Babli Bouncer (2022) :
Movie Review -
Madhur Bhandarkar was over a long time ago. He made Chandni Bar and Page 3, and those are the only films I found good. He just kept using the script again and again in his next films, which made me lose faith in him. The graph kept going down with each film, and with Babli Bouncer, it reached the bottom. What was that? Bhadarkar Sir, seriously? I mean, losing touch is okay, it can be termed as human error, but what a big thrash have you made this time? Is this what you call a Comedy, family entertainer, or whatever you say? Babli Bouncer has left me in such a situation that I feel like I should have hired some psychological bouncers to protect my brain before watching it. Hotstar had many craps this year, but this was too much.
Babli Bouncer is a story of a young and beautiful village girl, Babli (Tamannah Bhatia). She is 10th-failed and is interested in body building. Without any reason, she falls in love with an educated boy from Delhi, Viraj (Abhishek Bajaj). The affair begins from her side, and she moves to Delhi to become a female bouncer at a night club. The one-sided affair turns into a disaster episode and Babli learns a lot about life. She then decides to stand on her own while continuing her bouncer's job, and the rest of the story has nothing interesting left for you.
Madhur Bhandarkar has always made realistic films, and that's why I loved them in the first place. For the first time in his career, he tried to do something different with Babli Bouncer (a comedy), but sadly, he failed miserably. The script is very dull and has nothing in store for any kind of audience, be it the masses or classes. Babli Bouncer tries many things at the same time but fails to find the right balance between multiple aspects of comedy. This topic was actually so good, but the messy screenplay and outdated vision snatched away all the scope from it. This female bouncer thing was so new for Bollywood, but what have we made out of it? Babli Bouncer? That's totally unfair. That's not what the topic deserves. To hell with the writers. I don't really see any logic behind using this romance angle, and most importantly, how Babli, as an aspiring girl, looks at it. Amit Joshi, Aradhana Debnath and Madhur Bhandarkar's trio lock themselves into a box of limits, they just don't step out of that. Moreover, everything that comes out of the box is totally useless.
Talking about the star cast, Tamannah nails the Haryanvi accent. Well, that's new for her, but what about acting? That's below par for sure. She doesn't really look like a bouncer in some scenes. She is too cute and fair to play a gaav ki chhori. And how irritating does she look with those Dakars and pathetic dialogues? Abhishek Bajaj's handsome looks will have you for a while, and his chemistry with Tamannaah is beautiful, but soon you'll notice that he doesn't really suit the beauty of Bhatia. A talented actor like Saurabh Shukla is totally wasted here. And I don't really know what Ashwini Kalsekar was doing there in a 2-minute scene. Sahil Vaid, who has given good performances in Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, Badrinath Ki Dulhania, and Dil Bechara, drops himself to a lower standard. The rest of the cast also hasn't done anything else besides terrible acting.
The technical aspects of Babli Bouncer will be overlooked because of the small screen experience. Thank God, it wasn't released on the big screen, otherwise all those B-grade frames would have spoiled it more. Music is too dull to be mentioned here and is a waste of two more lines. The dialogues have a certain, intentional northern flavour, which looks so downmarket sometimes. Who writes such cheap dialogues in 2022, and that too for an OTT film? Babli Bouncer is a motive-less film, and one of the worst parts of it is its climax. It hardly makes you laugh, but it will give you that chance to laugh at the director after the film is over. Such off-track stories should be banned soon. Madhur Bhandarkar should stick to his basics and not try something he can't make. Babli Bouncer couldn't have gotten anywhere else with this story, but what about direction, execution, and crafting? Did Bhandarkar approve it all with blind eyes? Anyway, try and skip Babli Bouncer, unless you want to see the gorgeous Tamannaah Bhatia. But that's available on YouTube for free in a short time, right? Then why waste your 2 hours on something that is not even worth 2 minutes of your life?
RATING - 3/10*
