Heroine Review

After Barfi last week, UTV Motion Pictures today released their second keenly awaited film – Madhur Bhandarkar’s Heroine starring Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Randeep Hooda.

Story: Heroine is about Mahi Arora (Kareena), a successful Bollywood actress, whose position in the industry is under constant threat with rival actresses and newcomers. Mahi is madly in love with married superstar Aryan Khanna (Arjun), who is on the verge of a divorce with his wife Isha (Shilpi Sharma). Mahi is insecure about her relationship, as Aryan is unwilling to commit marriage. When Aryan agrees to do a love-making scene in one of his films, without Mahi’s consent, the two breakup.

Kareena Kapoor - Heroine

Enter publicist Pallavi (Divya Dutta), who approaches Mahi with a proposal to change her image and build her brand. Pallavi does her job and Mahi is back in news and her falling career revives once again. She starts dating Angad (Randeep Hooda), vice captain of the Indian Cricket team. He helps her get a role in a film with superstar Abbas Khan (Sanjay Suri). Career-wise things go from bad to worse, even though her film does well at the box-office, as Abbas Khan shortens her role in the film. Critics call her a glam-doll, a non-actress. What does Mahi do next? How does she survive alcohol addiction, the constant threat to her position in the industry and most importantly how does she battle her own insecurities?

Heroine Review

For a film that promises an insiders take on the Bollywood film industry, Heroine promises to be a fine film initially, but falls flat when Bhandarkar takes the dark and depressing route. Apart from a few scenes just before the interval when Mahi’s career begins to revive and her relationship with Angad blossoms, Heroine as a whole remains terribly depressing.

Strangely, the film has way too many similarities to Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion. Gay designers and journalists (with typical mannerisms), excessive smoking/drinking, sexual politics, back-biting, bitching.. you name it and Heroine has got it all. What worked for Fashion was the inspiring rise of Meghna Mathur, here Madhur completely neglects to shed any light on Mahi’s past.

Heroine drags to an extent when you stop caring for the protagonist. Madhur has tried to squeeze too much into the film, probably every incident that he has ever heard of.

Now before the review gets depressing, let’s talk of the positives. Kareena Kapoor delivers a stellar performance rising way above the mediocre script. She lives the character of Mahi Arora. (spoilers ahead) Watch out for the scene at the brothel, where she goes to study the lives of prostitutes, in an effort get into the skin of her character. The funeral scene in the climax. And also her mental anguish when she releases her own sex tapes and battles guilt. Outstanding performance from one of the best leading ladies of our times. Also she looks at her sexiest best in Manish Malhotra’s costumes. At the age of 32, she is still one of the hottest stars in the industry. Having said that, she exposes as much or a little more than Vidya Balan in ‘The Dirty Picture’. Did her character really demand the constant in-our-face cleavage show?

The others have very little to do – Arjun Rampal is good, Randeep Hooda overacts in one scene when he confronts Kareena, apart from that he’s done well. Sanjay Suri is fine. Ranvir Shorey is brilliant. Govind Namdeo is good. Shahana Goswami has a small role and leaves a mark.

The music is good, Halkat Jawani will be loved by the masses. Camera work (Mahesh Limaye) is excellent. Salim-Sulaiman’s background music is good. The editing

Overall, Heroine is one of the biggest disappointments of 2012. The expectations were high from Madhur  and he fails to deliver this time around. His movies are getting repetitive and stereotypical. Having said that, Kareena Kapoor is the star of Heroine and she certainly deserved a better film to showcase her acting talent. Infact, it’s her performance that makes the film bearable.

Rating: ★½☆☆☆ Watch if you must for Kareena, otherwise avoidable.

Do post your Heroine reviews below. We’d love to know what you think!

