still, U Me aur Hum suffered from a problem. No, I’m not talking about the fact that it was a blatant rip-off of The Notebook (2004). The problem was that Devgn’s directorial craft was at odds with how the story was committed to paper. Sure, he wanted to make a desi version of The Notebook. He also wanted the romance to have a timeless feel. So sprinkle in a little bit of Titanic (hello, cruise), along with a particularly glossy vibe – bright and vibrant even by Bollywood’s standards.
Devgn clearly understood that when he is also assuming the mantle of director, he has to offer something new visually, and make the film feel wholly distinct from anything we had seen of him before. He succeeded on that front – even today, if you see the trailers of the other films that released alongside, U Me Aur Hum stands apart from its contemporary releases because of its silvery veneer.
But the situations the characters found themselves in, the words they used to express their thoughts, the icky ideas of courtship, love, and companionship the film portrayed, all of it had a stale '90s stench about it. It was a clash of sensibilities, which I suspect, might belong to Devgn, the Bollywood actor-star, and Devgn, the westward-looking action director respectively. The dialogues of that film were cringe-level even then, I assure you. Today, all of it contributes to the film being almost unwatchable.
It would be eight years before we got to see Devgn take another stab at direction, with Shivaay (2016). Unfortunately, the formula he employed seemed to be the same. This time, the Hollywood film he leaned on for the thread of the plot appeared to be Taken (which incidentally released in 2008, the same year as U Me Aur Hum). An action-daddy moves heaven and earth to save his little girl.
Devgn’s differentiating take on it made the protagonist a fearless mountaineer (and accidental dad). It saw him travel to distant Bulgaria in the latter half of the film for the action to unfold. By 2016, escapist Bollywood had begun trying harder with infusing its dreamlands with some relatable real-world elements. So there is an angle about the trafficking of children which our Bollywood (super)hero would dismantle along the way. Again, Devgn was successful in making *his* action film look slicker than the regular masala actioner of the time. Apart from some terrible background compositing and classical desi anti-gravity moments, Shivaay had stylistic touches that Devgn should see as wins, despite the overall middling reactions to the film.
The reactions to the film were not unfounded. While Devgn’s directorial chops had gotten better, the problem of the clashing sensibilities remained. Both his films lent themselves to decent trailers because Devgn clearly displays the ability that can match his intent to desi-fy his Hollywood influences. He wants his films to look and sound great, and he knows what is required for that to happen.
First, set the film up in a manner that is not usual. He could have played a cop out to save his daughter. Or just a random everyman rebel. But that would not seem any different from what he does so often anyway. So the protagonist becomes a chillum-smoking epitome of coolth (quite literally) up in the snowy mountains, putting his life at risk daily.
Like the cruise does for U Me Aur Hum, the mountains in Shivaay instantly set it apart.
Then comes the clash. The regular Hindi action film is first and foremost a star vehicle. By 2016, thick in the middle of a resurgence of the South-inspired larger-than-life action flick in Bollywood, the male star became everything. In Shivaay, Devgn tried to eschew the female presence in the film as much he could. Even the token ‘leading lady’ was replaced by a largely absent white woman and mute daughter.
Devgn walks away with more slow-motion close-ups than should be allowed. The first time his daughter is taken from him, the action sequence that follows is so audaciously excessive, Devgn so heroically manages to ensure that his daughter is *almost* never kidnapped in the first place, that they could have ended the film right there, kidnapping averted; and all it would have led to is some mild audience annoyance about it not being as long as a Bollywood film ought to be.
It seems he just cannot avoid that one consistent pitfall – the sophistication of the craft that he effortlessly displays is at odds with the sameness and lameness of the writing that he builds his star vehicles on. He appears convinced that the Hindi film audience is looking for something very specific, based on his years of experience. I would not claim to know any better than him, but I do know that the dependable pan-Indian Hindi film audience clearly is not patronizing Bollywood films the way they used to. The two biggest Hindi films at the box office in the post-pandemic era are dubbed from Telugu and Kannada respectively, while the third – The Kashmir Files – can be referred to as a ‘Bollywood’ film only on a technicality.
Now, six years after Shivaay, Devgn returns with his third directorial effort, Runway 34. Again, after leaning heavily on grand action flicks in the third decade of his career, Devgn returns to direction with a film that looks to set itself apart from what people come to expect of him. So he plays a commercial airline pilot for the first time. Again, it seems like his original template remains – look West for inspiration. Robert Zemeckis’ 2012 film Flight and/or Clint Eastwood’s Sully (2016) seem to be the potential candidates this time round.
The first trailer gave me the impression that this film would suffer from the same mismatch of ability and sensibility, though I must admit that the second trailer gave me a lot more hope. I have no doubt that this will be his best-directed film yet. Devgn is a natural audio-visual storyteller, to his bones. I expect him to get better with each film.
I do fear that like much of Bollywood, he has not yet shaken off the annoyingly persistent ideas of what they feel audiences want to see. For his sake, and for the sake of a dying industry, I do hope he proves me wrong, and lands this baby just right.
Runway 34 is slated to release in cinemas this Friday on 29 April
Pradeep Menon is a Mumbai-based writer and independent filmmaker.
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