Besharam Review – Dreadful Bilge

If ever you feel the need to engage a hit man, your best bet would be this Besharam (shameless) Chutiya Ranbir Kapoor.

There are no limits to what this grasping Bollywood Chutiya will stoop to for paisa:

* He’ll act in stolen shit (Barfi)!

* He’ll dive into cheap potboilers (Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani)!

* Now the Chutiya has sunk so low as to participate in Abhinav Kashyap’s latest dementalizing trash (Besharam), dragging his real-life parents Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh along to the freak show.

* For the right price, I bet this Chutiya will terminate your enemies with extreme prejudice.

Folks, Besharam is a putrid piece of trash that proved to be a hard endurance test for me.

Trash, Ad Nauseum

Besharam director Abhinav Kashyap’s singular achievement is to maintain the onslaught of nonsense from start to end.

That’s no mean feat because even bad Bollywood directors slip occasionally and include a redeeming element or two in their wretched offerings.

But Abhinav Kashyap, who directed the trashy Dabangg 1, leaves no frame unscorched to deliver 24-carat garbage in his second film.

Brain Assaulting Nonsense

A young car thief Babli (Ranbir Kapoor) is the pivot of Besharam.

Despite our hero’s unsavory profession, we’re expected to be sympathetic toward him because he’s an orphan who’s never had anyone show him the right path in life.

Wait, this thief also has a heart of gold. He gives away much of his ill-gotten earnings to the orphanage.

If that’s not the acme of nonsense, I don’t know what is.

Of all the Shaitans on this woebegone planet, there’s none so cruel and heartless as an Indian.

Australian babe Pallavi Sharda plays Babli’s lady love Tara Sharma, a status-conscious executive working in a tall gleaming building and owner of a brand-new red Mercedes.

That red Mercedes quickly gets stolen and made my life miserable because of the relentless drivel that follows its attempted recovery.

The villain is a Chandigarh money launderer Bheem Singh (Javed Jaffrey) who needs a constant supply of stolen cars.

Hoping to capitalize on the success of his previous film Dabanng, director Abhinav Kashyap introduces a police couple, inspector Chulbul Chautala (Rishi Kapoor) and constable Bulbul Chautala (Neetu Singh) to up the pain quotient.

No Bollywood fan will forget that Chulbul Pandey was the name of the hero in Dabanng.

Caution – The last 20-minutes of Besharam involving the stolen money, kidnapping of the children and the fight between the police/Babli and the villain is a soul searing nightmare that’ll leave you deeply scarred.

Kapoor Troika

Tis’ true that Rishi Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor have the acting gene in them but they are utterly wasted in this fatuous farce.

Ranbir Kapoor is made to behave like a monkey for the most part!

Rishi Kapoor’s fate is worse – Sit on the toilet and get harangued by his wife till the crap comes out (literally) or face repeated taunts over his manhood.

I kid not about the crap part.

Javed Jaffrey and Amitosh Nagpal (who plays Ranbir’s sidekick T2) are talents who peddled their souls to feed their stomachs.

Neetu Singh is no different from what she was four decades back – A waste of film stock and screen space!

Tit-Less, Talentless Twit

Besharam’s heroine Pallavi Sharda is so horrid an actress that she left me nostalgic for my bêtes noires Priyanka Chopra and Ranbir’s cousin Kareena Kapoor.

Completely foreign to the notion of emoting, this talentless, tit-less Australian weirdo Pallavi is a blot even on the lowly Indian cinema.

This living example of rigor mortis ensured no chance of any chemistry between her and Ranbir.

One hopes in the interests of saving what little is left of our culture, the Indian government will cancel the freak’s visa and kick her back down under.

Thankfully, this creature doesn’t get much screen time.

Music – Sheer Noise

If you ask me, what passes for music in Besharam is noise.

As for the soundtrack, it was earsplitting horror reminiscent of the worst Tamil or Telugu films.

Don’t let me ruin your day by describing the awful picturization of the songs!

Ignore the Garbage

SearchIndia.com recommends you raise both middle fingers to this piece of malodorous trash a.k.a. Besharam.

3 Responses to "Besharam Review – Dreadful Bilge"

  1. araj   October 5, 2013 at 1:26 pm

    What is this ‘acting gene’ of Rishi Kapoor called? Alpha R3Q or Beta C4R???…..

    Though I am yet to see a Ranbir Kapoor’s film, I wonder how can this man born with a platinum spoon in his mouth become a great actor…..

    Where is the exposure to failure? Where is the opportunity for him to internalize the myriad dimensions of human behavior? (Not that one would become a great actor if he has all these)…..

    I suspect his inbuilt vivacity and fluid expression of the same might be getting mistaken for acting.