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501 Comments

  • Shocking and disappointing. I always trust your reviews, but just 1.5 stars for Heroine? I thought the movie would be good :(

  • @indicine forreal man how sad because Madhur Bhandarkar was talking about it like its a great one but it happens remember raone, anyway i doesnt wanna see it anyway

  • @ahmed. Wy u drag ra1 into every thing. man that’s 1000 times better than tmk and ett. it bring vfx. what did ett bring. some cheap acting. and hero is looking like grand father of katrina

  • Don’t agree with yr review Indicine only in one thing.. that u praised Karina’s performance.. this is her film.. this is her best performance ever.. that’s the plus point in this film.

    The film has a similarity to Fashion, as I expected from the trailer, it’s not that interesting for the audience because it has just one good song Halkat Jawani and nothing else.. no funny scenes except one.. it’s about the life of a heroine and the director (disclosed) everything about how some actresses would sacrifice their values for the sake of fame and money.. he disclosed it although we know it already.. we know how some of them ( and not all of them ofcourse) reach fame in the film industry and everyone knows this fact.. loved the part where the guy who proposes to Karina and she asks him to give her little time, and then he screams at her and say that all actresses are the same.. they care for nothing except fame and money.. and that’s true.. lots of actresses don’t marry and would rather have a boyfriend than a husband for the sake of fame and money, as marriage would ruin their career.

    I can’t generalize and say: all the actresses follow the same path otherwise I will be cruel, but it’s the life of many actresses and probably there’re who are worst than Mahi in fact, in the real life.

    I love this director’s work coz he always make films based on reality and I would give it 3/5 stars.. and that’s for Karina’s best performance of course.

    If this movies deserves to be watched.. it’s only for Karina’s acting.

    She deserves best actress award of 2012.. I don’t think that any actress ( not even Priyanka in the film Fashion) could perform the way Karina did in this film

    She deserves to be number 1, and Katrina, Priyanka would follow her

  • There was nothing new in this movie.. wohi ups and down bla bla bla.. haan kareena ka ek lesbian moment tha kuch 1 minute ka

  • This film may not as good as i expected ,but karina will surely make u cry at the end of the film.she is the light of this darkness

  • In my opinion the films mostly shows the dark side of actress from starting of the movie, I think even in normal people life there is both good times and bad times, but this movie shows only bad times it shows whatever she is doing its going against her.

    The story is not related to any truth behind the industry, It’s not real at all no one using drugs and alcohol all the times as it shows in this movie.

  • Aki: someone who starts using drugs, alcohol wl get used to it.. can’t live without it.. many actresses do that in all film industries, even in Arab worlds, hollywood, I think u just trust what u see with yr eyes or what u hear from the news and some false stories u read on websites or magazines ( u have to see what happens behind the curtains.. with yr brain and believe in it) some actresses in fact are very bad, selfish, and would do anything, would sacrifice anything for the sake of fame and money! but that’s not the story ( u have to see the film to know the story) to be aware that when a heroine would fade away, would go backward and would not get any film or publicity.. what they do in fact!! watch it then you’ll know!

    And it’s true that some directors, producers, film makers use actresses, that’s the price for the door to be opened for them in bollywood.. sleep with them first then they get some good roles in films!

  • @Fathiya my dear I watched the before you on last Thursday in UAE I know some actress or Actor are Bad no doubt but my question is why in the movie not shows the lime light of a Heroiene before going to dark side? I like fashion and dirty picture it shows the good side and its end towards dark side but since the start of the movie it shows the negativity.

    And that’s why critics and people don’t like it. Yes there as heroiene taking drinks but not drugs that’s for sure because when I was in mumbai I met Sanjay dutt driver through him we met several actress and he told us many stories behind the back side of the industry.

  • Aki in the film they show her in the lime light, but not in details, in some scenes, and because the story of the film is about the dark side of any actress, and the steps she uses to reach fame when she’s down and influential ppl or boyfriend who use her, there4 the director concentrated on all that.. I think the audience doesn’t need to see the details of Mahi’s success because it shows like a flashback, so it was enough for the audience.

    The only point in this film was the length.. 2.30 is a bit long for a story like this, it could’ve been shorter.

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