Babu Antony: Too Soft A Villain !

It's quite interesting to see what constitutes villainy in movies today. Let's think about the latest Hollywood movie Dark Knight which projected the most frightening villain in our time - The Joker! Batman movies are only as good as their villains, but there's no better villain than Heath Ledger's Joker.

The Joker represents an unwillingness to take human life seriously, the symptom of chaos and evil. He explodes like a firework display of mania, menace and eccentricity. For him, there is no 'Before I kill you' monologue. No last requests. No 'by the power of sheer will' victories. No drastic change in skill when he is about to lose a fight. Rather, he looks calm and cool which create maximum terror on screen!

On the contrary, in Indian cinema, we often see an array of stereotyped villains who are good for nothing but punch dialogues, loud noise or hollow get-ups to boost the heroism of the main character. The main drawback of our villains is that they get redeemed, become sympathetic or lose their menace too easily. Fortunately, we have few outstanding stars like Prakashraj, Raghuvaran, Ponnambalam, Amrish Puri, Khulbhushan Kharbanda, Amjad Khan, Naredra Prasad, etc. who make Indian villains look awesome.

Coming to Malayalam film industry, if Malayalam cinema had the feel of the myriad shades of villainy in the past, the credit goes to actor Babu Antony, whose portrayals of bad characters have redefined the entire concept of a villain. He does not believe in being loud as a villain and overdo his expressions. No wonder, he has become one of the best villains in Malayalam film industry!

A martial arts exponent, Babu Antony's philosophy is simple: "The action scenes must entertain and not induce violence in people or bore them." Babu Antony shot to fame in the role of a king in Vaishali written by M.T. Vasudevan Nair. The story traced the fight of an entire community against famine.

Babu has acted in several Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films. In Kannada, his first film was Yuva Shakti, where he acted as a villain. Babu's other memorable hits include Chanda, Kadal, Dada, Bharnakoodam, Ganthdari, The Street, Nadody, Special Squad, Hathya, Attahasm, Vajram and Black.

Babu has three films in hand: Perumal, Dhronar and Plavila Police. In Perumal, he plays the role of a boy born to an inter-religious couple. The story traces the problems associated with a cross-cultural background. In Dhronar, he is Dhronacharya. Plavila Police is a children's film.