Benaam Badsha

Benaam Badsha is very theatrical, and a very bad theatrical film at that. The sad thing is that given the right treatment by a more competent director it could actually have become a very good film. It is set against a rustic backdrop of a slum neighbourhood, and it has two popular leads who could have used their charismatic presence to make it work. It doesn't work though. Anil Kapoor stars as this tough, criminal thug who terrorises his entire neighbourhood, and Chawla is a young novelist who moves in for a short period of time and seemingly sees in him more than meets the eye. The story loses control and its moral stand is fast undermined when a rape takes place, and the writers are shameless enough to romanticise it in a most sickening way that is nothing less than glorification of rape. Anil Kapoor comes up with a most exaggerated performance which is highly theatrical and even though it is not entirely convincing, it is somehow enjoyable although more in the amusing sense. It is Juhi Chawla, however, who gives the film its very limited sense of sanity with her wonderful, natural presence. She is the only redeeming quality of this very melodramatic, highly unconvincing fare. The film's ending is as bad as the story that precedes it and clearly most people associated with Benaam Badsha would be happy to forget it.