The Baabul of soppy sagas!

 

 

This morality-ringing tale has a single flaw, which is responsible for all the others – Mr. Ravi Chopra loses the sense of time. Thus Baabul turns into a long-winded, three-hour long movie that shows two marriages, a birth, a death and a one too many emotional upheavals, and without the luxury of making the movie any lengthier, a lot of the characters seem underdeveloped.

Baabul takes us into the life of the wealthy, blissful and picture perfect family of Balraj Kapoor (Amitabh Bachchan) and Shobna Kapoor (Hema Malini) and their son Avinash (Salman Khan). The America-returned Salman gets roughly 10 to 15 minutes to woo the artistic Malvika Talwar (Rani Mukherjee) and eventually he succeeds, gets married, procreates (it’s a baby boy!) and then lady luck abandons this home... Husband dies, wife cries, which is the cue for Rajat (John Abrahim), Rani’s childhood ‘bestest’ buddy who until now had maintained a low profile, to re-enter. Amitabh Bachchan decides to do away with his ‘in-law’ status and transforms into Baabul, with Rani’s best interests at heart. The entire movie strives to survive on the broad shoulders of Amitabh’s poignant portrayal of Balraj Kapoor and Rani, who expertly swings between extreme emotions.

Even if we leave apart the above shortcomings of the movie and assess it solely on its self-proclaimed social message of widow re-marriage, the film still falls short. For those really interested in watching a movie on this topic – opt for Deepa Meha’s Water instead!