The Krishna-Sudama saga was first retold as a tale of friendship between a filmstar and a barber in a Malayalam film called Katha Parayumpol. It was then remade in Tamil as Kuselan and now gets a Hindi version Billu. And with each retelling, the story seems to be losing much of its power and emotion.
The latest take from Priyadarshan is tedious to the core. You feel for none of the characters; none of the quirky residents of the Budbuda village make an impact on you. Instead, they are uniformally irritating, be it the budding poet-lyricist or the stern school principal. The mainstay of the film is the supposed barber-star friendship. Is it for real or just a lie? The film is not able to build on this tension at all. Then there’s Priyadarshan’s brand of filmmaking wherein the green backdrop, the healthy white bullocks in the foreground, everything is colour-coordinated to the hilt. Moreover, only in Priyadarshan’s films do you get obviously south Indian faces in a supposedly north Indian village.
The one to hold things together is the barber Billu, that too because you have an actor of the caliber of Irrfan playing the lead role. He lights up the screen with his presence. You respond to him not just when he is acting but also when he is reacting. Take the climax. It’s SRK who mouths the heavy-duty lines but Irrfan’s face that says it all. It’s the expression that moves you, not the dialogue.
Irrfan is hampered because of the zero support he gets from Lara Dutta who plays his wife. Perhaps she felt that wearing cotton saris was enough to do justice to a deglamourised role. On the other hand, the desperate attempt to cash in on SRK’s glamour also weighs heavy on the film. The item numbers with his leading ladies are dull to the core and the songs themselves have little to recommend. Words like "marjani", lines like "hai love tera hit hit soniye, to phir kaisi khit pit soniye" sound dated andthoroughly unmusical. Can be watched to kill time, certainly not as a good timepass.
High Fives
Bollywood
1. Billu
2. Dev D
3. Slumdog Crorepati (dubbed)
4. Raaz: The Mystery Continues
5. The Stoneman Murders
Hollywood
1. Friday the 13th
2. He’s Just Not that Into You
3. Taken
4. Coraline
5. Confessions of a Shopaholic
Rock
1. Love Hurts (Incubus)
2. Second Chance (Shinedown)
3. Sex on Fire (Kings of Leon)
4. Breakdown (Seether)
5. Get on Your Boots (U2)
Courtesy: Film Information
