We list down 5 times Bollywood actors aced the role of psychopaths
Olivia Owen Bollywood Villains have always been evil minded characters who generally have a hidden agenda behind all their evil action. Psychopaths, on the other hand, are in a totally different league. They will leave no stone unturned to create chaos in the life of others. Earlier, Bollywood always tried to keep itself away from the Psychopath genre of films but it all changed in the 90’s when the concept of a psychopath thriller was actually well implemented. Although the filmmakers don’t prefer making movies on such topics which is evident if you compare the numbers to the amount of Romantic, Comedy, Action and Drama films that are made. We list down a few times when actors rocked the thriller genre by playing psychopaths:
1. Darr – Shah Rukh Khan
Darr was a story about Rahul Mehra (Shah Rukh Khan) a man who’s obsession and love for Kiran Awasti (Juhi Chawla) frees him from all fears of life and death. Even though she gets married to Sunil Malhotra (Sunny Deol) his obsession for her doesn’t end. A man who does not fear anything will go to any extent to get what he wants and Rahul Mehra just does that. In this movie, Shah Rukh Khan nailed the role of this obsessive psychopath. This is also the movie in which Shah Rukh trademarked his “K..K…K…Kiran” dialogue which is popular even today.
2. Gupt - Kajol
The film saw Kajol portraying a negative character which was something new for the audience. What Darr did to Shah Rukh Khan’s career, Gupt did to Kajol’s! The film was a murder mystery and also starred Bobby Deol and Manisha Koirala. It was a huge hit at the box-office and helped boost the career of the three involved in the movie. Kajol won a Filmfare award for her role as the obsessive psychopathic killer and she also won our hearts!
Rakesh Mahadkar (Riteish Deshmukh) was seen as an unsuccessful man who is continuously taunted by his wife Sulochana (Aamna Sharif) for being useless and poor. He vents out this frustration by killing women if they ever speak rude to him. Although, the movie did not perform greatly at the box-office Riteish’s role as Rakesh saw him receive a lot of praise. Playing a psychopath and making it look believable is never easy but Riteish did an amazing job at it.
While most of the films on the list are based on fictional characters, Raman Raghav 2.0 was inspired by real life incidents about a serial killer whose name was Raman Raghav. In the movie, Ramanna (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a psychopath murderer finds his soulmate in Raghav, a policemen who is desperate to arrest him. Ramanna tries to make Raghav realise that how the two of them are similar. Nawazuddin’s performance as a psychopath received great appreciation from the critics as well as the audience.
The story of Sangarsh was inspired by Silence of the Lambs. Sangarsh had some moments that would send chills down your spine. Although his performance wasn’t as great as Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) in the original but Akshay did a pretty good job at portraying the role. However, it was Ashutosh Rana’s performance as a religious fanatic who kidnaps young boys for sacrifice which stole all the limelight.
