In Shashilal Nair’s One 2 Ka 4 , which clocks 24 years on March 30, Shah Rukh Khan played a cop for the first time. And he was very excited.
In a conversation with me on the eve of the film’s release Shah Rukh had said, “Yes for the first time in my career I play a cop! It’s a very modernised cop. In Indian films, cops are usually played in a certain way. After seeing them I never felt inspired to join the police force. The way cops are portrayed isn’t inspirational like the way army men are portrayed. So we decided to give the cops a new more youthful and with-it image in One 2 Ka 4 .”
Shah Rukh admitted his interpretation of the cop was exactly the he wanted it to be. “The cop I play behaves exactly the way I would want him to. You know, the way Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar modernised the Indian love stories? One 2 Ka 4 glamorises our cops so that my son would want to be a cop after seeing in the film. After Mohabbatein I’m sure some people said they want to be a teacher like me.”
Shah Rukh didn’t wear Khakee in the film. “It was a very commercially strategised product. I played a cop for the first time in my career. So for me it was very interesting. But I’ve never worn khaki in the film. I wish we had used khaki somewhere. But since I played a cop from the special branch, there was no scope for it.”
On 2 Ka 4 took almost four years to complete . But Shah Rukh insisted it doesn’t look dated. “Josh took a long time. But it didn’t look the least dated, did it? My films never look dated, no matter how long they take to make. That’s because the technique applied is always updated. Hats off to the cinematographer of One 2 Ka 4 for remaining enthusiastic for so long. Moreover we haven’t been re-shooting all this time. We’ve just been shooting. Any film that takes over four years to make is bound to be costly. But we never re-shot. We took time over the script. I think the film turned out well.”
I asked Shah Rukh to rate himself on One 2 ka 4. “Me? I was good. I was nice in the film. The mood was mostly like Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, what with Juhi and the kids. I play more of a fun role than an angry young cop. It’s a less grim version of the Hollywood film One Good Cop.”
