4/5   

Star cast: Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Randeep Hooda, Divya Dutta, Shahana Goswami, Ranvir Shorey.

Script Analysis

Madhur Bhandarkar may try and claim his stories to be “real” every time, but this time the writer-director is downright lazy. He, along with writers Anuradha Tiwari, Manoj Tyagi and Niranjan Iyengar, has taken page-3 stories about stars and based them around a few characters. This wouldn’t have been a problem, except that the movie comes out as being too fake.

It’s annoying to see the stereotypes played out in almost every character: the designers are gay, reporters have a bitchy aura and always sport funky jewellery, the path to the dark side begins with cigarettes and alcohol, bad people sleep around etc. Except the few lead characters, everyone else is as good as cardboard cut-outs. The writers seem to be intent to stuff in as much tragedy as they can into Mahi’s woe-is-me life and towards the end you just can’t stop rolling your eyes. While they might want you to feel for Mahi, you find yourself laughing off her character than ever rooting for her. The 3 hour long movie gets repetitive with Mahi’s heartbreak, psycho rage and love doing cartwheels repeatedly. The bright side is that the writers have shown the number of problems heroines face in the industry with their short shelf life, lecherous actors, being written off after marriage etc. Niranjan Iyengar’s dialogues are alright though the ones like “Manipulate karo ya ho jao” doesn’t really certify his ingenuity.

Star Performances

Kareena Kapoor owns the movie as the, er, bipolar actress Mahi. As much as you would like to appreciate her ability to showcase the mood swings behind the camera, her character badly suffers from hackneyed writing. Arjun Rampal is alright as Aryan with Randeep Hooda bettering him as the suave Angad. Divya Dutta does well in her uni-dimensional role as the PR agent. Shahana Goswami and Ranvir Shorey are very good in their small roles.

Direction, Music & Technical Aspects

The captain brings the ship down, sail, deck and all. Director Madhur Bhandarkar made his movie from a magnum opus to a monstrous blob that has too many leaks to be fixed. And the leaden script is of no help. Madhur should have focused on a few aspects of Mahi’s life instead of thrusting everything into a 3 hour long haze with alcohol, psychological problems, mummy-issues, role mongering, lesbian relationship… Salim-Sulaiman’s music is nice with Halkat Jawani, Saiyaan and Heroine being the noteworthy songs. Editor Devendra Murdeshwar has done a passable job. Cinematography by Mahesh Limaye is good.

Verdict

Kareena Kapoor does a good job and, heck, you even get to see her in a pseudo lesbian scene along with other steamy scenes. If that’s enough to drag you to see Heroine, go ahead. Give it a miss otherwise.