India, Jan. 8 -- There may have been a time when it seemed like a creative choice to cast Sanjay Dutt as a villain in movies. But I can't recall that time. It feels more and more like an industrial reflex these days. Dutt reappears in a familiar register as the Prabhas-led The Raja Saab gets closer to its release. He has a commanding physique, a greying beard, possibly a distinctive haircut (or just a bald pate), a gravel-throated delivery of dialogue, and so forth. My issue is not that Dutt continues to play antagonists (after all, iconic villains have always been a major part of Indian cinema). But those antagonists have started to merge into a single composite character. And that character is interminably used in various industries and...