The rise and fall of superstars

 Be it SRK or Aamir they rode on the crest of a set of movies that took them to topmost tier of superstardom. While SRK took to love subjects and catering to NRI audience, aided ably by simple dance steps of Farah and pleasant lyrics of Javed Akthar tuned to hummable songs by a plethora of musicians including Jatin-lalit to Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy to ARR, Aamir took a more studious route, picking up stories like PhD subjects and dwelling more on the detailing and characterisation that set him apart in the Khan trio. Salman took the easiest route of all, remake southern hits and rehash the same hit into various versions in hindi. For a good part of previous decade and before, the trio ruled the BO with ever increasing foot falls and ticket revenue. The first to fall off the tier was Salman, whose masala movies began to bomb abruptly. SRK had a string of failures and interestingly he found success in the same formula that propped Salman - action movies. Aamir, despite choosing the script that suits him, lost out mostly because of his controversial comments. He might've come out openly with his political stance but lost out a good chunk of his audience because of his dual stance. While the same could be applied to the other Khans as well, somehow SRK managed to find a hit or two, courtesy action potboilers. He may soon be on his way out based on his next couple of movies, for not just for any financiers even if self produced their movies are way too expensive to make any profit. The same applies to Kollywood as well. In fact the reason for this post was "Coolie" and "Thug life". Having been so long in drafts, finally thoosi sattified to post!!

When i saw "Coolie" i was stunned by how far Rajini has come from "his genre" of films that made him what he is or was rather. He was often blamed for following a template that in fact was successfully adopted by several others stars in TN. It was bandied so much that the original founder of that "template" lost out on competition and decided to move into areas that were out of his comfort zone like "Kabali", "Kala". Ever since he decided to act in those movies, which never gave him the results he was expecting, Rajni has been in a constant confusion as to which would be his next success formula. Thala would suggest permanent retirement from movies which would be best not just for him but also for his fans. But the itch to keep pushing the boundaries of box office or whatever may be the real reason, he continues to dabble with script that neither matches his age nor for any performance. In "Coolie" he has come so far down from his track that, probably in a really long while came a Rajini movie with no decent songs, the only one being his own hit from couple of decades back, no comedy and no scope for heroism as well. The movie was probably made in similar lines to "Jailor" that somehow became a big hit. Unlike Kamal who wastes producers money into making movies for his liking, Rajini used to be sensible enough to make movie for his audiences. That is why even though his movies might bomb during the release and bankrupt the producers, they would get some appreciation down the line for Kamal, While Rajini's movie are like dishes that would taste horrible once the heat is gone and need to be consumed boiling hot!! It has been a really long while since either of them had a decent song in their movie or a good comedy track and yet they continue to defy their actual ages by romancing heroines old enough to be their grand daughters and play Marvel Avenger style heroism. If "Coolie" was at least honest to its theme of being a potboiler of action, Thug life was nothing short of criminal waste of not just money but the time of audience. In the age of OTT where audience are fed movies from the globe on a 24 hour basis, the actors whose sell by date has long expired, continue their quest for glory that they once achieved, by moving away from their success formulae, not knowing the next step in success. By the time they are done and dusted, they would sadly be remembered more for their most recent blunders than what they were at their peak!