Sunny Deol’s Gadar 2 & SRK’s Pathaan: Machismo plus patriotism equals to box office gold

Amidst the incessant, played-to-gallery mix of machismo and pop patriotism that buoys the action and melodrama in Gadar 2, there’s this uncharacteristic spot of wit: A murderous Pakistani mob chases Sunny Deol’s Tara Singh, brandishing swords, sticks and rods. Then, almost abruptly, they stop dead in their tracks. There’s a handpump right ahead and Tara has seen it. The pump gets a few quick close-up shots, Tara makes for the device, and meanwhile the mob has already turned back and fled.

Over two decades after Anil Sharma’s Gadar: Ek Prem Katha broke a few records, the sequence in the sequel makes for a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the first film’s handpump scene, where Tara Singh brought the house down uprooting a handpump to stop a bunch of Pakistanis who’re baying for his blood. Thematically and otherwise, almost everything in Gadar 2 is a faithful rehash of formula that worked back in 2001. This time, Deol as Tara Singh lets the handpump be but he uses a lot more to assault, from hammer to horse carriage to a gigantic cart wheel that he holds above his head before hurling, like Shri Krishna’s Sudarshan Chakra, as Bhagavad Gita shlokas reverberate from the sound boxes and the theatre comes alive with taalis and seetis.

The taalis and seetis have translated to blockbuster collections, and Gadar 2 has taken in Rs 173.58 crore in just four days since release. This makes the film the biggest Independence Day release ever so far and, clearly, many more records wait to be busted.

Bollywood is watching eagerly, for a box-office trend seems to be emerging here. The hero-driven premise that drives storytelling in Gadar 2 might seem like a throwback to the eighties or the nineties, but it bears a formulaic similarity with the year’s only other big-budget vehicle that managed to make big money in Bollywood — the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Pathaan. The Siddharth Anand spy thriller, co-starring Deepika Padukone in a heavy-duty action role, used a similar formulaic cocktail of old-school machismo and new-age pop patriotism (far understated compared to Gadar 2) to strike box office gold, upon releasing in the Republic Day weekend earlier this year. Pathaan has collected Rs 543.22 crore domestically since release, reports the film trade website koimoi.com.

In Bollywood scripts, every flavour of patriotism invariably swings towards a Pakistan connection. Pathaan and the two Gadar films aren’t exceptions. Pathaan marked Shah Rukh Khan’s focus on full-fledged action with larger-than-life aplomb, as the titular protagonist who is an exiled RAW agent and who must collaborate with the ISI agent Rubina Mohsin (Padukone) to thwarts the rogue agent Jim (Abraham), who plans a deadly virus attack on India. While its glossy, new-age stunts set Pathaan apart from the old-school action of Gadar 2, the blend of heroism and Tricolour sentiments is where the two films find a common ground as far as box office saleability goes.

For the mainstream Hindi film industry, lately struggling to stay afloat amidst an almost ceaseless flow of flops, the good news is there are many more films lined up that will try to rake it in using action and drama that hardsell heroism and the patriotic fervour. Pathaan, which forms an important part of Yash Raj Films’ developing spy-verse, left fans excitedly asking for more when Salman Khan as Tiger literally fell from the sky into a running train to bail out SRK’s title-role hero during a spectacular action set-piece. Salman Khan returns as Tiger in Diwali opposite Katrina Kaif as ex-ISI agent Zoya in Tiger 3, a follow-up to Ek Tha Tiger and Tiger Zinda Hai. A scene in Pathaan also mentioned Agent Kabir, Hrithik Roshan’s super spy in YRF’s 2019 blockbuster War while Ashutosh Rana, the RAW handler Colonel Luthra in War, also made an appearance with his desi Nick Fury avatar in the SRK hit. Roshan returns as Kabir in War 2, directed by Ayan Mukerji and co-starring Jr NTR. Unconfirmed reports state that YRF’s long-term plans in the spy-verse also include a Tiger Vs Pathaan movie.

The spy-verse, though, isn’t the only space where Bollywood will try packaging machismo and pop patriotism in upcoming films. When SRK returns to the marquee with Jawan on September 7, the superstar will once again get into the action hero’s boots and embark on a mission of national interest. This time, in the Atlee directorial, he plays a military personnel who turns vigilante, joining hands with a group of female crusaders. The spirit of patriotism clubbed with machismo flies high once again on Republic Day 2024, when Hrithik Roshan takes on the role of a fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force in Siddharth Anand’s Fighter, also starring Deepika Padukone and Anil Kapoor in high-voltage action roles.

Interestingly, male stars aged around 50 or above are mostly driving the box office formula in Bollywood right now. Machismo tinged with hues of patriotism, however, is not a new formula in our commercial films. From Haqeeqat (1964), Lalkar (1972) and Kranti (1981) to Border (1997), URI (2019), Shershaah (2021) and many more, films based on wars have captured their respective generations’ love for the country as well as perception of heroism. There have been the cop films, too, besides a bunch of spy movies across the ages that have cashed in on the formula that almost always works.

Bollywood’s newfound love for the formula seems to be driven by the success of a few films within the genre down South, particularly SS Rajamouli’s 2022 blockbuster RRR, which underlined how bigger stunts, glitzier VFX and better music can suitably boost commercial prospects if one were to realise a fusion of macho heroism and the spirit of nationalism on a massive scale. There’s always a mass market out there for such films if you get it right.

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist and journalist who loves to write on popular culture.