Billu (2009)

This film has everything you could want in good family entertainment. A solid story line about friendship and trust and how people see or hear what they want and make assumptions. My daughter (10) and son (8) loved it and they don't understand Hindi - we read the subtitles and had a great time.

The cinematography is beautiful. The acting is superb. Irrfan Khan plays every emotion to perfection. Lara Dutta shines as the simple village wife. Shahrukh Khan plays, well, himself, or at least a character that is so close to his superstar persona that it's hard to differentiate the two. Lots of tongue-in-cheek references to his other works.

The music and item numbers blend well into the plot and are appropriately placed. The costumes flow well with the scenery and match the personalities of the characters and their journeys through the story.

We laughed out loud and cried a bit and enjoyed discussing the issues that came up as normal life lessons that we all deal with. This is a must see experience for all.

Fmovies: What could have been an excellent satire is brought down by poor writing and Priyadarshan's lousy direction. 'Billu' required some heavy editing. All the sequences with Shahrukh Khan in the first half (including those horrible item numbers) could have easily been left out as they provide nothing. His appearance in the second half was enough. The so-called comic scenes are typical Priyadarshan, which is irritatingly loud and seriously needs toning down. The mob sequences and Billu's attempts to meet Sahir are overdone and repetitive. The ending is melodramatic, which is typical of Priyadarshan films. All the songs are poorly executed and, with the exception of the last three songs ('Marjane' being the best), they are horrible to listen to. Shahrukh Khan plays himself. Nothing new there. Lara Dutta is decent and she looks the part. But, it is Irrfan who manages to rise above the poorness of this movie. He is quite exceptional as the down to earth almost out of work barber and is the reason to watch 'Billu'. Asrani and Om Puri are good in their roles. Rasika Joshi is cast against type and she too turns in a decent performance. The rest of the cast (including Rajpal Yadav) are terrible (which is usually the case in Priyadarshan's films). To sum it up, the best thing about 'Billu' is Irrfan Khan who makes what would be an otherwise bad film to mediocrity.

Billu Barber had already courted some controversy because some hairstylists protested that the term "Barber" was offensive. I don't understand it, but this meant the word has been dropped, and it's now known simply as "Billu", still after its titular character. A remake of the Malayalam film "Katha Parayumpol", Billu is one of those films that work because of its spot-on capturing of the ugliness and greed of man.

It opens quite matter of factly with Billu, played by Irrfan Khan, a poor barber in s small village, being down to his last rupee, seeking help from an official knowing that he has to offer a bribe for a loan. Naturally he gets thrown out because of his frankness, and we slowly learn of Billu's immediate challenges - his barber business is down because the state of his shop is run-down, there's a trendier salon opened opposite his, electricity to his small house got cut because of his inability to pay, and the school principal is threatening to throw his kids out of school because the school fees are not forthcoming.

And little does he know that his problems will multiply with the coming of a Bollywood film crew for a shoot in their village, turning his entire world as he knows topsy turvy just because he is a friend of India's mega-star, Sahir Khan (incidentally, like the credits say, played by Shah Rukh Khan). This premise puts an interesting dilemma on Billu, because while he is a nobody and a would-be bankrupt, suddenly the village folk start to pay homage to him, from neighbours to rivals to the town's rich miser, because their degree of separation to Sahir Khan is now 2, provided they think, that they had better try and "bribe" Billu by doing favours and giving charity to him, from provision of food, to an overhaul of his shop, so that they can get an opportunity to meet the mega-star up close and personal.

To make things worse, Billu's motor-mouth kids and a wife who thought she could now impress the neighbours, start to craft stories of their association, and as we all know, word always get around in a misconstrued manner, thus something innocently said, becomes blown out of proportion. While sometimes the intent is based on perceived noble terms, like accepting the school's bursary in exchange for the star's presence in an anniversary celebration, making false promises puts a question mark on integrity, and worse, the effects are felt by Billu himself, for something that he did not boast about, or craft.

