INSTEP Magzine

Billu Barber easily proves what you already know: Shah Rukh Khan has tremendous star appeal but when it comes to acting, he can easily be upstaged, in this case by the better Khan – Irrfan Khan.

Billu is a story set in the picturesque village of Budbuda, where Billu the hajam (Irrfan Khan) struggles to make ends meet and where Sahir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), the Bollywood superstar ends up with his troupe to shoot for his next film. In no time at all, word spreads that Billu and Sahir were once friends and the entire population of villagers - until now who had absolutely no sympathy for Billu - attach themselves to him with undying support. Suddenly his childrens’ school fees are paid, the broken chair in his salon is replaced by a 25,000 rupee revolving chair and every night the electricity supply, which has been cut off due to non payment of bills, automatically comes back on.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch though and what they all expect in return is to meet the superstar who travels with a human shield of bodyguards and police cordons around him. The villagers feel Billu is their ticket to Sahir Khan. Billu, however, instead of enjoying the attention cringes away from it and even considers moving out of town until the entire brouhaha dies down. He is all too aware of the status incompatibility between him and Sahir Khan and wants to avoid putting either in an uncomfortable spot. Whether or not he actually knows Sahir Khan personally or not is not revealed until the end of the film.
Coming from Priyadarshan, the director who gave Bollywood comic hits like Hera Pheri, Hulchul, Bhagam Bhag, Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Garam Masala, the film’s USP is essentially its comedy. But there is also an emotional sentimentality that connects and tugs at the heart. The film picks up in its second half after an unnecessarily long opening and ends with a predictable yet wholesome climax.

Billu is an adaptation of the Malayalam film Katha Parayumpol and reviews by critics who have seen the original suggest that it has been copied frame for frame. However, there are enough goof-ups in the film that have to be credited to Priyadarshan alone. For an immensely poor family with a scruffy father and children, Lara Dutta (who plays the role of Billu’s wife) is always immaculately made up: her saris, eyeliner and lip gloss always in place. That she has never looked better hardly makes up for the fact that she has been miscast as she is too English medium (which she cannot hide) to pass as a villager.

Secondly the film, which Sahir Khan is shooting for, is a futuristic Matrix type sci-fi flick. Why they chose to shoot in a village is incomprehensive, especially since they only shoot on sets that have nothing to do with the natural back drop. The three Bollywood bombshells Deepika, Priyanka and Kareena are added for their curve-appeal and they are limited to songs which are highly entertaining but again, irrelevant to the film.

Shah Rukh’s own role is glorified in an almost shameless way. From his ‘King Khan’ jackets to the body guards to the children wearing SRK masks to posters of all his films pasted to every wall in the village, it certifies that King Khan is the biggest superstar of India. It appears as a role close to reality, with the director portraying him as a star with a conscience.

It is interesting to see how Bollywood is being interpreted in films lately. From Om Shanti Om’s comic spoofing of the film industry to its flaws sketched out in Luck By Chance, ‘Bollywood’ itself appears to be Bollywood’s favourite theme these days. And Billu details it’s glamorous and yet biased towards good side only. In the end it is, like most Bollywood films, the star quotient and the soundtrack (which is quite catchy) that helps it work, not the story line.

– Aamna Haider Isani

*YUCK
**WHATEVER
***GOOD
****SUPER
*****AWESOME