All the glamour and the sensational allure of Madhur’s great Bollywood expose is let down by a limp screenplay, lame dialogues and an astonishing two and a half hr runtime. Sadly it was such a good material at hand, sadly none of it is explored to the best of its potential, sadly none of it is as earnest as the lead trying to play it.

The film that Bhandarkar has made is indeed disappointingly mechanical. Mercifully, Kareena does demonstrate that she has a feel for the character. But, then, why wouldn’t she? After all she plays herself in Heroine.

‘Heroine’ has every single stereotype associated with Bollywood that we are familiar with, from our newspaper supplements, tabloid gossip, sensational TV programmes, fanzines, social networking platforms.

All said and done, the film may be a one-time watch. But if you expected too much out of the film, it may not be worth the anticipation and your money.

Does ‘Heroine’ work? Yes, but only because of Kareena Kapoor. From doing the raunchy act in ‘Halkat Jawaani’ to the scenes where she is battling depression and popping pills, to the I-don’t-care-attitude of a confident actress, Kareena makes Mahi memorable and lovable.

Kareena Kapoor does a good job and, heck, you even get to see her in a pseudo lesbian scene along with other steamy scenes. If that’s enough to drag you to see Heroine, go ahead. Give it a miss otherwise.

Heroine has an episodic feel to it. The movie is a merger of various personalities, which unfortunately don’t fall on the same page in the end. Making it seem disjointed and amateurish. There is a line in the film which Mahi, a bi-polar patient, tells her mom, “My life is fully under control.” Well, the same can’t be said about the film.

What is also missing is a soul in the film.

Despite an entertaining first half, thanks to all the unintentional laughs, Heroine slips into a slush of melodrama post interval. By this point, it feels interminably long and boring. Bhandarkar loses his grip on the script, and it’s evident that his storytelling now desperately needs reinventing.

On the whole, HEROINE is yet another hard-hitting motion picture from Madhur Bhandarkar. For persistently choosing women-centric themes, for consistently winning national acclaim and most significantly, magnetizing moviegoers in large numbers to view his cinema, the efforts of the maverick film-maker deserve to be lauded. Watch HEROINE for Madhur’s imposing direction, for Kareena’s superlative performance, watch it also for its fearless, inspiring and enlightening storyline divulging the scandalous realities of the movie industry. Try not to miss it!

At one point in Heroine, a character asks: Iss glamour industry mein kaun fraud nahin hota. This film certainly is one.

Heroine is quite stupendously glossy, with every actress soaked in bronzer, and much flattering lighting. And the actors really aren’t the problem here, each of them — even the disastrous ones — earning more than their fare share just for keeping straight faces through this malarkey.

Very clearly the written material at hand draws from unflattering accounts of various real and reel Hindi film heroines of the 80s (unfair to name them because a couple of them are not even around to defend themselves); who were in messy situations with their married co-stars.