CAST: Tamannaah Bhatia, Abhishek Bajaj, Saurabh Shukla, Sahil Vaid.
DIRECTOR: Madhur Bhandarkar
We were expecting so much from this Madhur Bhandarkar movie. While a typical Bhandarkar tells the story of from the lens of female protagonist, this time returns with his formula of understanding a section of society through a female protagonist lens.
Having directed women in settings like dance bars and the fashion industry, Bhandarkar through Babli Bouncer speaks about the business of bouncers in metros and its supply chain in Haryana villages
However,the sensitive director of movies like Page 3 and Chandni Bar, seems to have lost his touch on engaging cinema. Babli Bouncer stretches, squiggles and struggles to keep the narrative engaging for his audience while barely touching the surface of the life of his protagonist.
Haryana feeds into the rest of Indian with a constant supply of women wrestlers and champions as we have already been told in stories from movies like Dangal and Sultan.
Babli is cringesome in parts even when you see Tamannaah Bhatia trying to be sincere yet failing hard.
A well-meaning father (Saurabh Shukla)allows his daughter Babli’s (Tamannaah Bhatia) dream to take wings by allowing his 10th Fail girl to move to Delhi and work in a nightclub as a bouncer. The girl Babli is infatuated by her school teacher’s son who works in Delhi and has moved to be closer to him.
She mistakes the guy is friendliness for love (Abhishek Bajaj ). Of course, there is a buddy in love (Sahil Vaid) whose shoulder she can cry upon and he may the only redeeming factor in this movie that struggles to keep a narrative. Amit Joshi’s dialogues are humorous throughout, even if the situations are completely over done.
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Tamannaah, a competent actress otherwise, comes across loud and eager instead of innocent, vulnerable and resolute. Shukla and Sahil balance the narrative with their underplayed screen presence trying to make it Babli’s canvas. The problem is the canvas is too noisy to hold anyones attention.
Babli Bouncer is currently streaming on Hulu
