Technical expertise
The magic chemistry between Rahul and Priyanka that set the screen on fire last year in Chirodini Tumi Je Amaar is completely missing in Bhalobasha Zindabad. In fact, you keep wondering when all this will be over. Reshmi Mitra fails miserably in her first feature film. The script is wobbly and weak, never mind the few seconds of lip-to-lip service between Kusum and Raj. Kusum, the flower-seller, wears designer tops and skirts despite her poverty. Rahul is a total misfit as a millionaire heir to the Sanyal riches. His height, body and looks simply do not belong to the character he plays. Papiya Adhikari, who plays Nirupama Sanyal, with her voice dubbed by actress Rita Koiral, wears a streaked wig and pins it to her natural hair in a way that one can easily see the hairline and the black hair underneath. Her on-screen histrionics are terrible. But the worst hit in this exaggerated melodrama conveniently going under the genre of a musical romance is actor-singer Kharaj Mukherjee as Raj’s uncle who is reduced to a junior artiste with a bit role that might as well not have been in the script. For your information, there is no kick-boxing in the film, only boxing, plain and simple.

The dream scenes are orchestrated so amateurishly and crudely that you could catch up on your forty winks but for the loud decibels that threaten to strip you of your hearing. Veteran music director Ashok Bhadra’s score is a disappointment. The saving grace of the film, if there is one, is actor Rudranil Ghosh who comes across with a sparkling performance as the many-hued, cold-blooded, ruthless villain Bishu.
Verdict
The only star goes to Rudranil for his portrayal of the only character in the script that has been convincingly written.