Good On Paper, Dud In Reality! Here's Why Madhur Bhandarkar's 'Babli Bouncer' Sank Miserably

After a long break, Madhur Bhandarkar got back into directing movies with his most recent OTT release. Madhur Bhandarkar is renowned for viewing society through the eyes of a female lead.

With Babli Bouncer, Madhur Bhandarkar, who has written about the fashion industry, dance clubs, and socialites in the past, tries to show how bouncers make money in big cities and how villages in Haryana have become part of their supply chain.

On paper, the story idea is intriguing, but the way it is handled on screen is incredibly dull.

IMDB & HOTSTAR

Madhur Bhandarkar is known for setting the plot in interesting places, and later, usually in the second half, he strips the complex story into a simple tale of moral values and society's ill behavior towards various segments of people who usually don¡¯t fit the code of an ideal human.

Madhur's characters usually have extreme arcs, assuring the audience that everything they can think of is twisted and true.

In Babli Bouncer, the village is an epitome of goodness while the city is the epicenter of vices.

However, the village is actually set in Haryana, which in real life is known for its misogyny. Accuracy and realism are nowhere in the frame of the movie, and it is filled with stereotypes and cliches.

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Babli Bouncer doesn¡¯t have the conscience of a corrupt world like Page 3 and isn¡¯t also trying to show how the world preys on models like in Fashion.

Both Fashion and Page 3 were the tales of women stuck in a world where they were victims of situations that had made them terrible and hopeless to fulfill their dreams, but in Babli Bouncer, Madhur tries to show the nightlife of Delhi and how a girl from a village might become a target of the vices that happen in the nightlife of the capital. This could have translated into a good plot point if it was executed with full confidence, but sadly, Madhur decides just to showcase this as a side plot and doesn¡¯t provide any skin for this theme.

IMDB & HOTSTAR

Babli in the movie gets whatever she desires and needs, be it a job in Delhi or beating up a few men. Somehow, everything just comes to her very conveniently without any fuss.

The only problems that Babli face throughout the film is either making rotis or tolerating the comments of her villagers about her petite figure. Madhur has given some of the best movies of Bollywood like Page 3, Fashion, Chandni Bar and Corporate but for Babli Bouncer, his direction looked purblind. Mostly, whatever jokes are cracked in the movie are done at the expense of the protagonist, which frankly does come out as dull as well as offensive at places.

Amit Joshi¡¯s script is mostly filled with jokes that are centered around demotivating the protagonist because of her dress or because of her accent, which frankly feels a decade old and is not at all funny anymore.

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Tamannaah almost perfectly captures the protagonist's uncensored vocabulary and gung-ho energy, but she does not quite blend in with the surroundings due to her overly made-up appearance. However, that is pretty much the only encouraging aspect of a generally terrible, desultory movie that tries to commemorate a brave young woman's fight for freedom against all odds but gets lost in a maze of clich¨¦s.

Each of the actors introduced in the movie are just there for a single plot point, and then they have just gone to a good place or have simply vanished with no particular arc whatsoever.

Screencap/HOTSTAR

Overall, Babli Bouncer is standard Bollywood fodder that takes an intriguing storyline on paper but has been transformed into a dull, monotonous film caught in a rut all the way to its expected conclusion.

There are no surprises in the movie. It won't give you a clear picture of the twin towns that have become a factory for bouncers or the young guys who grow up there and spend their entire time training in a ground ring to get the job they want. Both Tamannah's Hindi debut and Madhur¡¯s comeback after a long time are disappointing to watch and have no memorable moments whatsoever to etch a good feature about the movie.

Unfortunately, Babli Bouncer deserves to be bounced off your watchlist because of its cliches and weak storyline.

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