Critics’ Verdict: ‘Babumoshai Bandookbaaz’ Serves No Noir Surprise

Here’s what the critics have to say about ‘Babumoshai Bandookbaaz’.

Film: Babumoshai Bandookbaaz
Director: Kushan Nandy
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Bidita Bag, Jatin Goswami, Shraddha Das, Divya Dutta

Excerpts from the reviews of Babumoshai Bandookbaaz:

Be warned, this one belongs to the Gangs of Wasseypur genre where everyone is trigger-happy. If you have feasted on cinema noir, this one serves up no surprises. The screenplay could have definitely been tighter. Yet Kushan Nandy gives you a film that you find yourself compulsively watching. Ghalib Asad Bhopali has got the goon-dictionary pat and his lines add grit to proceedings.Nawazuddin’s self-deprecating remarks and his seamless transformation from killer to lover is applause-worthy. Jatin Goswami’s impresses; his lean frame and interesting voice lend to his screen appeal. Bidita is an interesting find for Bollywood. Not only does she smooch and seduce with a raw intensity, she wins brownie points for a couple of emotional scenes as well. Shraddha is tailor-made as the curly-haired nautch girl and kicks up a storm when she grooves to Hai re Hai mera ghunghta.

Meena Iyer, The Times of India

On the face of it, Babumoshai Bandookbaaz is a good old comic crime thriller with more plot twists than the hairpin bends on a mountain road. Look closer though, and you will see the underlying tragedy in the tale of Babu Bihari, a hitman who acquires a protégé and gets played even as he thinks he holds all the cards. The women in Babumoshai are relentlessly objectified, but they give as good as they get, with a gaze that is no less lustful than the no-good men in their lives. They are also nobody’s fools. To say that it completely lacks depth would be unfair though. The quiet insertion of a famous melody I shall not name here while the end credits roll, for instance, comes across as a deliberate act of subversion. And the Babu-Phulwa-Banke dynamic is interesting, to say the least. Besides, Babumoshai Bandookbaaz, flawed though it is, comes as manna to a starving film buff in what must certainly be the worst year for Bollywood in the decade so far.

Anna MM Vetticad, Firstpost

Nawaz is fully immersed in his role; as is Goswami. The banter between Babu and Banke makes you smile. And then you are back to the film playing out the beats of the genre. Shoot-outs in the fields, killings with rifles, sexually pumped men and women, local netas wrestling for power, local cops on the take, and curvaceous women on the make. It’s all there, but we’ve seen it all, or variations of it, before. The best part of the film is in the way it sounds right. The accents, which usually go awry in Bollywood going rustic, are almost all there. Some interesting actors are in here, especially Divya Dutta is the power-hungry Jiji, and the actor who plays burly cop who fathers a brood of boys in the hope of a girl: the excellent Vincent George remains underutilized, though.

Shubhra Gupta, The Indian Express

Nawazuddin isn’t at his best for he can be only as good as the script allows him to be. Bidita Bag makes a fair fist of her first Bollywood lead role. Jatin Goswami, too, makes his presence felt. Another proven actor who finds herself hard done by amid the mayhem is Divya Dutta. The only surprise - nay, shock - that Babumoshai Bandookbaaz delivers is an instrumental rendition of a Rabindranath Tagore hymn (Aguner Parashmoni) arranged by composer Debojyoti Mishra for the end credits. Has the bard ever had such an ignominy heaped upon him - tailed so casually to a film that revels in blood and gore? The lyric is a prayer seeking purification by fire. If that is what the makers of this film are looking for, let it be said that even a full-fledged inferno cannot purge Babumoshai Bandookbaaz.

Saibal Chatterjee, NDTV