Clive Owen: latest Jimmy B?

Rumours had it that Clive Owen (King Aurthor fame; Nominated for Oscar this year for Best supporting actor for movie Closer) is finalized to play James Bond in forthcoming bond movie, Casino Royale, to be released in November 2006. In a recent interview Owen has indeed calmed all the rumours. He is certainly a very fine actor with a profound British demeanour, but somehow I didn't find the Bond qualities in him. Something you can't put your finger on, didn't feel Bond-ish about him. I'm glad (and sorry for Clive) that the Bond hunt is still on.

What if Bollywood had a similar concept (if not Bond, may be a Vyomkesh Bakshi :)? May be we would've held an SMS contest to select Bond (Indian Bond .. hope Sony TV is listening!). Infact we've already had a pathetic Akshay Kumar movie named Mr.Bond. It was quite a preposterous imitation of Bond movies. Come to think of it, there is absolutely no comparison between Hollywood superheros and Desi ones. We can't have a Spiderman as we don't have such skyscrapers to grant the liberty of swinging by them. Batman is feasible, but we won't find a Gotham City here or villians like Two-face, Joker, Penguin, etc. Superman is okay, but he might crash into one of the MIGs our pilots keep on tossing away on nearly daily basis! Bond will be labelled a laundiyabaaz by our beloved moral police straight away.

But lets give all due credits to Bollywood. It has had decent number of superheros! Hemant Birje appeared in & as Tarzan opposite delicious Kimi Katkar. It was a complex character, a mix of Tarzan and Rambo with occasional undertones of Frankenstein's Monster (it grunted too at times!). Who can forget the award winning performance by Jitendra in the leading role of wonderful Hatimtai opposite lovely Sangeeta Bijlani? Dharamendra enticed audiances by his breath-taking performance in Jugnu as Jugnu. Apna Sallu Bhai sizzled the silver screen as Suryavanshi, in an exotic blonde wig. Bollywood certainly has the will if not the way! But its obvious to note that none of the above, except perhaps Jugnu, was a explicit super-hero (who wears underwear over his stretched pants!). I'm not sure about Dharam-paaji's underwear in Jugnu, but he certainly wore a mask there.

Though we are left behind in the race of superheros but our simple boy-next-door hero can do many super heroic acts (Rajnikant & Mithun da leading the way!). But lets not stop this from building over own chaddi-over-pants super-hero. We can borrow some heros from kids' comics. Super Commando Dhruv, Nagaraj, Parmanu, etc all wore underpants over pants while Sabu, Angaara, Bhokal, etc. didn't mind kicking ass in only chaddis. Hopefully, Bollywood will soon venture in this direction too. That day I'll kiss the silver screen!