Billu Barber
Starring: Irrfan Khan, Lara Dutta, Shahrukh Khan,Rajpal Yadav, Om Puri, Asrani
Music by Pritam
Directed by Priyadarshan
Produced by Gauri Khan
Running time 128 min
The first part of the movie was a little over the top in some comic scenes and a bit of a
drag. The movie moved to a tolerable status just before the intermission and onwards.
It started with a cheeky letter asking for a loan. Whether Billu was just a simple man or a
smart alec wasn?t clearly defined. After all the characters in the village Budhbudhe were
introduced it too abruptly shifted to some spaceship kinda setting and SRK was introduced as
the star Sahir Khan with an item number one.
Billu (Irrfan Khan) is a hairdresser (trying to be politically correct) in the sleepy
village Budhbudhe. His business is in a bad state owing to the entry of Modern Madan. He is
the butt of all jokes, his wife (Lara Dutta) is dissatisfied and the kids have a smart
mouth. But life goes on until Sahir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) and his entourage comes to the
village for a shoot.
Don?t understand why the people greet the movie star by throwing papers at him and was
surprised to see that the roads in the village were so much better and nicely tarred than
the ones here in the city.
News spreads that Sahir (who wears really flashy jackets) is Billu?s buddy and he is put on
a pedestal and when his attempts at meeting with Sahir goes nowhere, he is derided. Then we
have the men crying - Billu for the humiliation and Sahir reminiscing about his good old
friend.
Then Billu goes back on the pedestal yet again and both friends have a very emotional
reunion. Bring out the hankies!!
SRK goes one step further and takes a dig at the whole Khan wars when pushed by the
obnoxious Dubeyji.
It?s an okay watch if you have some company and food at hand as the movie doesn?t really
absorb you too deeply.
Rating: ***
