Movie Review: Watch Heroine only for Kareena Kapoor

Cast: Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Randeep Hooda, Diya Dutta, Shahana Goswami, Sanjay Suri

Directed by: Madhur Bhandarkar

Music by Salim-Sulaiman

Censor Rating (A)

Rating **1/2

Madhur Bhandarkar's fascination for home-truths is known fact. Be it unseen or rather, unexplored world of bar dancers, the hind truths of media business and socialites, or the home truths of corporate sector and glamour aisles. Madhur has always succeeded in making his mark, by all his previous releases.

After exhibiting his adroitness in conceptualising the home truths on celluloid, Madhur is once again here with a theme based on the hind side of showbiz.

This time with Heroine, Madhur has tried to reveal the murkier secrets of an actresses' life, who has an ongoing tryst with agony and plight pertaining to personal and professional life. This much talked about cine cantata of Madhur, featuring Kareena, Randeep Hooda and Arjun Rampal opened with an occupancy of around 55% at multiplexes.

There is widely prevailing notion about the showbiz which says that, darkness always prevails behind the spotlight. So is the story of Madhur's directional venture, Heroine, which is knitted around the voyage of an actress in the glittery lanes of showbiz. And her rendezvous with the dark side of fame and eminence.

Heroine is tale of Mahi Arora (Kareena Kapoor) a prominent superstar of Bollywood, who has got all fragrances of goodies in her bunch of success blooms. Besides this Mahi suffers from bipolar disorder with mood swings, predominated by a sense of insecurity and loneliness. And the only source of soothing delight for Mahi is, her unconditional and everlasting dote on reigning superstar Aryan (Arjun Rampal).

But as the story proceeds her insecurities start taking over the control of her life, where she lands up in a state of dilemma, due to sheer contradiction between her outer life and inner world which demands a soothing comfort of true love. As story moves ahead, her quest and longing for true love starts taking her to disastrous depths.

After exhibiting his dexterity in handling the home-truths pertaining to glamour aisles, media industry, corporate world, and even the life of bar dancers this time Madhur some what failed in penning down a flawless script for one of the most over hyped cine flick of his career.

Infact the script of Heroine seems to be overly burdened with stereotypical element, showcasing those common features of "Madhur's type of cinema" for which homosexuality, Page-3 parties with gallons of liquor flowing, a gay fashion designers and bitchy celebs are a must.

The script no where gives you a fragrance of freshness, rather it gets more and more monotonous with frames rolling ahead. Apart from it's characteristic resemblance with the previous cine cantatas of Madhur (especially Fashion). The script becomes monotonous, repetitive within itself also.

With every successive sequence Heroine makes you feel that it is the same narrative which you have seen just a couple of minutes ago and the only difference lies in the shift of set.

Even at times script of Heroine seems to be more of a gossip tabloid, which tries to take a dig at some of the real life incidents of Bollywood actress in order to authenticate its proclamation of being a reality based cine tale pertaining to Bollywood

In nutshell, contrary to his previous cine ideas which were thoroughly novel, this time Madhur has completely failed in knitting an entertaining script.

With rhetoric pattern inspired from Socratian way of thinking, dialogues of Heroine may leave some impact upon you at one or two places but on the whole, masses are expected to get surprised by the phraseology, adopted by the ace director for this most ambitious project of his.

Well as far as screenplay and flow of the narration are concerned, then after having those award winning cine flicks like Fashion, Corporate, Page -3 and Chandini Bar in his kitty, this time Madhur has failed in meeting his own benchmark.

Though like typical Madhur Bhandarkar movies Heroine also begins with a curiosity raising sequence, providing a take off to audience apprehensions, but as the frames move ahead the onscreen substance seems to be divorcing from the reality, with everything kissing the horizons of obtruded melodrama.

Contrary Bhandarkar style of direction every single sequence of the film, Heroine is loaded with tonnes of predictability coated around it. Which is surely a disappointment for die hard Bhandarkar fans. With tons of soil from the previous grounds, Heroine once again showcased the feminine-traits of a designer, homosexuality, bitching celebs everything seems to be copy, pasted from his previous cine cantatas.

As far as direction is concerned then in Heroine Madhur some what failed in extracting best from his protagonists. Though Kareena's oomph in movie was at all time best, but inspite of that her performance could have been better. Infact despite having the patronage of an ace director like Madhur, Kareena looked getting derailed from her performance track as the movie rolls ahead.

With narration flowing ahead at snails pace and run time of around 2 hrs 30 minutes Heroine at times becomes so overburdening that, you simply feel like being punished.

Clad with oodles of glamour around her, Kareena has looked scorching hot in the movie, but as far as her performance is concerned then up till an extent Bebo disappoints the fans who expected a memorable performance from her.

As a superstar Arjun Rampal is proficient and leaves a thorough impression. And on the other hand Randeep Hooda too delivered a satisfactory in a brief, but significant role.

As far as supporting cast is concerned then Divya Dutta as a PR professional leaves an impact.

In the music department, Heroine failed in making it to chart busters list. With Halkat Jawani as the pick of the deck, for those who relish soft and soothing tunes, there are a couple of tracks like Tujhpe Fida, Khwahishein, Saiyaan which are well integrated in the narrative.

With so much hype created to provide a massive impetus to its opening on the BO, Heroine somewhat lacks the trademark trait of Bhandarkar cine flicks. And as far as its emerging as a massive success is concerned, then it's Kareena's fan following which may do the miracle for the movie which is otherwise expected to emerge as the cine flick slightly above the average mark.

To sum up, after watching so many women centric cine delights offered by Madhur, Heroine somewhat fails in meeting the previous benchmarks set by the director, and could only be watched to witness the oodles of oomph of Kareena.