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Madhur Bhandarkar’s Babli Bouncer is worse than warm beer with dull plot, bad execution

After gems like Fashion, Satta, Chandni Bar, Babli Bouncer was a rude awakening. Simply put, it has a rapidly flatlining plot that fails to gauge the viewer’s interest.

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When a filmmaker like Madhur Bhandarkar comes up with a new project after a long pause, you watch. After all, he was the one behind gems like Chandni Bar (2001), Satta (2003), Fashion (2008), and Page 3 (2005), and even his last OTT film, Indu Sarkar (2017), wasn’t half bad. I had similar expectations before plonking on my couch to watch his latest release Babli Bouncer on Disney+  Hotstar but ended up having a rude awakening instead—even ace Bollywood directors like Bhandarkar can produce duds flatter than flat coke and worse than warm beer.

Simply put, Babli Bouncer has no crests and troughs, only a bland and rapidly flatlining plot that fails to gauge the viewer’s interest.

Good story, bad execution

At its core, Babli Bouncer is an endearing tale about Babli (Tamanna Bhatia) a young beauty with ‘brawn’ who moves to Delhi to find her feet by courting a bouncer’s job at a posh nightclub. Babli is a good-for-nothing, ‘matric-fail’ village belle whose sole aim is to eat, burp, and work out at her father’s akhara or wrestling arena in Fatehpur Beri, India’s ‘bouncer village’ — or at least that’s the perception in her village. Only when she is lovestruck by city-bred Viraj (Abhishek Bajaj) does the spunky Haryanvi Babli find the motivation to think beyond marriage, family, and lassi — Viraj wants an independent and self-reliant partner.

As earnest as she is, Tamanna is simply unconvincing as Fatehpur’s brave ‘She-Hulk.’ While her accent is mostly on point, the odd choice of clothing only makes her stick out like a sore thumb. With quirky silver jewellery, jackets and colourful Patiala salwars, her look is similar to Kareena Kapoor’s Geet from Jab We Met (2007), though tackier.

The trailer makes one think that Bhandarkar would delve into the history of Asola-Fatehpur Beri where generations of men have dedicated their lives to fitness and bodybuilding to become bouncers at elite clubs in Delhi. It would have been interesting to see the politics of this village while taking a closer look at its various idiosyncratic characters. To his credit, Bhandarkar does try. The dynamic between Babli and her father (Saurabh Shukla) and her camaraderie with her lovelorn best friend Kukku (Sahil Vaid) are heartwarming, though thoroughly underplayed. With no focus on detail, Babli Bouncer is in complete contrast to Bhandarkar’s otherwise sensitive and nuanced style of filmmaking. The haphazard cinematography and editing don’t help either.


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Not Bhandarkar’s style

It is evident that Babli Bouncer is Bhandarkar’s attempt to make non-controversial family films, but let’s face it, that is just not his style.

The viewer feels no emotion when witnessing Babli’s coming-of-age journey. I, for one, could feel no empathy when she was hurt by Viraj’s outright rejection of her proposal or experienced any joy when she beat goons to a pulp or decided to retake her matriculation exams. Moreover, her standard dialogue “I am funny, I am very, very funny” makes no one laugh.

Babli Bouncer does a great job of overplaying all standard stereotypes about Delhi, though—gaudy aunties to politicians’ sons. It is also peppered with good tracks by Asees Kaur and Tanishk Bagchi, though that doesn’t help much. Perhaps Vijay Raaz’s narration in the background is its only saving grace.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)

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When a filmmaker like Madhur Bhandarkar comes up with a new project after a long pause, you watch. After all, he was the one behind gems like Chandni Bar (2001), Satta (2003), Fashion (2008), and Page 3 (2005), and even his last OTT film,...Madhur Bhandarkar's Babli Bouncer is worse than warm beer with dull plot, bad execution