Babli Bouncer - Could Have Been Better
Yogendra is freelance writer
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By Yogendra
First publised on 2022-09-26 08:10:28
About the Author
Yogendra is freelance writer
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Babli Bouncer (Director Madhur Bhandarkar) could have been a good coming-of-age story but the director fails to build on the solid premise and lets the story wander. That works against the film and takes a lot away from the end result.
The story is about a girl in the Asola-Fatehpur Beri twin villages near Delhi that provide the Delhi nightclubs with bouncers. The girl, Babli (Tamannah Bhatia) is a 10th-fail tomboy who lifts more weights than many male pehelwans. While her mother is bent on getting her married, Babli finds ways to send the suitors packing. There is one in the village too, Kukku (Sahil Vaid) who secretly loves her. Kukku is a bouncer in a Delhi pub. When things get out of hand, Kukku takes his parents to Babli's house and they ask her hand in marriage. Babli sees a way out of her dilemma and agrees on the condition that she will work for two years and then the marriage will be solemnized.
Meanwhile, when a tiff with some lady customers in the pub opens up positions for lady bouncers, Kukku suggests Babli should join. She readily travels to Delhi (with help from her friend Pinky) and becomes a bouncer. But she does so to be close to Viraj, the son of her high school teacher whom she loves. But although Viraj humours her initially, when she tells him that she loves him, he tells her that she would be the last girl he will marry. This hurts Babli and she goes in for a makeover, attempting the Class 10 exam and learning English.
The best scenes in the movie belong to Tamannah. The way she defuses the situation when the son of a politician picks up a fight with Viraj is good. Then the way she rescues a girl who is drugged and kidnapped from the club by hoodlums is also well done. But Tamannah's, and the supporting casts' efforts go waste as the story does not have anything new to offer. The jokes are stale and fall flat. Babli Bouncer is sadly a movie that could have been much better but is let down by lack of focus on the main story.
