In “Billu”, there seems to be a clear distribution of labour. Irrfan Khan single-handedly takes care of the acting part of the movie while Shahrukh takes charge of the dancing and romancing. Deepika, Priyanka and Kareena flaunt their shapely figures hoping against hope to keep the audiences stuck to their seats for a whole three hours, and Lara Datta fails in doing anything at all.

The movie revolves around the life of Billu (Irrfan Khan), a barber by profession, and his struggle to make ends meet. His family comprises of his wife and two children. Billu has failed in life in being both, a good husband and a good father, for his earnings are insufficient to meet the daily requirements of his family.

Suddenly enters Sahir Khan (Shahrukh Khan), a Bollywood superstar. Sahir Khan is busy shooting item numbers for a movie whose script is still being erratically written. While Sahir Khan’s movie is based upon a futuristic concept, for some strange reason he persists that the movie be shot in Billu’s village. And this is how the unit ends up in Billu’s backyard.

It so turns out that Billu and Sahir happen to be childhood chums, and the news of their close links spreads in the village like wild fire. When the villagers come to know of Billu’s association with the star actor, they suddenly become generous and start showering all their support on the poverty-stricken Billu.

All the villagers, from the village moneylender (Om Puri) to the school principal (Rasika Joshi), want to have as much as a glance of Sahir Khan and request the same in return of their help to Billu.

While Billu, being too simple and morbidly aware of the differences in their social status, is hesitant in doing so.

“Is that all that the movie has to say,” one might be tempted to wonder at the end of the flick. And not wrongly so, for that’s about all that the movie offers.

Rajpal Yadav, Om Puri and Asrani are the common faces associated with Priyadarshan films. However these faces too become unrecognisable. It becomes difficult to differentiate their prior performances from the present one.

Although the credit for the movie’s screenplay is together shared by Priyadarshan and Mushtaq Sheikh, curiously enough, the movie is a frame to frame replica of its original Malyalam version “Katha Parayumpol”.

The story fails to narrate anything more than the overly repeated poignant saga of a poor barber and his starry influence.

Verdict: The movie is neither entertaining, nor does it deal with the subject in a sensitive manner. All it has is a plethora of item numbers with its hopeless lyrics.

One keeps wondering throughout the movie as to why or how a word as simple as ‘Hajjam’ becomes offensive when used in a song but is okay to be used in dialogues!