Babli Bouncer Movie Review: Tamannaah Bhatia's Spirited Act Stands Tall in Madhur Bhandarkar's Half-Hearted Comedy About Female Bouncers (LatestLY Exclusive)

Babli Bouncer Movie Review: Madhur Bhandarkar takes a break from serious fare and goes light-hearted this time with Babli Bouncer, a movie about a female bouncer working at a Delhi pub. Tamannaah Bhatia plays the titular character, while the movie also stars Saurabh Shukla, Abhishek Bajaj, Sahil Vaid, Sabyasachi Chakrabarty among others. Despite a interesting premise and an interesting sounding character, Madhur Bhandarkar, however, does little to make Babli Bouncer an interesting movie as well. Babli Bouncer Movie: Review, Cast, Plot, Trailer, Streaming Date – All You Need to Know About Tamannaah Bhatia – Madhur Bhandarkar’s Film.

Babli comes from a village called Asola-Fatehpuri near Delhi that is known for grooming bouncers. Her father (Saurabh Shukla) also used to be a bodybuilder, and Babli follows her father's footsteps in being better than most of the men when it comes to lifting weights. This is a pain for her mother who wants her to make edible rotis and get married to the next suitor when the opportunity arises. An infatuation with her old teacher's suave son Viraj (Abhishek Bajaj) inspires Babli to shift to Delhi, where he is settled, and become a female bouncer at a nightclub in the city.

Watch the Trailer:

If you think that becoming a lady bouncer at a Delhi pub could make for some interesting anecdotes, you are not wrong in thinking so. Too bad that the makers have other ideas, as most of the film is Babli is chasing after Viraj and trying to get closer to him, where the 'female bouncer' job feels merely incidental.

It is only in the last quarter of the film where her job actually serves some 'events'. Save for the mildly pleasing encounter with Upasana Singh's gang of brattish women (mildly pleasing because I am annoyed with some of the recent news articles about UC Delhited misbehaving with the building help), none of those 'events' leaves an impact.

Even though it is a shift of genre for Bhandarkar, it hardly helps when he brings his fave, flawed trope from his social drama - turning people into caricatures. From showing city youngsters as snarking and snobbish and power-hungry to Babli's rural upbringing being a source of humour for them as well as her job, Babli Bouncer tries to seek humour and drama in situations we might have found mildly interesting 20 years back. Even Delhi itself is treated like a caricature, you know what I mean. OTT Releases Of The Week: Tamannaah Bhatia’s Babli Bouncer on Disney+ Hotstar, Amit Sial’s Jamtara Season 2 on Netflix & More.

Which is sad since in Babli Bouncer, we had a heroine who isn't afraid to be herself, who gorges on food like there is no tomorrow and burps in public with no apprehension. And yet most of the movie has her run after a handsome dude, who one day gives her a dressing down that prompts her to be more serious about her job, and also get motivated enough to pass her tenth exams. All the while, sidelining her besotted fellow bouncer and old friend Kukku (Sahil Vaid), who soon enters the Jimmy Sheirgill school of bro-zone. So much for a film that supposedly celebrates empowered women.

Towards the end, yes, we have Babli reaffirm her independent streak, and be a hero, but by then, it's too late too little. The emancipation suffers from a lack of depth and that makes Babli's rise to respect quite humdrum. At least, there is Tamannaah Bhatia whose spirited performance does make the proceedings bearable to watch, while the rest of the cast do good with the flakish material in hand.

Yay!

- Tamannaah Bhatia

Nay!

- Dispirited Narrative

Final Thoughts

Babli Bouncer fails to make good of its quirky premise, supposedly inspiring message-oriented plot-drama and Tamannaah Bhatia's infectious energy, and ends up being a dull affair. Babli Bouncer is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 23, 2022 01:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).