Movie Review Barkhaa

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

Canada: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…Not surprisingly, with the World Cup fever at its peak, Bollywood seems to be the one facing the repercussions. Unless and until, it has a strong script, the chances of a film's survival at the box-office are quite negligible. But this week's release BARKHAA stars a bunch of 'semi' newcomers and is helmed by a debutant director. Will BARKHAA be able to stand the test of time (read 'World Cup') and create a niche for itself at the Box-Office? Let's analyze.

The film's story starts off with Jatin (Taaha Shah) and his parents taking care of his elder brother Akash (Priyanshu Chatterjee) who is battling for life in the ICU. A tensed up Jatin gets a reminder call about his appointment of being the chief guest at a book launch of 'AKS'. In order to fulfill his professional commitment, Jatin reaches the venue and inaugurates the book. No sooner he starts reading out a few pages, he finds something ambigious about the story and immediately sets out to seek the identity of the publisher leaving the book launch midway. However, to his utter shock, the publisher claims to be unaware about the author's whereabouts and maintains that it was couriered to her office and they decided to publish it due to its intriguing plot. The book launch triggers a series of flashback events which introduces the viewers to Barkhaa (Sara Loren), with whom Jatin falls in love at the very first sight and despite knowing she is a bar singer by profession, his love never fails to die. Barkhaa, who has a mysterious past, loses faith in humanity because of which she dissuades Jatin from marrying her. The only person whom Barkhaa trusts is her longstanding best friend Madhu (Shweta Pandit). Despite Barkhaa's warnings, Jatin goes ahead and proposes marriage to her (knowing the fact that she is already a single mother of a girl child). And when Jatin introduces Barkhaa to his family, his father (Puneet Issar) doesn't approve of the alliance and feels that the only person who can actually make Jatin understand the reality of life is his elder brother Akash. The mystery envelops Jatin's family in totality when Akash, after seeing Jatin's choice of girl, storms away in no time alongwith his family within a fraction of a second. Meanwhile, Barkhaa also goes missing from the house, thus adding to Jatin's woes.

Will Jatin be able to untangle the mysteries of his life, find Barkhaa and fulfill his dream of marrying her… is what forms the rest of the film.

BARKHAA is Shadaab Mirza's debut film as a director and his script is filled with numerous flaws. With an absolutely vague and directionless script, the film fails to hold your attention. It is far from entertaining. Shadaab fails to establish the connection between the flashback and the present day scenes convincingly. The length of the film is another deterrent. Overall, Shadaab fails to deliver, both, as a director as well as the screenplay writer (along with Lawrence John).

As far as the performances are concerned, Sara Loren is the lead character. Though the film is supposed to rest on her shoulders, her performance seems too meek and fragile to fulfill the responsibility. Her poker face in some emotional scenes and lack of expression makes the movie a dull affair. As far as Taaha Shah is concerned, thankfully, he shows some spark in the film with his character, although the film hardly gives any platform for him to exhibit his potential as an actor. Had Shweta Pandit's character been moulded with lot more care, she could have easily been the pick of the lot! Unfortunately, Priyanshu Chatterjee and the veteran actor Puneet Issar have nothing to offer in the film.

The film's music (Amjad Nadeem) is yet another department that needed some kind of 'fine tuning'. The songs are strictly passable and look thrusted into the film in order to keep the film moving. Even the background music (Raju Singh) sounds too loud. The only saving grace of the film is its cinematography (Mujahid Raza). The film could have come across as a decent affair if its editing (Mayuresh Sawant) was at least average.

On the whole, BARKHAA can be avoided as it offers nothing new.

Article written by staff at Bollywood Hungama. Read more