The bad guys of filmdom are going through a transition as Bollywood's top stars aim for the other side of the line.
The villains in Harry Baweja's action thriller, Qayamat, are Arbaaz Khan, Sanjay Kapoor and Isha Koppikar, who form a kinky, sexually-charged trio. The first two have already played brutish husbands in Abbas-Mustan's Daraar (opposite Juhi Chawla) and Boney Kapoor's Koi Mere Dil Se Pooche (opposite Esha Deol) respectively.
Koppikar will also be seen as the bad girl in Pankuj Parasher's Inteqaam, where she reprises Sharon Stone's character from the erotic Hollywood thriller, Basic Instinct. She is also under consideration to play a prostitute in Sanjay Gupta's latest undertaking, Musafir.
Her costars, Sanjay Dutt, Anil Kapoor, Mahesh Manjrekar and Suniel Shetty, play debauched, immoral scum.
In Raj Kumar Santoshi's cop flick, Khakee, Akshay Kumar plays the leading man while Ajay Devgan opts for the role with the darker shades. Dutt will play the villain in Santoshi's next production, which stars Abhishek Bachchan in a positive role.
Pooja Bhatt, who, in a way, spearheaded this move towards exploring the evil side of the protagonist's personality in Jism, will continue to do so in her directorial debut, Paap.
Meanwhile, the amoral, burnt-out lawyer in Jism, John Abraham, portrays a diabolic loverboy in Vikram Bhatt's Aitbaar, a remake of the Hollywood thriller, Fear.
Interestingly, most of the leading men, though game to change their image, do not want to reveal their plans. Anil Kapoor first spoke about playing an out-and-out villain in Anurag Kashyap's Allwyn Kalicharan, but now describes it as a "very positive role."
Shetty, a terrorist in Farha Khan's directorial debut Main Hoon Na, now claims he plays "a man who believes in his cause."
Fardeen Khan, who plays the psychologically disturbed antagonist in Ram Gopal Varma's Bhoot, feels, "There are no heroes and villains any longer."
The man with the gun is no longer all black.