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The Arts

Amritraj battles for the best

Radhika R Shankar

When the youngest of the Amritraj brothers and John Travolta decided to team up, and recreate Ron Hubbard's bestseller on the big screen, their plan was to go all out with a lot of digital effects but was Battlefield Earth worth Ashok Amritraj's efforts or Travolta's 15-year-wait?

Many feel that the film offers nothing new beyond John Travolta in a weird costume. But the film is packed with action, an element that has attracted Ashok Amritraj many times in his 16 years as a producer. But Amritraj, who is not new to the whimsical nature of the box office, seems to have moved on from the bad showing, the flak from the critics and the loss of $ 50 million battle to his next venture starring Sylvester Stallone.

One of the top three independent filmmakers in Hollywood, Amritraj makes an average of 12 Hollywood films a year.

Battlefield Earth is based on Ron Hubbard's 1982 bestseller. Hubbard, an engineer and adventurer became rich and popular in the 1940s with his Dianetics, a form of psychotherapy that evolved into the belief system of Scientology. Though Battlefield Earth has nothing to do with Scientology, it has drawn many Scientology followers like John Travolta.

In a recent interview, Travolta said that this movie gave him a rare chance of playing a villain. "It really allowed me this artistic freedom... Good guys are always struggling within themselves," he said.

Set in 3000 AD, where Earth is a wasteland and mankind is nearly extinct, the film tells the story of the surviving humans who are either living as savages or as slaves of the nine-foot-tall ugly aliens from the planet Psychlo. The aliens' chief Terl (John Travolta), who always talks about gaining "leverage" over his friends and enemies, uses the captive human, Johnny "Goodboy" Tyler (Barry Pepper), to study humans. But Tyler learns enough about the aliens to defeat them.

Even casting Travolta in the lead, adding digital action effects and faithfully following the Pulp Fiction style weren't enough to make the production a success.

Amritraj has had great success producing thrillers like Night Eyes, which grossed over $ 29 million and Double Impact which grossed over $ 100 million in the international scene. Many of his films, numbering over 50, are thrillers. Amritraj broke through the Hollywood glass ceiling by taking on pet projects of Hollywood stars like Alec Baldwin and Ben Kingsley. Such ventures resulted in films like A Light in the Jungle, based on the life of Dr Albert Schweitzer.

However, the producer's penchant for action films has been obvious from early in his career, first as the CEO and chairman of Amritraj Entertainment Inc, then as chairman of Royal Oaks Entertainment.

Amritraj has made the best of his lucky breaks in his film career, like joining Michael Solomon, president of Warner Bros. When Solomon decided to start his own international venture, Amritraj agreed to join him and Amritraj Solomon Communications was born.

He bagged the Natraj Award for filmmaking excellence in 1993. The award is the People's Choice award from Indians worldwide.

Amritraj's ambitions of making Hyde Park Entertainment, his new company, the best in Hollywood, seems in keeping with his pioneering spirit which has, in the past, driven him to finish a film in 55 days, to take on Bollywood with Jeans and to bravely go where no Indian-American producer has gone before.

Next: Failed writer commits suicide

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