Saif Ali Khan has not had a great 2019. His OTT premium product Sacred Games which took him to a new height of popularity in 2018, didn’t quite impress in the same way with its sequel in 2019.
And in spite of majestic performance as a timeless drifter in Laal Kaptaan, the film sank without a trace. “It was a good experiment. I enjoyed it,” Saif told me after it sank.
Now in 2020, Saif has been doing some serious career re-think. This week he will be seen doing his first full-fledged antagonist’s role in Tanhaji. In his entire career, he has only played a negative role in his career once in Ek Haseena Thi. Many regard that as Saif’s best performance to date.
Would he be able to encore the enormity of evil in Tanhaji? He sure seems to think so. Saif plays an evil Islamic invader, intimately akin to Ranveer Singh in Padmaavat. Comparisons would, therefore, be inevitable.
While Saif in Tanhaji would be compared with Ranveer in Padmaavat, Saif in Jawani Jaan-e-Mann which opens in the last week of January would be compared with Saif in 1994’s Yeh Dillagi. In both, he plays a raging philanderer, an incorrigible womanizer. As though to punctuate the similarity Saif’s hit song Ole ole from Yeh Dillagi has been recreated in Jawani Jaan-e-Mann.
Clearly the actor after burning his fingers with Laal Kaptaan is in no experimental mood this year. Saif plays loud flamboyant crowd wooing characters in his two releases this month. He seems to have realized the importance of being noticed. These are characters shouting for attention.