My growing list of character actors I admire had included Irrfan Khan ever since I watched his role in The Namesake, and I felt he always had this regal presence, even for short roles such as that in The Darjeeling Limited and Slumdog Millionaire. Here, he brought out the down-to-earthness portrayal of a small village barber trying his best to etch a living and provide for his family, and feeling very out of place with all the unwanted attention showered upon him. We feel his dilemma instantly, as his worries come from it being a very long time since he and Sahir had met, and the unassuming man that he is, believes that he shouldn't impose himself on a friend from the past, in fear of having his friend think that he's clinging onto the coattails of his fame, or worse, to want to ask for favours, which many in the village expect him to do.

Much of the film plays around the dilemma, of how people often impose their wishes onto you just because you have the facility to possibly grant their wi

Billu fmovies. There was a time on TV when there were serials like Tenali Rama and Malgudi Days which were innocent, humorous and in the end,they never forgot to give us a sweet little moral teaching. It was a sweet thing which with time disappeared from our televisions.

Cut to 2009, we have the son of television ,Shah Rukh Khan producing and acting in a film which attempts to bring the long forgotten innocence of the doordarshan era on celluloid.

The film begins well and ends well but I feel there is something which makes Billu , a partial disappointment. May be the box office greed of the producer makes the movie nose dive from being fantastic innocent cinema to just a well tried attempt ,stuffed with unwanted elements.

Honestly, the film didn't need those many item numbers and the people who think that ,all the audience wants are skimpily clad bollywood chicks shaking their bodies, are wrong. Terrible. But yeah,Kareena looks wow.

Those super hero kinda animations with SRK were not needed either.Surely, SRK is planning to make a sci fi film and those sfx and graphics were an attempt to test the water, but hey please, leave the sci fi projects to the fair skinned film makers.We just don't have that budget .

I am not bashing this movie but its just that I am disappointed.I wanted it to be a simple tale with Sahir Khan playing the messiah in the underplayed manner,but here its like, Sahir Khan pretends to hide yet he is flashing a torch.Getting me? The cast is fantastic with Lara looking like a goddess and her acting is great.Irfan who has the title role is magnificent ,but then he is Irfan Khan and he can never go wrong in my opinion.The supporting cast is in sparkling form.Special mention to the guy who plays the guest house manager.His scene where he acts as a policeman during the shooting is one of the most hilarious scenes ever. Scenes involving Om Puri and that school manager are genuinely funny. Loved the Abhay Kumar taunt on Akshay  The locations are great, the songs ,though unwanted are decent and the direction is like any other Priyadarshan film. Nothing special about it. Editing part is pathetic and the scenes jump from one to the other in a haphazard manner.Very unprofessional stuff indeed.

The film is watchable because it is different and reminds me of those good ole days of TV.Its a sincere effort and Shah Rukh deserves a pat ,because they just don't make them like it anymore and at least the Khan has tried. Shah Rukh Khan playing himself minus the name is good but give me a re-run of Malgudi Days and I will forget about Billu .

7 out of 10

SRK has finally moved away from his target NRI NRP NRB audiences and I am sure that this film will do great business in India because its an honest attempt at a time when cinema shows a stupid cook fighting Chinese warriors and a guy is forgetting everything after 15 minutes yet not forgetting to steal Hollywood concepts Good job srk..Just wish the producer in you didn't have box office in mind...but....

The climax is special.. It made me cry. No words to describe. Watch it.

It's worth watching the development of the main character as it all ends up well. Even those who seem to have nothing, have the biggest thing a human being can have.

Every being is before anything else, human. This comes to show that no one is bigger than anyone else. Even the people in the TOP today were down under once. U don't grow alone without any help!

For the nostalgia in the end 100/10. For the whole movie 8/10.

The songs are nice, gaining fame, although some had no context in the movie.

The story is simple, but performances of Shahrukh Khan and Irrfan Khan are what makes the movie worth watching. The songs, even though not related to the story, are very entertaining and make the movie more fun to watch. The ending was predictable, but the performances saved the movie.

Billu's wife looked way too beautiful to pass off as an average village girl. I'm no Bollywood fan so I did not know who the actress was. Throughout the whole movie, I kept thinking "how on earth did this super hot girl end up with this average looking man?" In the ending credits, I saw Lara Dutta. Miss Universe Lara Dutta!

If you have some extra spare time, this movie is good enough not to waste it.