Critic reviews of

The Dirty Picture   (2011 - Hindi)

The Dirty Picture  cumulative rating: 3.7 out of 53.7/5 (254 users)

The Dirty Picture  critics rating: 3.55 out of 5 3.55/5 (12 critics)

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The Dirty Picture critic reviews & ratings

 

“Uh, ah, aah…” she moans, faking an orgasm before the camera and dozens of crew members. She’d learnt this trick while trying to keep her neighbours from disturbing her at night. The walls in her shared, shabby house didn’t conceal the lovemaking sounds from the next room. She thought she could make some noises of her own. That would shame the husband-wife couple to sleep. The girl, once Reshma, now Silk of the semi-porn screen, keeps her blouse lowmore

Vidya Balan goes where few have gone before, putting it all out there, literally, for the sake of her art. Pity it's for a film as unremarkable as 'The Dirty Picture'. At one point in this movie, her character, a titillating dancing star of the 80s, says there are only three ingredients in a film that can guarantee its success: “Entertainment, entertainment, and entertainment.” It’s a point director Milan Luthria and his writer Rajat Arora seem determined to beat into our headsmore

Intermittently, real life is far more appealing and compelling than fiction. And a biopic -- which attempts to recount a person's life story or at least the most historically momentous years of his/her life -- is most demanding for not just the storyteller/s, but also the actors who bracket together with those films. Occasionally, a dash of some imaginary anecdotes are incorporated in biopics, since the moviegoer seeks some diversion and entertainment in a movie, besides enlightenment.more

I have slept with 500 women”, he warns her. “Have you slept with the same woman 500 times?” she retorts, suggestively. Silk. Unapologetic, unashamed, uninhibited and unabashed. Sassy and sexy, Silk knows that her body is her passport to stardom. She uses it to the hilt — sometimes to writhe shamelessly in front of the camera, sometimes to pleasure her leading man in the make-up room before a shot. Silk is as deliciously dirty as it can get.more

All she had was her well endowed body, her in-your-face sexuality, her seductive moves and her rock hard confidence to carry her through a world that was more than willing to exploit a lone woman, seeking sustenance in a man's world. That was enough to transform Reshma into Silk, a storm that refused to be quelled by anything or anybody. Determined to take on the industry single-handedly and carve a niche for herself as a sex symbol in a hypocritical worldmore

It’s the mid-1980s. An ageing, vain superstar is surrounded by his cronies as a script writer narrates to him a story about an orphan. 'This orphan hero angle is so '60s,' cuts in the star. 'Let’s give the hero a family for a change. Let’s give him a sister too. Then let’s get her raped.' Everyone around can’t stop marveling at the idea. The writer is impressed too. 'Let’s make this movie,' he says. The ’80s was probably the lowest point in our cinemamore

Breasts make the world a better place. From lactation to leering to simply being the best pillows imaginable, breasts matter and, as the people behind The Dirty Picture are well aware, they mesmerise. And thus does leading lady Vidya Balan's [ Images ] bosom go through a lot in the name of entertainment, entertainment and entertainment. For mere visual sake, her breasts are lifted and shoved and enhanced and amplified and constricted and meshed together and accentuatedmore

The Dirty Picture was always going to be a tricky proposition. As the unofficial biopic of a famously erotic personality from showbiz, it has to acknowledge the vastly sexual nature of its subject. At the same time, exploiting this very attribute to explicitly titillate could mar its credibility. And that's where director Milan Luthria pulls off a masterstroke. He picks one of the most exciting, exquisite and exceptional actresses from the present to portray one of the most raunchy, rebellious, raciest sex symbolsmore

The Dirty Picture is a perfect recipe: a rags to riches story seasoned with alcohol, fame, the movies, and above all else, sex and sleaze. With Vidya Balan as the main ingredient - the meat, if you will - setting herself up for the most courageous (outrageous even!) performance of the year and a writer in Rajat Aroraa who fused some momentous metaphors with superlative structuring in his last work Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai, you have a mouthwatering mixmore

Reshma (Balan) is a small town girl with big ambitions to be a dancer. She runs away from home to land in a hole of a room in the big bad city of Chennai. Even when she goes around trying her luck, she is either jeered at or propositioned. She manages to make it big, largely with the help of the reigning superstar, the lecherous Surya (Naseeruddin Shah). Reshma quickly learns the ropes of the game so when Surya boasts of over 500 conquests, she beats him with a proposalmore

This film has a tightly bound script with just one loose sheaf. And frankly speaking, it's unfair on director Milan Luthria because Vidya Balan's electrifying performance, leaves the rest gasping for breath. You just see her grasp the character and make it larger than life. This is perhaps her best performance till date. Even Naseeruddin Shah gracefully blends into the background as the 'Hero' takes Centre stage. Vidya Balan disappears; it's Silk that emerges on screenmore

A film producer, desperately seeking a hit, sees a starlet in the smalltime but sexy and extremely ambitious girl Reshma. He immediately rechristens her as Silk. She instantaneously renames him as keeda (worm) justifying that keede hi toh banate hain silk (worms produce silk). That smart and symbolic line pretty much sums up the bigger picture behind the dirty picture. The supposedly decent and respectable society is the one that makes a Silk out of Reshma and sex-symbol out of Silk.more