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.

‘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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

What is also missing is a soul in the film.

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.