Right from the time of the black and white era when Ashok Kumar rocked the box office with his magnum opus KISMET to the recent offering by Farah Khan HAPPY NEW YEAR, film makers of the world of Hindi cinema continue to be enamored of the thief and have projected him as larger than life hero. Dev Anand who was considered the prince of romance also enacted the role of a thief in quite a lot of films, most significant being JEWEL THIEF, or a Big B in GREAT GAMBLER or DON, this template continues to enamor the filmmakers and they continue to experiment in one way or the other through this genre.
Perhaps revisiting of this template is sort of assertion of the tremendous fan following that a character called Robin Hood continues to generate from the past and it continues to find echo down the ages through different generation of actors. Even each generation of directors continues to dabble through this genre one way or the other, if one has not succeeded in the first stance, as it happened with Farah Khan when she dabbled with this genre through TEES MAAR KHAN but fell flat on the face, and has tried to redeem herself once again through HAPPY NEW YEAR which has a whole bunch of thieves ganging up to steal a vault, the pack led by Shah Rukh Khan who excelled as a Don in DON and DON RETURNS.
Of the three Khans, Salman Khan is the only exception who still has to play the role of a thief as the other Khan-Aamir already dabbled in this genre in DHOOM -3. But who knows, one could see Salman Khan also dabbling in this genre when DHOOM-4 is released as it stars Salman Khan and as has been the trend of the Dhoom Series, all the mainstream actors who are there right from John Abraham to Hrithick Roshan and Aamir have enacted the role of thieves.
Obviously there is an element of conscientiousness as well in enactment of the role of a thief by the film stars so there always is a justification of enactment of such role having its genesis in an oppressive act from childhood by a rich man who has destroyed the childhood and this child on becoming an adult is out to wreak havoc and take his revenge.
This is quite in contrast to the trend in Hollywood films where a thief is a thief and he is a thief as he wants to lead a good life, as it was in case Oceans 11 for example or in case of Sean Connery and Catherine Zeeta Jones in ENTRAPMENT where they enacted the role of thieves with a gusto.
May be this could be owing to the fact that the west does not see a thief as an entity who has to be despised and in case of India it continues to be viewed with an ideological prism. One only hopes that someday Hindi cinema would also buck the trend and leave ideology behind and make a film on famous heist. After all, a Natwarlal still enamors and entices India.
