The climax is full of fire and faux brimstone and lots of speechifying, as the ladies of easy virtue become a gun-toting ‘fauj’.

The film ultimately works only for its actors but most do not get to flex their talent in a script that is trying to tell too many things at the same time.

The 134-minute long Begum Jaan has Vidya Balan in good form, but it lacks cohesiveness as a complete story. It shies away from delving deep into the theme, but you may appreciate its documentary-like treatment.

Watch ‘Begum Jaan’ for Vidya Balan’s impressive performance but don’t expect it to be a masterpiece!

The shabbily picturised sequence of women blindly firing into nowhere upholds Begum Jaan’s flimsy, ill-defined rebellion where Mukherjee draws epic parallels to their resistance.

It is as reckless as Radcliffe’s.

Vidya Balan could count this performance as another feather in her already overflowing cap…

Instead of being a story about looking at historical from a lesser-seen perspective, we get a tacky movie which soon seems like an exploitation flick.  The move to weave in a contemporary sexual assault attack reeks of emotional manipulation and lacks coherence. What is meant to be an act of valour in the filmmaker’s eyes comes across as a crude gimmick. Begum Jaan for all its good intent is a misfire of epic proportions.

Begum Jaan loses out on impact due to melodrama. The cluttered plot runs out of steam despite of decent performances.

Director Srijit Mukherji talks of a valid concept and the fact that he makes the women look like badass fighters is phenomenal. Had his film’s technical departments lived up to the level of his vision, Begum Jaan would’ve been a resounding story of women empowerment. While the movie does get a lot of things right, it just lacks a little conviction in presenting its powerful ideas.

A plot that could have been a powerful eye opening metaphor on ‘mata’ (read women) and ‘bharat mata’ turns into a disturbing, over blown, deliberately hysterical and forcefully sensational misadaptation of the brilliant National award winning Bengali film RAJKAHINI. Shockingly, the creator of RAJKAHINI Srijit Mukherji is the destroyer of BEGUM JAAN which sees the fiery and determined Vidya Balan fighting a lost battle in this flimsy piece of cinema.

Begum Jaan chronicles the life inside a whorehouse set in the middle of the India-Pakistan border. Unfortunately, Vidya Balan who plays the title role cannot save the hopelessly predictable plot. The film is such a terrible, bloated and tastelessly overdone copy of the Shabana Azmi starrer Mandi (1983).

‘Begum Jaan’ is like a rich kingdom without its loyal subjects as the good performances deserves to be cherished but at the same time could be avoided due to bad technicalities.

Overdramatic and convoluted…Vidya Balan in the title role, as expected, is impressive and effortlessly convincing.

If you’ve seen the original or intend to at some point, give Begum Jaan a miss. Although, a first-rate Vidya Balan act is reason you shouldn’t.

While the first half is an extended version of the trailer and is laborious, the second half picks up pace considerably. The attempts of the establishment to smoke them out of their own domain is interesting, but somehow it’s difficult to connect to them. The subtext of ruthless colonialism, the aftermath of partition of a fractured India and the rumble of Hindi-Muslim riots makes the film cluttered and heavy.
Watch this only if you are fan of Balan.

It wouldn’t be outrageous to describe Begum Jaan as cinematic disaster of epic proportions that not only lacks purpose but also is devoid of entertainment that viewers seek in commercial movies. Let’s look at the various factors that make Begum Jaan a colossal failure.

The film is based on one of the most massive mass migrations, leaving almost 12 million people to move houses.  There were riots. Millions were massacred; women were raped and abducted. It’s a heart-wrenching story aching to be told. Alas we watch a stubborn, high-headed woman whose strange sense of pride and heroism cost innocent lives.