Movie Review – Heroine (Hindi) – Get SET for SET pieces!!

Let’s kick start the innings with a sneak peek into the Cast, Characters & Crew

Cast & Characters:

Mahie “Bipolar-nonchalant-commitment-phobic” Arora – Kareena Kapoor

Aryan “Moody-Macho-Superstar-Lover-Father” Khanna – Arjun Rampal

Angad “All-I-need-is-Cricket-and-Actresses” Paul – Randeep Hooda

Protima “I-have-methods-to-teach-method-acting” Roy – Shahana Goswami

Pallavi “Branding-and-stardom-go-hand-in-hand” Narayan – Divya Dutta

Abbas “I-am-an-Actor-Editor-Director” Khan – Sanjay Suri

Ria “I-don’t-accept-debut-awards” Mehra – Mugdha Godse

Tapan “Don’t-teach-me-film-making” Da – Ranvir Shourey

Shagufta “I-am-used-to-all-this” Ali – Helen

Rashid “I-am-an-eternal-loyal” Bhai – Govind Namdeo

Music, Editor, Camera and other technical department:

“What-can-we-do-when-there-is-no-scope”

Director:

Madhur “I-am-the-mouth-piece-of-INDUSTRY” Bhandarkar

The director’s obsession with SET PEOPLE is prevalent since time immemorial. He opened his innings with Page 3 set, then in the middle-overs he sailed through murky waters of Fashion set, and now his muse has reached the slog-overs with an outlandish design of Heroine set. Madhur Bhandarkar has spent a meaty time in the industry, but, what should probably take shape from an insider’s insight turns into a prevarication resulting in slimy sketches of characters, err, caricatures. Sometimes, the characters are believable and many a time they are so excruciating that you can’t stomach them any further. Thus making Heroine a lackluster and detestably loooooong story of a star/heroine/actress (I thought all these terms can be used alternately, but there’s a difference and every term is explained in the film) Mahi Arora, narrated without quip, ponderousness or ingenuity.

The movie opens with a mishap in Mahie’s life and the narrative moves back in time to show where it all began – Heroine on her career’s pinnacle. Her relationships, her rise and fall from stardom owing to her moody and impulsive behavior form the major chunk of the film. Despite the predictable follow of events, the movie has some glorious moments where the audience becomes aghast with an uncanny depiction of people connected to the industry. But with time, these stereotypical set pieces pile up, and Bhandarkar being the film’s co-writer passes the blame game baton to bad parentage which results in peevish behavior of Mahie.

The characters are akin to real-life stars, and everything we have read or heard about Bollywood is thrown onto the giant canvas made by Madhur. He shows an adamant art house Bengali director who cribs about tight budget and gives Mahie just an hour to memorize a four page dialogue but takes whole nine months to complete only half the film – Mr Bhandarkar, is it character elevation or character assassination?! The other players completing the lineup are: the ubiquitous paparazzi, the impression of debauchery, a lesbian act, the existence of casting couch, a manipulative male star, page 3 people who smoke and drink round-the-clock, and a PR executive – a person with myriad equations and calculations and she says, “I create brands.”

The only bankable factor in the film is Kareena Kapoor’s performance, albeit there isn’t any string of surprises to that. A few scenes add life to the film, but the trite dialogues take away all the sheen - You can hear the word INDUSTRY a zillion times in the film. After an excruciatingly chewing-gummish pre-climax sequence, like in every film of Rise-and-fall-in-film-industry genre, people close to Mahie walk out of her life and she succumbs to seemingly implausible ways to bring back her lost smile. After bombarding the star with every piece he could assimilate from the Pandora’s Box, now “Mr Preacher” Bhandarkar expects some HOPE, and takes the route of leaving the stardom to negate the harrowing past that (according to him) is inevitable in the life of every HEROINE!!

Bottom-line: The movie falls prey to the formulaic template of film-making – An entertaining first half that eventually drops into a splash of post interval melodrama. Despite some moments of glory, the film remains a twine of dreary banalities. The caricatured characters fill the screen space and the screenplay wanders through many streets, at times induces sleep, and ultimately loses its destination. Madhur Bhandarkar should realize that if he makes a rehashed version of his earlier films, it may result in an inevitable damp squib. Let’s seal the innings with this line - Watch Heroine for Kareena's superlative performance or watch it on your TV sets this Diwali (I hope this time my predictometer will be bang on).

My Rating: Expectation – 7/10; Reality – 4/10