Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has occasionally appeared in cameos and small roles in his own films or his friends’ productions over the years. Post-Covid, he has faced the camera for AK vs AK, Kuttey, Haddi and Leo among others. More recently Kashyap has smashed it in two negative roles — in the Vijay Sethupathi-starrer film Maharaja and the Disney+Hotstar web series Bad Cop. Here’s why it is a delight to watch Kashyap, the creator of multiple dark characters, smoothly slip into one himself and leave a mark.
The wicked outlaw Selvam in Maharaja; streaming on Netflix
Anurag Kashyap’s unnerving turn as the antagonist Selvam in the Tamil thriller Maharaja starring Vijay Sethupathi was a well-kept secret until the film’s release.
Told in flashbacks, Selvam is shown to be a family man who doted on his little daughter and could go to any lengths for his family. When greed got the better of him, Selvam began a thug’s life by breaking into people’s houses to loot their belongings, raping the women of the household and then killing them, wiping off all traces of their crimes. But in a turn of events, Selvam unwittingly ends up harming the person closest to his heart.
As Selvam, Kashyap is an evil incarnate. The Gangs of Wasseypur director gives us a glimpse of the brilliant actor he is by making the vile side of Selvam exceptionally menacing while being engulfed in tenderness, guilt and a sense of defeat in the closing scenes when death comes as his only relief.
The fun baddie Kazbe in Bad Cop; streaming on Disney+Hotstar
Though a baddie serving jail term, Anurag Kashyap as Kazbe in the Disney+Hotstar series Bad Cop is a lot of fun. Kazbe runs a huge poaching racket from behind the bars. From building muscle to dancing his heart out, cooking meat for himself and his accomplices inside the jail to calling the shots in his business sitting on the toilet seat, Kazbe is an out-and-out wacky character and one can only imagine Kashyap having a blast playing it. To bring Kazbe to life, Kashyap may have been inspired by the various grey characters he has conceived in his films through the years.
Just like his character in Maharaja, Kazbe is also an emotional wreck when it comes to his family, which makes him even more edgy. But Bad Cop doesn’t have the strong writing of Maharaja to fall back on, hence often only Kazbe’s flamboyance comes to the fore. Adapted from the German web series Bad Cop - kriminell gut by Rensil D’Silva and Rehan Khan, the eight-part Indian crime thriller is directed by Aditya Datt. Gulshan Devaiah has a double role, with Saurabh Sachdeva, Harleen Sethi and Aishwarya Sushmita in key roles.
