Billu Barber Review

February 12th, 2009

Movie Review: Billu Barber; Star Cast: Irrfan Khan, Lara Dutta and Shah Rukh Khan; Director: Priyadarshan; Rating: *** - Touches your heart.

Billu is a story of a down to earth village barber, Billu (Irfaan Khan). A man of principles, he is not willing to give up his values come what may even if it means his children are thrown out of the school or his earnings taking a beating. While his wife (Lara) understands him and stands by him during his tough times, his children forever make fun of him. As Billu is struggling making two ends meet, a film unit visits his village to shoot a movie and with the unit comes superstar Sahir Khan (SRK) Billu’s childhood buddy. When the news comes out about Billu’s childhood connection with Sahir Khan, the villagers make a U-Turn in their behaviour towards Billu. He suddenly starts getting respect from one and all. But at the same time everyone starts coaxing him to meet the superstar, all for their own benefits. But then whenever Billu tries, he fails in his many attempts thanks to Sahir’s Z category security. With this the villagers start getting more restless and an already in trouble Billu has to face their additional wrath. What it all leads to forms rest of the film.

Based on Malayalam super hit Katha Parayumbol starring Mammootty, Billu’s basic story premise is based on the legendary Krishna-Sudama friendship story. But full marks to Priyadarshan for adapting it well to a present day North Indian village setting. The maker who has always been more associated with mindless comedies shows he knows his job well when handling a serious subject as well. Priyan has handled his huge lot of characters very well and brought out humour from the most unexpected situations. He is technically brilliant as usual but where he scores the most, is in lending a soul to the film. There isn’t a single dry eye in the cinema hall during the climax scene between Irrfan and SRK and also during SRK’s public speech scene. Priyan has packed in the emotions extremely well. Where he falters is the pacing. A better editing was desperately needed. Though the second half is where the actual story unfolds, it appears very lengthy and the item songs added, end up testing your patience. Pritam’s music appears better on screen with songs being innovatively picturised, especially the SRK-Deepika’s Love Mera Hit number.

Talking about the performances, Billu is more of an Irrfan Khan film than a King Khan one. He is simply superb and natural to the core. Shah Rukh is good as always but proves with the climax scene why he deserves to be called a superstar. Lara Dutta despite having a glam doll image has perfectly suited the part of a village woman with two kids. Apart from them, the film is full of Priyadarshan film regulars – Rajpal Yadav, Asrani, Manoj Joshi and Rasika Joshi and they don’t disappoint either. Om Puri as the greedy sweet talking money lender is fun to watch. Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone add glam quotient by featuring in three item songs of sorts.

Don’t go in expecting a full on SRK flick and you won’t come out disappointed. Billu has a good story to tell and is the kind of a film that brings a tear in your eye and at the same time a smile on your lips as you come out of the hall.

-Sampurn