I personally think that Sunny Deol is one of the best things to have happened to the Indian Film Industry. In fact, I think as Amitabh Bacchan transitioned into being an angry-middle-aged-man, Sunny Deol filled in the much needed void in the Indian Film Industry. Amitabh used to be angry for a reason – parents killed, father abandoned mother, lost his entire family or the frustration of being a dockworker despite having underworld potential(and an unwanted tattoo). Sunny Deol’s is angry by design.
An ode to Sunny paaji. Too bad, it isn’t written in anger.
Then there’s the climax of Ketan Mehta’s Hero Hiralal, in which a starlet named Rupa (Sanjana Kapoor) battles time — and a group of frenzied autograph-seekers — to rescue the eponymous “hero”. Hero Hiralal is played by Naseeruddin Shah, the big star of parallel cinema, but this particular dramatic climax belongs firmly to the commercial-film tradition: cue the entrance of a Real Hero, Amitabh in his Merc.
Jai Arjun documents the Amitabh cameos from the ‘Middle Cinema’ of the 70s and 80s.