Besharam Review

Besharam: Besharam isn’t a great film, but it’s saved by Ranbir Kapoor’s awesomely cheeky performance. Watch it for him!
Rating: ***

Director: Abhinav Kashyap

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Pallavi Sharda, Neetu Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Javed Jaffrey

Ranbir Kapoor retains the boyish charm that’s gradually fading in fellow mainstream Bollywood heroes like Shahrukh Khan and Akshay Kumar. He does funny faces, cracks the silliest jokes and moves like a Looney Toons cartoon sometimes, all with a childlike twinkle in his eyes and a sprightly youthful grace that’s entirely appropriate for the roles he picks. Pushing 50 Shahrukh uncle and Akshay chacha (soon to come in ‘Boss’), meanwhile, desperately try to go the Madonna-way, romancing partners half their age, working plenty on their body and face, instead of accepting their ageing with dignity and grace.

What’s more praiseworthy about Kapoor is that whatever charisma he has, he exudes it through his characters. In Besharam, he sticks his tongue out like a ‘lukha’ (yet looking million times better than Miley Cyrus), he assumes the famous Amitabh Bachchan pose randomly and intones ‘Hai!’, he unabashedly shakes his a** in the shower which reminds us of his debut film Saawariya, he grabs his crotch doing pelvic thrusts in a shiny gold disco gear, he even sings ‘Tujhe Dekha To Yeh Jaana Sanam’ while peeing and doing a little side-slide dance move simultaneously. Yet every move, every gesture, every posture and mugging he performs, he performs it in character which in this case is ‘Babli’.

American actress Julianne Nicholson, who’s coming in the film adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winning play August Osage County, said that legendary Meryl Streep, the lead actress in the film, would filter every note or suggestion given by the crew/cast through the character she played; when a cameraman told her to wipe off a finger-print mark on the glasses she had worn for a funeral scene, Streep took them off and started smudging more finger-prints as the funeral was her character’s husband’s. In the same way, Ranbir is able to filter every ‘Act-like-Salman-here’ ‘Do-a-move-that’ll-be-totally-rejected-anywhere-except-in-Bollywood’ note through the character he’s playing, thus adding a layer of believability that was missing in contemporary Shahid Kapoor when he tried his hand at herogiri in ‘Phata Poster Nikla Hero’. Ranbir ke masala-film role me bhi tadka hai, jaadu hau, jigar hai and sabse khaas, dil hai. He’s got an innate Bollywood hero flair, being the son of actors Rishi Kapor and Neetu Kapoor who, by the way, are supporting characters in Besharam; he’s a natural and that’s the reason why he’s better than the rest of the Bollywood hero brigade: Shahrukh, Salman, Akshay, Imran, Shahid and especially the Tamil-Telugu-Malayalam stars who are unnecessarily invading mainstream Bollywood when they are much better back South. Ranbir is the man who can help improve the stale nature of mainstream Bollywood while remaining mainstream Bollywood… and Besharam!

The character he plays this time is an orphan who makes a living as a mechanic cum small-time car-thief selling the stolen cars to a car dealer. The money he gets, however, is spent on taking care of children at an orphanage. He’s the Robin Hood Babli-without-a-surname who says he doesn’t have heart but ‘jigar’, uses no weapons except the shield of ‘love’ and gives a bone-headed ‘Huhuhu’ laugh whenever a lady calls him ‘besharam’. He is love-struck by Tara Sharma (Pallavi Sharda), a garam-dimagwali manager he meets at her friend’s wedding, where he’s present only to steal a guest’s swanky car. He makes a bet with his friend cum partner-in-crime Titu (Amitosh Nagpal) that he’ll get Tara to marry him.

That isn’t easy for Babli though as Tara is a teekhi-mirch who can’t stand the sight of a ‘besharam’ like Babli who is obnoxious (which he is) and has no respect for women. Babli complicates matters when he unintentionally steals Tara’s Mercedes and sells it to a dealer in Chandigarh. To win her heart, he takes her to Chandigarh to get back her vehicle, except without informing that he’d stolen her car in the first place. The task isn’t so simple; the car is in possession of Bheem Singh (Javed Jaffrey), the hawala king who hired Babli to steal the car for him in the first place. Also, there is a middle-aged cop couple, Chulbul Chautala (Ranbir’s dad Rishi) and Bulbul Chautala (Neetu), hunting for him. Chulbul tries to be honest but is lazy, absent-minded and worse, henpecked by Bulbul into demanding bribes. Also, the couple has no children and plans to adopt one – if you’ve seen some Bollywood, you should be able to guess how the story shall end.

Besharam isn’t a great film, as its hardly the manic fun it promises to be. The entire first half of the movie is taken up developing the relationship between Babli and Tara, and Chulbul and Bulbul remain absent after the initial scenes only to return much later after interval. After Tara finally falls in love with Babli in Chandigarh, her role is reduced to that of a prop and the film shifts to plain-and-simple hero-worship, bringing in the hero vs villain angle. The first half is for most part action-free, with the film bringing in Rohit Shetty/Khiladi 786 style fighting scenes in the second half that seem tonally incompatible with the rest of the film. The plot development is a little too simplistic, and there’s no effort in developing sub-plots simultaneously; for example, it would’ve been better had Bulbul, Chulbul and Bheem Singh appeared more often in the first half. Complicating the story a bit would’ve added

to the fun, as in the Sunil Shetty-Paresh Rawal-Akshay Kumar starrer superhit Hera Pheri, a definitive masala comedy film that marvellously treated its elements of comedy, romance and action without getting clunky and heavy-handed. Neetu, making a screen comeback after years, tries too hard and ends up sounding inauthentic as the termagant Rajasthani wife greedy for bribes. Pallavi, on the other hand, could’ve built up better chemistry with Kapoor had she flushed and blushed a little more, even when she’s mad at him. And Jaffrey is hardly intimidating.

The champ and saviour here is Kapoor, who puts on another charming act after rocking in ‘Wake Up Sid’ ‘Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahaani’, ‘Rockstar’ and ‘Barfi’ (not putting up ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’ – hated the film). He’s honestly awesome and cheeky (as in, extending his cheek and asking for a kiss when a girl threatens to slap him) in Besharam, and lights up the bubbly and colourful world of Abhinav Kashyap. Watch it for him.
ourvadodara.in Rating Guide:

* = Avoid!!

** = Rent It / TV Premiere

*** = Book The Cheapest Seats

**** = Book The Best Seats

***** = Book The Best Seats + Buy The DVD!