I have not seen the movie yet and I am not sure if and when I will watch it. So this post if not a review of the movie and should not be used to determine how good or bad the movie is. This post is purely basis the pre-release activities of the movie. This post is a result of my discussion about the film with my friend and the analysis the followed.
We realised that Heroine while it appears to be is not a typical Madhur Bhandarkar movie. I do not think I have to say much about what a typical Madhur Bhandarkar movie is, yet for those who yet have any disconnects. Madhur claims to be a realistic filmmaker (whatever the hell that means). This claim helps him win National Awards, because National Awards jury are sucker for realistic cinema. Madhur typical picks up a setting like dance bars, jail, traffic signal, corporate world etc and puts together all the perceived evils about the particular settings and then tries to fit all these evils in the form of a story. Irrespective of the setting he chooses, the common factor about most of his movies is that the setting is the lead protagonist of the story and all the characters are designed to portray the evil impacts of the chosen setting on themselves. Pick any of his popular movies from Chandani Bar to Fashion and you would understand what I am trying to say here. He even creatively ;) chooses his titles to avoid any confusion in the minds of tha audience. Chandani Bar is about dance bars, Page 3 is about page 3 parties, Corporate is about corporate world, Traffic Signal is about traffic signal, Fashion is about fashion industry and Jail is about, well; jail. The reason he casts not so famous faces in his movies is because he does not want the actors to dilute the portrayal of the surrounding and in few cases where he hired known actors, I presume they were instructed to play their part in a way that highlights the surrounding and not themselves. Counting the number of National Awards he has won, that seems to have been working well for him so far.
Now lets talk about Heroine. The title itself is enough to give away the difference from other Bhandarkar's movies. The title is not Showbiz or Films or Entertainment or Bollywood that means the movie is not about the Film Industy, it is about the Heroine. The main protagonist here is not the setting, it is in this case the Character played by Kareena Kapoor. Since I have not seen the movie, I cannot say how this diversion from his usual style has shaped up. Last time he deviated from his usual style, he gave us Dil To Baccha Hai. So you can get an idea.
The poster screams "it's all about Kareena"
Now imagine how his other movies would have been if Chandani Bar was titled Bar Dancer, Page 3 was named Celebrity, Corporate was named VP-Marketing, Traffic Signal was named Homeless, Fashion was named Super Model and Jail was named Qaidi (prisoner). What that changes is that they now become stories about the impact of the lead characters on their surroundings rather than other way round. Now I am expecting the people who have seen Heroine to tell me how accurate our analysis is.
