From 'Dhurandhar' to 'Drishyam 2,' The Best Akshaye Khanna Performances In the Last Decade

When it comes to Akshaye Khanna and my mad dash to co-opt his alternative aura, I’m going to paraphrase an infamous villain in a famous comic-book movie: “You merely adopted Khanna; I was born into him, molded by him”. That’s right. One of my favourite past-times has been to scoff at younger Bollywood enthusiasts who are just ‘discovering’ the actor nearly three decades into his career. Let me say this with his characters’ trademark facial tics: I’ve been on board the Akshaye Khanna train since his Himalay Putra and Doli Saja Ke Rakhna years. Back when he almost looked too intellectual, self-aware and ‘metropolitan’ to be a leading man, and too charismatic to be an ensemble specialist. Back when he looked like a misfit in love stories, romcoms and slapstick comedies, yet managed to stay memorable and soften the grammar of filmy masculinity. Back when he — by virtue of merely existing with a chin cleft and intelligent forehead and dimples and receding hairline — looked smarter and wiser than everyone else in pulpy crime thrillers. Back when he stood out because he was too distinct to fit in.

The legacy films like Dil Chahta Hai, Taal, Aa Ab Laut Chalein (I insist) and Humraaz (I insist again) aside, Khanna’s second innings is the reason an entire generation of cinephiles is discovering him. And some of us are rediscovering him. His resurgence in the last decade has been marked by a very specific set of characters that can best be described as: The Cheshire Cat Man. These male characters tend to sport smug grins and unnerving ‘gotcha’ looks that make it seem like they know more than they let on. They are mostly lawyers, cops, antiheroes or baddies whose weapons are their intuition and overactive eyebrows. Sometimes it looks like they’re conspiratorially locking eyes with the viewer and letting us in on the secret that they are better than not just other characters but even the films they’re in. It’s a stock Akshaye Khanna vibe — the equivalent of life infiltrating film frames and winking at us. One may not agree with the intent or ideology of some movies, but there’s no denying that a swaggy Khanna thrives on the shapeless relationship between commercial art and those who consume it. He often seems to be lampooning mainstream Hindi film-making and occupying it at once: an uncanny balance that makes it hard to look away from the screen. At times, it’s like the fictional characters are playing Akshaye Khanna, not the other way around; the results are both amusing and entertaining. On the eve of Dhurandhar: The Revenge, here are 5 of his most remarkable roles in the last decade:

Ittefaq (2017)

Inspector Dev Varma is the ultimate manifestation of all the aforementioned traits. The suave, Sherlock-coded officer that Khanna plays in the adaptation of Yash Chopra’s 1969 thriller aura-farms to a level where the investigation he’s leading is almost seduced into revealing its layers. The way he smokes, exhales, breathes, murmurs, glances, glares and peers into the soul of the suspects (including a shaken Sidharth Malhotra) reframes the grammar of the quintessential city detective. At some point, the movie starts to depend on Dev’s moods and mindgames, his penchant for a good enter-the-room swagger, and his ability to toy with his environment through his facial muscles alone. This is peak Khanna: the origin story of the more celebrated (and hairy) iterations of this persona.

Mom (2017)

Released in the same year as Ittefaq, the Sridevi starrer features a relatively unheralded role of Khanna’s — again as a veteran cop investigating a morally murky case where the perpetrators may not be as guilty as the accused. His character, Inspector Mathew Francis, often takes the mickey out of a dark and self-serious revenge thriller. He scrutinises his surroundings like a feline masquerading as a man, thus shaping the central suspense and reckless vigilantism of a film about a mother hunting down the monsters who raped her young daughter. You wouldn’t want someone like her to be caught, but Khanna’s campy performance makes you want her to be understood and empathised with first. By the end, his cleverness becomes a complicit bystander rather than a law-abiding obstruction.

Section 375 (2019)

Not for the first time, a potentially problematic plot is embellished with a hammy and perversely enjoyable Akshaye Khanna turn. Crafty was it was, Section 375 is kind of an anti-MeToo film in how it incriminates a woman who accuses a powerful man of sexual abuse. Khanna plays the silver-tongued defense lawyer, and it’s a tricky character, because he must first pander to audience biases as an enabler who’s siding with a guilty man, before he is actually proven right as the senior star and mentor of the female public prosecutor. The message is not right, but I can’t think of anyone more persuasive. He lays on the “I told you so” energy thick and fast, particularly when the plot reverse-engineers itself to rationalise his cocky personality. There’s no greater sight than a condescending Khanna character playing to the gallery — and then turning out to be the good guy against all odds. Political incorrectness shouldn’t be so much fun.

Drishyam 2 (2022)

Be so good at playing the cunning cop that a hit movie franchise finds a way to write you into a sequel that doesn't really need an extra face. But it’s Khanna as a shrewd investigator in a cat-and-mouse game with a poker-faced Ajay Devgn: what’s not to like? As a successor to Tabu’s character from the first film, Khanna’s Tarun Ahlawat is detached enough to enjoy his own performative ways; you can tell that he’s moving, reacting, pausing and speaking in a way that almost caters to the screenwriter-protagonist’s love for cinema. At some level, he seems to be manipulating the family into confessing by speaking in a language they’re wired to warm up to. So the entire shtick of Khanna operating like he’s always a step ahead is baked into the film. It’s like he’s entertaining himself and messing with the suspects while solving a case he already knows the answer to.

Dhurandhar (2025)

It took a baddie who thinks he’s the hero — with dozens of slow-mo entries, and a dance move to boot — to awaken the (rest of the) world to the meta pleasures of Khanna. Better late than never, I suppose. Watching millions of moviegoers latch onto every gesture and meme made me feel a bit like I did when everyone hijacked the work-from-home culture during the lockdowns after I had been working from home my whole life. So much for gatekeeping his ‘hidden’ talents. Unlike Bobby Deol’s radical fame in Animal, though, the thing about Khanna is that he’s been playing versions of Rahman Dakait for years. It’s a culmination, not a bolt from the blue. The difference here is that Khanna’s know-it-all aesthetic is subdued by Dakait’s ego. He is supposed to know better. By virtue of who the actor is, Dakait is supposed to easily figure out the Indian spy in his midst. The fact that he allows himself to be betrayed till the end is supplied by the history of a modern Akshaye Khanna character. It never feels like he’s being fooled even when he is, making him look like a shark inadvertently circling his prey. Rahman Dakait may be dead, but thanks to Khanna, his slick ghost is expected to float over the sequel.

Special Mention:

Chhaava (2025)

I live for the moment Khanna — as a prosthetics-laden and sinister 17th century villain — gloriously breaks the fourth wall of period and form and ancient beard and cinematic language to quip “mazza nahi aaya” after a hero’s lyrical monologue, as if he’s still Sid bantering with Akash in Dil Chahta Hai.