Besharam – 1/5

(Image: IBN Live)

Although it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that Director Abhinav Kashyap’s Besharam, starring Ranbir Kapoor, is a flop of a movie, what may surprise some is just how bad it is. Very rare are the occasions where I spend the movie watching the time, counting the minutes until it’s due to end – if I wasn’t with a group of friends, I would’ve left much earlier. Little did I know that they were all thinking the same thing, so it was a relief when one of our group finally bit the bullet and stood up towards the end of the movie.

Exactly why this film was made is unclear. It appears that Mr Kashyap was trying to go for an old-style 1970 – 80s masala flick, perhaps riding on the wave of 80s revival that is currently so popular in Bollywood circles. It is infused with the kind of nostalgic corniness which is also making money in the form of misguided ‘South Indian masala’ which has been crudely appropriated into Mumbai film studios of late. What Mr Kashyap doesn’t seem to grasp is that  we all moved on from the 1980s for a reason. Nostalgic retro is one thing, this is for the most part ridiculous.

Ranbir Kapoor in Besharam: Nothing you regret about the 1970s would compare to the regret of paying to watch this film (Image: IBN Live)

Ranbir Kapoor looks bizarre in this film with a mixture of Mr Bean-esque expressions melded with an unlikeable version of his Barfi! persona. Opposite Kapoor, Pallavi Sharda does an alright job, but is let down by the constantly annoying script and screenplay. Most of the jokes aren’t funny, and the one’s that are tend to be pretty basic – this is real lowest common denominator kind of stuff. Even the music is unmemorable. So again, it is difficult to fathom why this film was even bothered with. Moreover, it seems odd that at no stage in the production process anyone had the care to pull Mr Kashyap aside and tell him that he was making a big mistake – this appears to have had “flop” written all over it from the outset.

In the end, all we are left with is an annoying, pointless and above all boring film which feels as outdated as the threadbare cinema seat I had unfortunately parked myself on for two long hours. At least those seats would have a more interesting story to tell.