By Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

Two of the most successful films during the year 2006 have been KRRISH and DHOOM2 which have had ‘speed’ as an integral component that provided seamless integration to the continuity of the film. Speed in fact has been the elixir that provides the thrill in the Indian movies, or for that matter movies produced all over the world, as the sheer thrill of adrenalin rushing owing to a passive participation in the unspooling of the burning of the tyres and sudden breaks is what draws the crowd to the theatre. Genre of James Bond movies have had this majestic run all over the world owing to the automotive exuberance unleashed on the screen right since its inception, and ultimate tribute to the exuberance of this genre was made with the recently released James Bond flick CASINO ROYALE, where the movie was unauthorisedly released in Telugu version to reap the dividends.

In the Indian film industry the element of speed was sort of patented by Feroze Khan through his movies, and it was his confidence in the ability of the elements and physical connotations of speed that he could afford to blow of a Mercedes Benz way back in early eighties in his opus QURBANI. Apart from this the stunts that have been exhibited on the screen in the Hindi movies have been of a very rudimentary nature and before the advent of DHOOM series and KRRISH did not have a spectacle to mesmerize the audience.

Then can an Indian Speed happen?  From the present profile of the Hindi film industry it seems rather unlikely. This is owing to the fact that the speed is a triumph of involvement of all kind of mental faculties, which do not find a place at all in the Hindi films. Here the stunts are performed in the most rudimentary manner and the performers are those who do not bring there educational or technical qualifications and acumen to the table but back themselves with their physical prowess that they possess. The fall out was manifest in a Gujarati movie that was released during the year 2005, where the stunt man had to jump from the top of a building and owing to absence of technical backing and inputs he jumped to his death.

When SPEED was made in Hollywood academicians from as diverse fields as Physics, geography relativity, geometry mathematics etc., all pooled their resources together to make SPEED into a spectacle that did not need even language to understand the movie. Before the shooting of the movie elaborate drawings were made, then they were solved in the form of mathematical equations which were then transposed into graphic images and then they were blown up to happen as an actuality on the screen. Do we have this kind of synergy at all in Hindi film industry? The industry is yet to be taken seriously by experts of other fields, and vice versa.

There is no dearth of professionals in the country; it is just that a conversion is yet to be attempted. None of the big production houses can boast of having this kind of technically qualified manpower amongst there midst, and neither do the stunt director and coordinators have it. But once the cockles of the Indian audience have been warmed by the spectacle of DHOOM and KRRISH etc., it would be just a matter of time before this aspect is also incorporated by the Indian film industry. After all one of the significant achievements of the last year has been that an IIM graduate has decided to cast his lot with Hindi film industry and more would surely follow. But for that to happen, industry would have to do some kind of introspection and start paying good remuneration to others as well, and not confine themselves only to the actors.