Writer: Janak

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Watch this if you liked: "Singh Is Kinng", "Bachna Ae Haseeno", "Dabangg"

"Besharam" (translated in English as "Shameless") tells the story of an orphan named Babli (Ranbir Kapoor), who steals cars for a living and donates some of the proceedings to his orphanage where he was brought up. In the process of stealing cars one day, he comes across Tara Sharma (Pallavi Sharda) and falls in love with her. Babli decides to stop stealing but not before he pulls off one last job. Unfortunately, Babli steals Tara's car without knowing and sells it to Bheem Singh (Jaaved Jafferi).

When he realizes that the car belongs to Tara, Babli decides to get it back from Bheem Singh. Along the way, two corrupt cops Chulbul Chautala (Rishi Kapoor) and his wife Bulbul Chautal (Neetu Singh) pursue Babli. Will Babli get Tara's car back or will the corrupt couple cops get to him first?

Ranbir Kapoor gives a committed lead performance but due to limited character development, his acting falls flat almost instantly. Newcomer Pallavi Sharda provides a lot of energy in her dancing and dialogue but still leaves something to be desired. To make it worse, there is a very little romantic chemistry between the leads to showcase her acting abilities. The saving grace of the film comes in the form of Ranbir's real life parents, Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh. Not only do they have excellent chemistry, they are also entertaining. Their jokes and talk about bribery are quite funny. Jaaved Jafferi should not be forgotten as well, as he has good comic timing despite limited scenes.

Abhinay Kashyap, the writer-director behind Bollywood box office smasher "Dabangg" (2010) is mostly to be blame for the poor script, direction and the lame storyline which barely a story at all. In addition, the film's editing is quite bad. The narration in the first half is very draggy but the second half picks up with a good note only to stumble again once the unnecessary melodrama and uninvited songs kick in.

The music by Lalit Pandit is definitely drawback and not enjoyable. The effects for the repetitive action scenes were just so-so but cinematography for Chandigarh and Punjab, India is well shot.

Overall, despite the endless repetition of the word "Besharam", there isn't a whole lot of actual shamelessness on display. It could be the that the film itself is what's shameless, in its substitution for the actual jokes and references to other movies and movie stars in the place of an actual film. There is a bit of everything but nothing is fresh. Like its title, "Besharam" is shameless in that it keeps promising things but it can't, or won't, deliver.

Cinema Online, 18 October 2013