BESHARAM    3 stars

A landslide victory in the name of Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani has ascertained Ranbir Kapoor into the race of one-upmanship in Bollywood. Right from the script selection to proving his mantle onscreen & attracting viewers in hordes, forced the producers & directors to look at the emerging Prince cum competitor to the three Khans of Bollywood. Teaming up with Himanshu Mehra, Sanjeev Gupta, Reliance Entertainment and the real Dabangg offscreen, Abhinav Kashyap, the immediate outing Besharam is evidently crucial for Ranbir Kapoor, as this is his first tryst with an out-and-out masala film & going by the screen count (4187 screens worldwide), the movie would make or break the hype & hoopla surrounding Ranbir as the new Superstar of Bollywood.

It is a flat story of an orphan cum street smart car thief cum car mechanic, naam haiga Babli (Ranbir Kapoor), who lives life to the fullest without any guilt and finds familial love in the fellow orphans with Titoo (Amitosh Nagpal) as his only chum cum confidant. He even donates all his money to the orphanage for the upbringing of other orphans. He has neither any worries nor ambitions in life until he bumps into feisty Tara (Pallavi Sharda) in a party, falls for her immediately and his life takes a diametrical change when he ends up unknowingly stealing Tara's newly bought Mercedes, after failing to woo her despite multiple attempts. For the very first time, he starts feeling sorry for his deed and is hell bent on returning the car back to her lady love, which leads him back to the notorious Hawala king of Chandigarh Bheem Singh Chandel (Jaaved Jaafrey). With Senior Inspector Chulbul Chautala (Rishi Kapoor) & Head Constable Bulbul Chautala (Neetu Kapoor) and the flagrant Chandel hounding him, how Babli manages to escape the vacillating situation & turns his back to all his ill-doings, forms the crux of the story.

There ain't anything novel & innovative other than what was promised in the promos. It banks heavily on the stereotypical formula of Bollywood blockbusters. The screenplay is sloppy & fractured throughout and loses the consistency cum intrinsic beauty of the characters in the form of tedious plot. All the characters here come & go whimsically, while the story stays hooked on to the two main leads. Some of the scenes are stretched vaguely to infuse the toilet humor but some of them succeed, mainly in the second half & during the climax and the rests fall flat. To raise the bar of languid screenplay, there are songs coming out of nowhere every 15-20 minutes. The heroine snubs the hero but grooves with him the following moment. The clever writing in the form of Dabangg and the charisma of the Hero ala Robinhood Pandey have been overlooked legibly. Even the love angle should've sparked tremendous appeal in a breezy drama like this but unfortunately the writers have missed on to this too. The heroine is an absolute misfit for the suave Ranbir & is loud & screechy to the hilt and hence, their chemistry lacks fizz. The sole flattering scene is their charged conversation in the hotel room in Chandigarh. The overdose of matrix style action and the soundtrack too are outdated & disappointing. The dialogue "Naam Chulbul Rakh Lene Se Koi Dabangg Nahi Ban Jaata" proves to be a mirror.

The three Kapoors are the whole & soul of the movie. No words could describe the legacy of their acting skills. Right from the tongue-in-cheek dialogues to the unmatchable camaraderie between the Kapoors make the movie thoroughly enjoyable. The audiences would fall for the film's clap traps in bits. There is *not* anything new in the direction, on the same line as Dabangg, yet Abhinav Kashyap's trademark style is unconquerable. The locales & frenzy are captured adroitly. Ranbir Kapoor never falters & perfects whatever he's assigned to perform. Right from the corny lines he mouths in his own indomitable Robdaar style to the flashy clothes he wears, he's simply brilliant. It seems that he's in his comfort zone throughout. He would start a new trend of keeping the sunglasses. Watch out. Pallavi Sharda, as an individual heroine, makes a confident debut as grouchy, stern and demanding girl next door. Yes, there ain't anything vastly impressive about her yet she is adorable. It is a wonder how the supremely talented Rishi Kapoor slips in each & every character, he portrays, with such elan and the effortlessly mesmerizing Neetu Kapoor is astoundingly loud as a Haryanvi constable.  It's a delight watching the two with such compatibilty on screen. Jaaved Jaafrey sets alive the ferocious Chandel. He's not memorable though, for the kind of acting style he has. Amitosh Nagpal is competent.

On the whole, give this one a shot for drollness, the jhaamphaad climax and the Kapoor clan in attendance, as the USP, in a single frame but don't expect any enchanting fun. You won't be disappointed.