Ahead of Ranbir Kapoor’s Shamshera, here’s revisiting 5 Bollywood films featuring double roles: Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan on the list

While Bramhastra Part One: Shiva, with its almost decade-long making and CGI-aided visuals, will most definitely start a new chapter in Indian cinema’s history, Shamshera also promises to be nothing short of a audio-visual treat. While many might argue from the trailers of both the films, that either of these releases might not necessarily challenge the acting capacities of Ranbir Kapoor, one does have a lot to look forward to considering the fact that Ranbir appears in a double role in Shamshera.

The responsibility of tackling two different roles in a film is a challenge that calls for extreme versatility from the performer in question. In the past, many of our leading men – not to forget our women like Kangana Ranaut who even won National Awards for the same – have taken up the challenge of doing the same, resulting in some of them delivering career-best performances. Ahead of Ranbir-starrer Shamshera’s release, here is a look at five times our leading men doubled our on-screen happiness by taking up the challenge of playing double roles.

1. Fan (2016)

Shah Rukh Khan in Fan.

Any conversation on double roles in Indian cinema in recent years is pointless, unless one considers Shah Rukh Khan’s stunning performance in Manish Sharma’s Fan. Telling the story of an young man, played by SRK in heavy prosthetics, obsessed with a superstar, also played by Shah Rukh, in a role that is almost poetically semi-autobiographical – this film will go down in the history of Indian cinema as one of the finest works of meta genius that seek to dissect the darkness that fuels the star system in our country. Although the film faltered in the second half due to a convoluted narrative, Shah Rukh Khan’s performance remained strong, lending gravitas to a regular psychological thriller.

2. Dhoom 3 (2013)

Arguably the weakest installment in the Dhoom franchise, this film was made consistently watchable by the electric chemistry between Aamir Khan and Katrina Kaif. Aamir, who made his occasional divergence from message-driven annual dramas with this film, appeared to have great fun playing a con man and his autistic twin in this stunt-driven action film. While the climax was an obvious, arguably contrived hat-tip to Christopher Nolan’s cult classic Prestige, one continued to remain invested in the narrative due to the sincerity of its leading man.

3. Kaminey (2009)

You know that a director is worth your money when he extracts stunning turns from the same actor, not once, but thrice over. While one can only hope for more collaborations between Shahid Kapoor and Vishal Bharadwaj, one must take time to appreciate the delicious double role played by Shahid in Vishal’s Kaminey. Shahid Kapoor was by turns vulnerable and broken in his portrayal of Guddu and Charlie – in one of his most memorable performances till date.

4. Judwaa (1997)

Salman Khan and Karisma Kapoor in Judwaa.

Salman Khan brought his Govinda-esque maximalism to Judwaa, David Dhawan’s uncredited remake of Jackie Chan classic Twin Dragons. The film was a showcase of the capacity of Salman to keep his audience entertained. In the role of twins separated at birth, Salman Khan was an absolute delight to watch as the tapori sibling, which mixed with his boy-next-door looks and charm gave us a comedy for ages to come.

5. Angoor (1982)

A poster of Angoor.

There could not have been a better time to rewatch this classic comedy by Gulzar than now, as we prepare ourselves for yet another remake of this film – this time by none other than Rohit Shetty. Sanjeev Kumar and Deven Verma were absolute hoots to watch in this innocent yet sharply written movie inspired by William Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors. Angoor, which also stars Deepti Naval, Mousumi Chatterji and Aruna Irani, remains one of the best comedies of Indian cinema.