What if you went to watch a movie starring Shah Rukh Khan only to find that the movie kills your fave movie star early on? What will be your reaction then? Shocked? Angry? A few years ago, I watched this Hollywood actioner called Executive Decision, a typical ’90s thriller that starred Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal. Now this movie is more known for killing off one of its main heroes within 40 minutes of the start of the movie. Poor Steven Seagal, one of the more popular action stars in the ’90s, was killed even before he could take on one villain. Then there is Drew Barrymore, who gets killed within 15 minutes of the start of the first Scream movie, even though she was the most popular name in the cast.
And it’s not just Hollywood movies. Bollywood movies, who loves their heroes and want to keep them alive as much as they, can also sometimes surprise us by killing of a major star, yes sometimes even Shah Rukh Khan, on whom perhaps the entire movie has been entirely promoted on. Here are 9 such movies that had the guts to kill one of its leads very early.
Bobby Deol in Players
In this bland remake of American heist thriller, Bobby Deol’s character of a magician and a single das, a member of Abhishek Bachchan’s rag tag team, was a character purely created for the remake. His face was also plastered all over along with the other stars in the movie during the promotions. It’s only during the interval that we realise why his character was created – he gets killed just then, when one of his team (Neil Nitin Mukesh) double crosses. His death was supposed to give more emotional edge to the team later revenge actions.
Akshay Kumar in Family: Ties of Blood
After getting a lot of praise for his performance in Khakee, Akshay Kumar was again roped in by Rajkumar Santoshi to be one of the leads in his next, and he was in prominence along with Amitabh Bachchan during the promotions. Unfortunately for his fans, Akshay Kumar gets killed mid-point, giving the opportunity of Aryeman Ramsay to play the hero of the film. Well, if your dad is the main investor, you can be the main hero while riding on the names of the others. Needless to say the film tanked!
Shilpa Shetty in Baazigar
Shilpa Shetty and Kajol were promoted as the heroines of this Abbas Mustan thriller giving us the idea of a love triangle involving Shah Rukh Khan. However when SRK shockingly pushes Shilpa Shetty from a rooftop to her death down, it was a moment that no one will ever forget. Poor Shilpa Shetty, this was supposed to be her debut film.
Shah Rukh Khan in Dushman Duniya Ka
After killing of Shilpa Shetty in the previous film, Shah Rukh Khan has to get his comeuppance, right? So there is Mehmood-directed Dushman Duniya Ka, whose posters had both SRK and Salman Khan featured prominently even though both had cameos in the film. On top of it, Shah Rukh Khan, dressed for some reason as Mehmood from Gumnaam, gets killed within the first fifteen minutes of the film.
Paresh Rawal in Aan: Men at Work
Paresh Rawal was on a roll in the mid ‘2000s after his successful comic turns in Hera Pheri, Hungama and Awara Pagal Deewana. So it was not wrong on the part of the marketing team of this Madhur Bhandarkar cop drama to feature Paresh Rawal along with the movie’s other leads – Akshay Kumar, Suneil Shetty and Shatrughan Sinha. So it was shocking to see when the funnyman gets killed so early during an encounter scene, suddenly making the film so serious.
Sanjay Kapoor in Shakti The Power
If you have observed the trailer carefully, you would know that Sanjay Kapoor’s character in the movie is not gonna last long. However, if you had been more obsessed by the romantic track, Hum Tum Mile in the movie, you would have been shocked to see the actor getting killed so early in the movie, even though he was poised as the hero to Karisma Kapoor, triggering the main plot. And just when you nearly overcome the shock of his death, comes the death of the real reason why you even try watching this brutal shocking drama – Shah Rukh Khan.
Suneil Shetty in Qayamat
In this Bollywood remake of the Sean Connery – Nicholas Cage thriller, Suneil Shetty, a major Bollywood star once before his semi-retirement, took on the role played by Michael Biehn, of an army commando out to catch two terrorists using Ajay Devgn’s depressed (or drugged, I really can’t make out) ex-convict. And like Biehn’s character in the original, even Suneil Shetty’s doesn’t have the opportunity to survive the interval point.
Abhishek Bachchan in Shootout at Lokhandwala
Even though Sanjay Dutt and Vivek Oberoi were the main leads in the film, Abhishek Bachchan and Amitabh Bachchan were also featured prominently in the posters, even though they had just cameos in the film. Abhishek’s case is sadder, since his character is involved in a subplot that has nothing to do with the main plot, and he doesn’t even survive that five minutes allocated to him.
John Abraham, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Irrfan Khan in Saat Khoon Maaf
Yes, we knew beforehand that Priyanka Chopra was going to kill all her husbands in the movie, but it was still shocking to see three big stars, Neil Nitin Mukesh (yes, he was then…), John Abraham and Irrfan Khan, not surviving the first half of the film, while debutant Vivaan Shah turns out to be the lone survivor.
Shraddha Kapoor in Ek Villain
If you had not seen the original Korean gory crime thriller, I Saw The Devil, I bet you would have been shocked to see Shraddha Kapoor getting killed in the start of the film itself by a surprisingly creepy Riteish Deshmukh.
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