JOIN USBesharam
Hindi (U/A) ¬
Director: Abhinav Kashyap
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Kapoor, Pallavi Sharda, Amitosh Nagpal
Sometimes even great talent cannot save a bad script gone horribly wrong. Below average is the phrase that comes to mind with a single star (rating) blinking up there on the horizon. That is what Besharam will get.
Not that Abhinav Kashyap hasn’t talent and not that Ranbir / Rishi / Neetu Kapoor have not done justice to their roles in the past. But just as not every Chulbul can be a Pandey (Salman Khan in Dabangg) every Babli (Ranbir’s curious name in the film) cannot be a Haryanvi tapori. And what cannot be shouldn’t be.
Let’s face it. A sophisticate like Ranbir cannot pull off being a tapori, aka Aamir Khan in Rangeela — not yet. He needs to hone himself a lot more before he can pull this one off. And Neetu and Rishi Kapoor needn’t have tried so hard to be Chautalas.
The gaps show and how! Not just in their poor delivery of unnecessary dialogues but also in their fake Haryanvi accents.
More than that, borrowed dialogues, borrowed music and borrowed cliched moments from Hindi film classics do not equal up to good cinema. Worse, this one is a hangover from Kashyap’s own Dabangg and shows up his lack of knowledge of Delhi and Haryana.
Ranbir’s Babli is an anaath (orphan) who has grown up on the streets, and ended up as a car thief with Titu (Amitosh Nagpal) for company. But why should there always be a justification or a back story to every bad, but golden-hearted boy?
A point that a dialogue makes, when Babli’s love interest Tara questions him as to how can his thievery be justified just because he had no one to teach him otherwise. The rest of the film remains flat as the Deccan Plateau, much like the acting of its heroine (debutant Pallavi Sharda).
Besharam could have been ‘Special’ with the Kapoors coming together, but it is indeed a pity that they collectively chose a dud. For even within the ‘loud and over-the-top cinema’ — the norm these days, there is a certain amount of class attached. A point that Kashyap missed totally.