Heroine

As the title indicates, this is the story of a Bollywood heroine (in fact a collection of some episodes from her life and career). People keep on coming in and going out of her life and she finally ends up running away from the arc-lights and the sounds like Light, Camera, Action, Cut etc., i.e., instead of being a crowd-puller, feels better being a part of the crowd. She is indecisive or confused as to what she actually wants from her life - a successful career or a love-filled life with the man of her choice. And as a Hindi maxim tells - Duvidha Mein Dono Gaye, Maaya Milee Na Raam (in the condition of being in a fix, the person may get neither God nor wealth), she finally gets none of them.

The way every coin has two sides, the same way every world or field has two altogether different sides – one bright one and one dark one. And the so-called realistic filmmaker – Madhur Bhandarkar has typed himself as a filmmaker concentrating on the dark side only of the field he is dealing with in his movie. The problem is that he always takes his audience for granted and wants it to believe whatever he shows as true.

Madhur Bhandarkar has not shown any strugglers or acting lessons or a sincerity towards the profession. Instead he has chosen to show only the successful heroes and heroines and their activities involving mud-slinging, leg-pulling, scores-settling and dirty politics. And just like Fashion, he has shown smoking, drinking, drug-consumption, unsocial behaviour in the parties and casual sex (both heterosexual and homosexual). Is this all the film industry contains ? Is this the only scenario of a heroine's life ? After spending more than a decade in the film industry, do Madhur Bhandarkar and Kareena Kapoor want to tell the world that this is what they experience in this line ? Madhur Bhandarkar has shown that hype is everything and bad publicity is also considered as commercially beneficial. Well, this applies to this over-hyped film itself.

In the beginning sequence of Subhash Ghai's Pardes (1997), Amrish Puri says to a Westerner, 'In your country, love means Len-Den, i.e., give and take whereas in India love means Dena Dena Dena, i.e., give give give. However Madhur Bhandarkar has shown that in this industry (which he himself is a part of), there is only give and take. Every talk, every gesture, every emotion, every relationship is artificial and motivated by self-interest. Well, he and Kareena Kapoor know better.

Chums and dress-designers hovering around heroines are shown as speaking and behaving quite theatrically. Every female smokes. Every heroine is addressed by the talking person as 'babes' or 'baby'. Partisan media persons believe in settling their scores with the stars. Awards are negotiated. Heroes' possessive wives decide the heroines of their movies. Heroes do editing themselves, cutting the roles of those who do not come to their terms. Heroines devote more time to backbiting (or bitching) their contemporaries. Well, at least this is one fact which is confirmed through Kareena Kapoor's own life because she used to do it with her rival heroines till a few years back. For the rest, I am not sure to be fully true. All the same, how can I challenge the perception of Madhur and Kareena of their own line of work ?

The hard-hitting dialogs serve Madhur's purpose best. In one dialog, the ruthless PRO (Divya Dutta) of the heroine says that in the film-line, if you utter a lie with confidence, people consider it as truth. And in another scene, one party-woman says to her talking companion that who is not a fraud in this film industry. Well Madhur, do you say the same about yourself too ? The movie leaves such an impression only.

Technically, the movie is good. Music is in line with the mood of the movie. Though engrossing, the movie appears to be too long and the director seems to have attempted to cover as many facets of the cine-world, as possible which has, after a point, made the movie as burdensome. It has got reduced to a collection of some good and some bad sentences instead of being developed into a well-written impressive article.

Performances are all good. Even those who have been forced by the director to go over the top, have not disappointed. Kareena Kapoor has taken her heart out to invest in this movie and this movie seems to be a take on the real life and career of this aging actress (completed 32 years). All others have done well. Special praise is deserved by Divya Dutta as the PRO and Helen as the heroine of the yesteryears. In addition to the entertainment value, it's the performances and the track of Helen which can be considered as the pluses of this movie. Madhur Bhandarkar's realism seems to be a different name for tried and tested entertainment only.

The biggest thing that the movie subtly conveys is the dictum which I learnt quite late in my life – 'When you chase things, they run away'. When the 'heroine' in the movie chases love, love runs away from her and when she chases success in career, success runs away from her and all of her efforts prove to be counter-productive only in the end. Hence the great lesson rendered by default is never to run after anything. Let it go after a point.