    I can’t rule out my prejudice though……..

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    1. When I used the term “Acting gene,” I meant someone who demonstrates acting talent despite a short stint in the industry.

    Exposure to failure or being a Kapoor scion is not a necessary condition to possess acting skill or the “Acting gene.”

    For instance, I noticed that when she was just three-film-old, without any acting classes and a mere 17 or 18-years of age Winter’s Bone actress Jennifer Lawrence showed remarkable talent. And true to my prediction three years back, she’s in the big league now in Hollywood. She had the “Acting gene” in her.

    Oddly enough, socialization (early and long exposure to the film business through family and friends connections) is not often a big help in the Indian context for developing the “Acting gene” as Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, Karisma Kapoor et al have repeatedly proved.

    2. Also, some folks accumulate an enormous range of experiences in a short life, a few may even internalize the breadth of their experiences and throw back some of those into their art, thus separating them from the crowd. Of course, any art (writing, painting, acting etc) can also be painstakingly learned. Philip Roth may be a good writer but he’s struggled for the end result unlike for example John Updike or Saul Bellow for whom the words may have come easier.

    When the gush of prose (for writers) or flow of emotions (in the case of actors) comes easily or seemingly easily to youngsters new to the field, one can say they possess the writing gene or acting gene. Or painting gene.

    There’s a certain mystique to possessing this Acting, Writing or Painting gene.

    3. BTW, I’m not sure Ranbir Kapoor has an inbuilt vivacity!

    He seems somewhere in the middle of the Morose – Vivacious spectrum.

    4. Of course, Ranbir Kapoor’s candle may quickly burn out. Unfortunately, the candle does not burn out quickly in the Indian context if one possesses pedigree and connections.

  2. araj   October 14, 2013 at 4:24 am

    Well, Rishi Kapoor’s acting or lack of acting was as repulsive as that of any of his peers of his time. I’ve never seen even any hint of let alone the actual talent there.

    “Also, some folks accumulate an enormous range of experiences in a short life, a few may even internalize the breadth of their experiences and throw back some of those into their art, thus separating them from the crowd…..There’s a certain mystique to possessing this Acting, Writing or Painting gene”

    Absolutely true. They speak of old souls who has a subconscious memory of numerous past lives. But does Ranbir’s track record bespeaks of this X factor? I am not so sure. I thought he has so far only shown a massive penchant for working with commercial directors besides displaying hefty amounts of artistic dishonesty such as acting in Barfi.

    True, it is too huge a temptation for an artist not to mimic the original works of other artists which are considered creative ideals but it is usually the minds of the directors and writers which are more prone to succumbing to such temptation than the actors who are primarily only the executioners of a creative idea rather than the producers of it, because the actor has more psychological freedom to pick and choose his artistic endeavors than has a director or writer; especially an actor with the background and stature of Ranbir Kapoor. Given this fact, Kapoor’s choice of acting in Barfi not only speaks of dishonesty but also his substantial inclination towards either choosing roles of second hand originality and showmanship so as to give himself an aura of uniqueness. This fact is also confirmed by the record of his choice of his directors who are all heavily mainstream, from Bansali to Abhinav Kashyap. Instead of showing a healthy repulsion towards mainstream cinema, this bloke has, on the contrary, displayed a steep unhealthy attachment to it perhaps by stubbornly trying to reinvent the commercial format by doing cockeyed roles such as in Besharam.

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    Unless some grave calamity befalls the chutiya, I see Ranbir Kapoor lording over Indian cinema for another three decades. 🙁

    An infamous New Yorker once said that Taxes are only for little people. I’d add Morals to Leona’s statement.

    I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that Ranbir Kapoor was well aware that Barfi was cobbled together from several foreign movies! But he didn’t give a flying f*ck and the movie went on to become a big hit in India.

    Ranbir Kapoor is only one in a long line of our stars (Salman Khan, Amitabh bachchan, Surya, Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt etc) that thrive on theft.

  3. Dr.Logu   October 16, 2013 at 11:01 am

    Excellent post by Araj . I liked the point especially the one about Ranbir’s choice of roles which could bring him an aura of uniqueness, stardom without much pain… Times are changing constantly, I guess Ranbir has a hard road to travel down the line and will have to pull out something incredible if he wants to reach the celebrated levels of Rajini. Amitabh.
    Sure he wasn’t a one hit wonder but how long would his lucky charm in the selection of roles, work???

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    Just you watch!

    One of these days that beast Salman Khan is going to drive his Land Rover over Ranbir in a drunken rage.

    Especially, now that his former flame Katrina is cavorting around in a bikini with Ranbir.

    Ranbir is at least watchable compared to Salman, Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek, Akshay et al.

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