Billu

Billu (Barber)*

MAIN CAST:
Irfan Khan -- Billu
Lara Dutta -- Bindiya
Om Puri -- Daamchand
Shahrukh Khan -- Sahir

BRIEF PLOT OVERVIEW:
Billu is a bright but down-on-his-luck barber whose business is being ruined by a more stylish barber just across the street. When he claims that he is the childhood friend of Bollywood star Sahir Khan, his luck takes a turn for the strange**. Billu is a remake of the Mayalam film Kadha Parayumbol.

FILM -- 4/5
The thing that grabs you about Billu from the start is how beautifully filmed it is. There's a wonderful blend of upper-class cities, as well as traditional working-class villages, and the use of light and color is expert. The film also makes good use of Shahrukh Khan's real-life superstar status by implementing clips from his previous films to provide Sahir with a more glamorous background. The script gets a little sticky at points, but generally speaking, the actors' expert delivery smooths things out. A lot of the costumes are even stickier; however, I forgive the costume department on account of the fact that most of the bad stuff came from purposely over-the-top item numbers, and the rest of the clothes really fit the characters. My one major complaint about this film is that it tends to be a bit slow***, so the sudden song-and-dance numbers catapulting out of nowhere will probably surprise you. More than anything else, Billu is loaded with charm, and it touches us with an odd magic from the moment the opening credits roll.

CHARACTERS -- 5/5
Irfan Khan headlines this film, and while the character he plays is perfectly ordinary and simple, Khan's performance is anything but. He turns Billu in to a living, breathing, tangible person with incredible ease. Granted, Irfan Khan is an amazing actor, so I expected a great performance from him to begin with. Lara Dutta, on the other hand, is a woman I usually call "wooden." Yet she shines in Billu with an understated beauty and exudes a sort of naturalness I've never before seen in her acting. Om Puri channels his late brother Amrish to a certain extent, providing comic relief as a cheapskate loan shark without going too over-the-top. Shahrukh Khan has an extended cameo playing, in essence, himself: a larger-than-life Bollywood star who comes to Billu's village to shoot for a new film. He has some excessively melodramatic moments, even by SRK standards, but he's not the emotional apex of the film, so it's forgivable. The supporting cast is flawless and includes a variety of rustic folk, child and adult alike.

SOUNDTRACK -- 5/5
I'm probably going to get punched for this, but I loved Billu's soundtrack. I have a secret weakness for super-fast-paced dance tunes, and "Love Mera Hit Hit" fits the niche perfectly. I've never heard Neeraj Shridhar's or Tulsi Kumar's voices before, and I still can't hear them well through all of the synthesizers, but it's an amazing club tune regardless. "Ae Ao O" is a very bright rock-styled tune, still heavily synthesized, but in a way that reminds me of many of my favorite classic rock bands. "Billu Bhayankar" adds Indian flavor to the soundtrack with its peppy, folk-inspired instrumentation and its appropriately light-hearted lyrics. "Marjaani" is a fun mixture of Indian rhythms and modern twists, completely with vocals by my beloved Sukhwinder Singh, and...oh my! Is that Kareena Kapoor dancing without looking like a total imbecile?! I think it is! "Khudaya Khair" is a sweet, guitar-backed ballad that is merged in-film with "You Get Me Rocking and Reeling" and features Priyanka Chopra at her sexiest.

OVERALL -- 4.5/5
Billu is far from perfect, but its warmth and charm generally make up for its various flaws. It focuses on friendship, modesty, and honesty, scruples almost any viewer is bound to hold dear to their heart. The performances are especially outstanding, and I can finally call Lara Dutta an actress without feeling like I'm going to puke up my own words. Accented by an upbeat soundtrack and blessed with high replay value, despite its occasional slowness, Billu is well worth a viewing...or ten.

TOTAL SCORE -- 18.5/20 (almost perfect)





* The film is just called "Billu" in India, due to a controversy, but it is still referred to as "Billu Barber" in other countries.

** Several people have complained that the villagers' extreme reactions to Sahir Khan's arrival in the village are way over the top and ruin any sort of credibility in this film. You cannot look at this film through the lense of western cinema. Nothing in the west compares to the idolization of film stars in India. If Shahrukh Khan, or a star even half as important/popular as he was, suddenly arrived in rural India for a few weeks, you'd better believe that everybody in a 5 mile radius is going to go in to a frenzy, and they certainly WOULD act even crazier if they thought somebody in their own little village knew the celebrity. Movie stars are treated like gods in India.

***SPOILER ALERT: Also, one plot hole stuck out at me: if Billu and Sihar grew up together, how come nobody else remembers Sihar as a child? I'm sure Billu wasn't the only person in his life. And why wouldn't Sihar contact Billu after he became famous? I know Billu is poor and doesn't have a phone or any such nonsense, but surely Sihar--rich as he was--could fly out to see the man he essentially owed his career to and, if he couldn't find him, could pay someone to track him down. I know I'm over-analyzing, since this is a feel-good movie, but I was born to over-analyze.