Subhash K Jha: Billu Barber is not the film that you wanted it to be

Let's be clear on one thing. Billu Barber is not the film that you wanted it to be. A bitter-sweet portrait of the chequered and troubled star-fan relationship, it falls short of expectations mainly because the prolific Priyadarshan fills up the spaces occupying the star Shah Rukh and the commoner Irrfan Khan's tale with a hefty load of humbug. The village where the star descends to shoot his latest potboiler with three smouldering item girls in tow (couldn't the unit have shot with Kareena Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra far away from the madding crowd in the city studios?) looks too chaotic to be real.

Priyadarshan saturates the filmy village with his characteristically caricatural actors who have been filling up his villages from the time he made the memorable Viraasat. Mohan Joshi (broad and brilliant as a boorish politician trying to act impudently nonchalant before the superstar), Om Puri (cracking one of the most vulgar jokes ever heard in mainstream cinema) Rasika Joshi, Asrani, Rajpal Yadav. . . you've seen them all doing their rustic satire for Priyan before. They've been there, done it all before.

You wish Priyan had brought in a fresh cast to bolster the film's fresh look and texture. For all said (and how much they talk!) and done(the narrative is kept crisp) Billu is by far the director's most sensitive and gentle work since Kala Pani and Viraasat. . . and that holds true in spite of the film's extravagant excesses, like the three scorching item songs put into the film to counter the rural characters and ambience with dollops of urbane octane . The garnishing revs up the proceedings but slackens the subliminal sensitivity by over-punctuating the narrative.