Director: Abhinav Kashyap Producer: Himanshu Mehra & Sanjeev Gupta Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Pallavi Sharda, Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, Javed Jaffrey
You may expect quite a lot from a movie and it may turn out to be bad. What if you don’t expect anything and the movie turns out to be horrible? Watch ‘Besharam’ if you want an answer. Post ‘Dabangg’, one might have expected a lot from Director Abhinav 
Kashyap. I absolutely enjoyed the typical commercial potboiler ‘Dabangg’ (the sequel was a nightmare) and thought Salman Khan was excellent in it. Add to that, the director has teamed up with Ranbir Kapoor this time. A fantastic actor… a bundle of talent… The youngest Kapoor has left all his contemporaries way behind with his quickly achieved superstardom. In just a few years, he has delivered two outstanding performances (‘Rockstar’, ‘Barfi’) plus he is also the youngest and quickest actor to join the 100 crore club with two movies (‘Barfi’, ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’). If these were not enough, ‘Besharam’ also has Ranbir’s real-life parents Rishi and Neetu Kapoor sharing screen with him for the very first time. There are enough reasons to have your expectations soaring high. However, the trailers didn’t catch my fancy and I was really disappointed with the new superstar’s last release ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’. So, I walked in with no
expectations. Close to 140 minutes later, I walked out from a packed house with a headache.
Babli (Ranbir Kapoor) is a street-smart car thief (Hence, the title ‘Besharam’! Clever, isn’t it?) in Delhi who donates all his earnings to his orphanage. Our lafanga hero falls head over heels in love with classy (ahem!) Tara (Pallavi Sharda) but she abhors him. Babli steals her new Mercedez by mistake and sells it to Hawala King Chandel (Javed Jaffrey). Realizing his fault, he takes along Tara all the way to Chandigarh to get her car 
back. What a plot! Clap… Clap! Okay… not over yet. Babli is chased by cops Chulbul Chautala (Rishi Kapoor) and Bulbul Chautala (Neetu Kapoor) who are husband and wife. And yes… our heroine falls in love with our hero all of a sudden as soon as he tells her how difficult the life of an orphan is and that is what led him to become a besharam car thief. Very innovative! Isn’t it?
While I agree that you can’t expect a sensible plot in a movie like this, I just can’t understand what made the three Kapoors sign this mess of a movie. What were they thinking? They would be sharing screen space together for the first time and that should have been a special movie. Very baffling! I’m still scratching my head! Perhaps, they were experimenting with Ranbir Kapoor if he can pull off an out-and-out masala movie as well.
Direction by Abhinav Kashyap is pathetic and I’m being understated. ‘Dabangg’ was a fluke, all thanks to the phenomenal superstardom of Salman Khan. We will have more flukes from you soon, Mr. Kashyap! Even this should do really well at the Box-Office so he need not worry. Most of the movies at the 100 and 200 crore clubs are dim-witted bad movies these days. The audience wants to laugh a bit and unwind after a stressful week; film-makers are just catching up with the latest trend and cashing in on it. Nothing bad! But where is the harm in making really entertaining commercial movies? ‘Dabangg’ did entertain and a few others that followed. There aren’t really any performances here; just buffoonery. Ranbir Kapoor comes up with his most ridiculous and worst performance in his worst movie so far. He hams it up much more than required, wears flashy clothes (mind it… the script must have demanded it but was there one?) but even then manages to look super confident and carries off the so-called role. Pallavi Sharda makes one of the funniest debuts. I say so because she looks very 
plain and below average but she is portrayed as this classy, beautiful girl who is not easy to get. Her performance is equally funny and you wonder how she bagged a role in a supposedly big film. Rishi and Neetu Kapoor re-enact their roles in ‘Do Dooni Chaar’. Only this time they are police officers who don’t have money. They are okay but in unimportant roles. The irony here is Javed Jaffrey stands out in a negative role. He even looks the part well. Music by Lalit Pandit is tuneless. You can’t even recall one song and there are many of them. I also didn’t understand the need for a few scenes in the flick. In one scene, you see Rishi Kapoor sitting on a toilet seat, farting and shitting away in glory. Ranbir Kapoor himself seems to revisit his infamous ‘Saawariya’ act, this time without a towel. In another scene, he shows off his chest hair to the audience. Crude and not funny; these were not needed unless it was an adult comedy.
Watch it or not: I guess you will. It is a big film! Doesn’t matter if I say a big NO!
At the Box-Office: Word-of-mouth and reviews will range from poor to average. BO Verdict should range between Hit to Blockbuster. I’m expecting it to cross 100 cr unless the audience gets sensible this time. It will benefit from three factors – Ranbir Kapoor’s superstar power, being released on a national holiday and there are no big releases in this weekend or the next.
My Verdict
My Rating
What an appropriate title – ‘Besharam’! The producers are the biggest besharam here… for backing a film like this! The Director comes second for making it. The actors involved come very close for choosing such a script even if there was a one-pager! Besharmi ki hadh ho gayi!