Finally, I conclude my review with a dialog of the PRO to the heroine in a scene – 'Either you manipulate others to your benefit or get ready to be manipulated yourself'. Madhur Bhandarkar seems to have grasped the essence of this dialog and this time he has manipulated.

Madhur Bhandarkar who directed this movie must have lost his mind cause I can't find any reason why anyone can come with an idea of such a pathetic movie.....

2 and half hours of crying Kareena ..... on top of it the story was completely flawed.... twist after twist never lets the story to make any sense of some kind..........

Only positive thing that I can say is that if you can watch this movie and come out with your brain intact then you my friend can do anything in your life.

WATCHING HEROINE IS A TEST FOR MAN's WILL TO SURVIVE.

"Oh my god" That was my reaction when I came out of theater watching latest Madhur Bhandarkar film "Heroine". I kept wondering, "Is this the same director who has given movies like Satta, Chandani Bar, Page 3, Corporate and Fashion?". So at the outset let me say this, "Please don't watch this movie". And now the reasons.

Story: There is no story at all. The film is like a pendulum which swings from one direction to other, But at least pendulum helps to move the arms of watch. This story does not do any good to the movie. So I must say very badly written. And if the story itself is bad then it is just 2-3 hrs of cloths, foreign shoots and glamorous parties nothing else.

Screenplay: I am no expert but I can definitely tell the difference between good and bad. And it was bad.

Music: At one point I actually closed my ears. I found it too loud. It has just added to the sorrows of film.

Cast: One of the main reasons behind successful Madhur Bhandarkar films is the cast. And not just the central characters but the ensemble of characters gave the required impact to all of his previous films. This is not the case with Heroine. Apart from Kareena, Divya Dutta, Randeep Hooda and Ranveer Shauri no one leaves any impression. Kareena has done a "great job" in her portrayal of impulsive, moody yet emotional Mahi Arora who passes through turmoils of personal and professional hurdles. But how? By drinking, shrieking, smoking and crying in entire film nothing else. Additionally the character itself is so confused that at one point you wonder "Is there no such thing as self respect or learning from one's mistakes? I mean how can someone be so naive?". Somehow one cannot imagine Arjun Rampal and Sanjay Suri as Superstars. Arjun Rampal, in particular, has same expression in entire film. Helenji does reasonably good job apart from 1-2 pronunciations like "Heroin" for "Heroine" (which I might have heard incorrectly as I was half asleep). Ranveer Shauri dazzles and makes his presence felt (probably best portrayal in the movie).

To summarize, A Classic Example of "All Hype No Substance". Don't waste your money for this terrible experience, except if you want to sleep in AC for 2.5 hrs.

Okay, this film is really bad. Madhur Bhandarkar turns out to be a one-trick pony as each one of his films suffers from extremely poor execution. Chandni Bar was quite good, Page 3 definitely less so, Fashion was really average, and Heroine goes a few more steps down as a highly unconvincing film, which is very formulaic, lacking in focus, and almost comic in how stereotypical it is. In many ways it's just a takeoff on Fashion, offering a simplistic story of a big star who makes her way in the big cruel world of fashion, or film. I'm gonna put aside the biased, superficial portrayal of the film industry, which could be forgivable if the execution was right. But no, the film is just really poor and often looks like an amateurish college skit - the dialogue is awful, the dubbing and delivery is very, very unrealistic, the sound is annoying, and the entire product is melodramatic and with zero emotional impact. At times it looks like a cheap soap opera. The same is true for Kareena Kapoor, the leading lady, who is really let down by the poor script. This is one of her worst roles in my opinion, and the writing doesn't even allow her to develop an iota of character. It's all about exteriors, she has to look right, she has to exude confidence, but true depth that could have been brought out by a better actress, is absent in this film. Heroine is a stereotypical formula film which does harm to the Hindi film industry both because how it portrays it and because how bad it is in and of itself.

The film is a depiction of Kareena's own struggle to sustain her presence in Bollywood. After an interesting start, the film loses its grip and compels the user to find logic in the script. The second half is worse than the worst half where the logic and appeal seems to lose viewer-ship. Post interval era is a big drag while the viewers get more eager to reach to the end.

Overall, the film is flawed. It has virtually no sensible logic and the plot is very weak. The film does have its good moments, but those are highly succeeded by the negative factors of the film. Apart from good costumes and the ooziness displayed by Kareena and her counter-part(s), the film fails in every aspect.