Vijay Mallya is a phenomenon that never gets old – be it on the news or on celluloid. The elusive ‘King of Good Times’ evokes both fascination and disgust, his immense wealth, immunity and impunity contrasting with the personal and financial woes of his former employees. This divisive sentiment is evident in the legion of movies and documentaries on the disgraced liquor baron – from the 2020 docuseries Bad Boy Billionaires: India, the 2023 movie Neeyat, to the more recent Crew.
Rajesh Krishnan’s Crew is a heist movie, where Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kriti Sanon and Tabu play troubled air hostesses fed up with being victims. Jasmine (Kapoor Khan), Divya (Sanon) and Geeta (Tabu) decide to not just rip off their shady billionaire boss, Walia (Saswata Chatterjee), but also teach him a lesson. The film taps into a fantasy that has lingered in the popular imagination since Mallya absconded to the United Kingdom, and the filmmaker doesn’t shy away from giving explicit references to India’s Trump-plus-Branson either.
Krishnan’s Crew trains its guns on Mallya from the get-go – showcasing his famous ‘gift packs’ and ‘welcome videos’, and dressing its on-screen stewardesses in Kingfisher-like red uniforms. It gives power back in the hands of those he swindled, despite speeches and statements that claimed the contrary. Anu Menon’s Neeyat (2023) also features a revenge plot where the antagonist seems to be modelled on Mallya. Except here, the victim Mira Rao (Vidya Balan) manages to kill him too. Neeyat’s references to Mallya were less in-your-face, but with the styling of its murder victim Ashish Kapoor (Ram Kapoor), there was no doubt about who the film was talking about. Just like Mallya, Kapoor’s character sported salt-and-pepper hair, long coats and a beard.
When Mallya launched Kingfisher Airlines back in the day, media reports teemed with news of him ‘handpicking’ the women who would work for him, along with snippets of beautiful air hostesses posing with the former businessperson and politician. Marketed as the only five-star airline in India that offered premium services even on domestic routes, Kingfisher soon became an aspiration for the middle class.
The conman fantasy
Conmen narratives aren’t new to Bollywood. Most of these movies called their central character ‘Natwarlal’, inspired by a con artist of the same name who was wanted in over 100 criminal cases and sentenced to 113 years in prison by various courts. According to India Today, Natwarlal made “eight daring escapes from jail and was the ultimate confidence trickster”. He was last seen in 1979, when he escaped while being taken for a trial in Mumbai. The Amitabh Bachchan-Rekha starrer Mr Natwarlal was released around the same time and became the top-grossing film of the year.
There were also the Emraan Hashmi-led Raja Natwarlal (2014), and Akshay Kumar’s Special 26 (2013). Both films showed the conman as endearing, tapping into the fascination around fraudsters’ modus operandi and escapades. The state and the police were branded as the ‘villains’ in these movies while the conman was portrayed as a hero. There is, after all, voyeuristic pleasure in watching people scam the rich. Such is the allure of the myth of Mithilesh Srivastava alias Natwarlal that a Kannada film titled Mr Natwarlal was released after all these years in February 2024. The modern crime action thriller reimagines the ending of the conman but ultimately is sympathetic to the character.
The other constant factor in all films is the ‘one-woman-man’ trope, which makes the character more humane and appealing.
On OTT too, Hansal Mehta’s Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story (2020) and Scam 2003: The Telgi Story (2023) had successful runs, thanks to impactful writing and power-packed performances.
Also read: Dirty talk to self-love — Thank You For Coming finally gets women-centric films right
Why is Vijay Mallya portrayed differently?
Mallya’s representation is different because there’s simmering anger against him and a strong desire to bring him to justice. Natwarlal was a poor man who started conning to make ends meet, but Mallya wasn’t. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he chose to squander all his wealth, womanise, and flee the country with his money. There isn’t an ounce of sympathy for the businessman.
After all, he scammed the middle class and not the rich. He also managed to defraud India’s biggest public sector bank of Rs 2,000 crore; a bank where many Indians typically maintain an account. Mallya’s actions have ignited a fervent demand for righteous justice. Everyone wants to witness the fall of the filthy rich tycoon who played with the hopes and dreams of the aspirational class.
Bad Boy Billionaires, spread across three episodes, dedicated one episode to Mallya. It also featured Nirav Modi and Subrata Roy. The episode on Mallya pieced together his extravagance and the constant media spotlight he enjoyed. It focused on how he maintained his party-heavy lifestyle and bought Indian Premier League and Formula One teams while his business went to the dogs.
In Crew, Walia owns an airline called Kohinoor – a tongue-in-cheek allusion to India’s inability to retrieve both the famed diamond and one of its most notorious fugitives from the UK. Walia’s limited screen presence indirectly refers to the time Mallya stopped his media appearances after the news of Kingfisher Airlines facing a financial crisis broke.
Crew is blatant in who it talks about. But it shifts the spotlight onto the women who stand up against the man who defrauded them, focusing on their endearing friendship, personalities and individual lives too. This shift in perspective allows these glamorous and empowered women to ultimately have the last laugh – even if just in reel life.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)