Bhai Tera Star Hai review: The only star was Vijay Deverakonda in Vijay Sales ad

Bhai Tera Star Hai review: Raghav Juyal tries his best, but the film gives him little to work with. The result is a loud, cluttered film that leaves you counting down to the interval rather than the laughs.

In Short

• Bhai Tera Star Hai fails to engage, with a chaotic plot and weak screenplay
• Raghav Juyal's talent was wasted, limited to songs and few scenes
• Confusing character relations and overcrowded narrative frustrate viewers

There comes a point during a bad film when you stop hoping it will get better and simply start negotiating with time. That moment arrived at the intermission of Bhai Tera Star Hai. As the screen faded to black, a Vijay Sales commercial featuring Vijay Deverakonda popped up. In those thirty-odd seconds, he delivered more charisma, better dialogue delivery and more engaging action than the film had managed in the next two-odd hours.

I have never sighed in relief this hard at an interval before.

Directed by Vivek B Agarwal, Bhai Tera Star Hai centres on Ajay Singh (Raghav Juyal), an actor trying his luck with a film titled Kisi Ki Bhai Kisi Ki Behen (yes, that film). Before you can process that title, the film throws cricket betting, gangsters, mistaken identities, fabricated lies and a parade of characters your way. In short, the story (which was intended) follows Singh, who struggles to pay off a huge debt to a pub owner, Fatty, Sanjay Kapur. That's it. It's less a screenplay and more an exercise in seeing how much chaos can fit into one evening.

Fairly halfway through, you can find yourself asking a very simple question: why is the film called Bhai Tera Star Hai? The "bhai" barely gets enough material to justify the title, let alone carry the film. Raghav Juyal, who is easily one of the most effortlessly likeable performers around, is reduced to shouting lines like, "main iska inquilab zindabad kar dunga," because "mere andar Mangal Singh aa raha hai." His punchlines land with the impact of a single raindrop during an already exhausting sunny afternoon. You notice them, but they do absolutely nothing.

Ironically, the film gives far more importance to everyone except its lead.

Characters keep walking in until the very last minute. Fatty, Laila, Sid, Natasha, Roshni, Mandy... and by the time you remember who is related to whom, someone new has entered the frame. Sid (Vivaan Bhatena) is Roshni's (Niharika NM) brother and Natasha's (Parvathy Omanakuttan) ex. Natasha is Ajay's sister. Roshni is Ajay's girlfriend. If that already sounds like a family tree assembled during an electricity cut, imagine watching it unfold.

Vikalp Mehta's JD, whose defining characteristic is apparently that he plays cricket with Ajay, ends up with better dialogues, more screen presence and, surprisingly, a better-written romantic track. Barkha Singh shares more chemistry with Vivan Bhatena's Sid than Raghav and Niharika ever do. If you walked in expecting a sweet love story between Ajay and Roshni, you're in for not just disappointment, but something beyond sadness...regret. They barely get scenes together, and whatever little they share is over before you can invest in it.

The film moves at breakneck speed, yet somehow feels painfully slow. Every scene is bursting with people, noise, movement and unnecessary business. There is so much happening on screen that you eventually stop trying to process any of it. Every five minutes, I instinctively looked at my watch, hoping more time had passed than it actually had.

The background score in my head? The iconic "Faaaaa..." meme, which also at some point finds a spot in the film.

The writing doesn't help either. There's a joke about "harmonial" changes instead of hormonal changes. A random 'child labour' gag involving a 'chaiwala'. Then comes a line comparing someone's situation to "Plank se latakte Titanic mein Jack jaise." That may well be the most accurate metaphor in the film because, just like Titanic, this movie sinks... and keeps sinking.

Post-interval, Ajay and Sid finally come face-to-face. The film briefly teases a confrontation that you've subconsciously been waiting for, only for the entire thing to dissolve within micro-seconds. The chaos builds up for absolutely no pay-off. Sid just vanishes from the scene, and the 100th character of the film enters.

Set across East London on a glittering December night, Bhai Tera Star Hai somehow makes the city look astonishingly dull. The lights, decorations and festive setting cannot rescue what is already submerged far below the surface.

Perhaps the biggest casualty here is Raghav Juyal himself. His biggest strengths - his effortless dancing, comic timing and natural screen presence – are confined almost entirely to the opening title song, Bhai Tera Star Hai, and the closing numbers (focus on the 's'). In fact, the romantic track Aankhon Se Tune 2.0 is probably the only stretch where Raghav and Niharika are allowed to exist in the same frame for longer than a few uninterrupted minutes. Just when you think the film has finally found a rhythm, it abruptly jumps into another loud Punjabi dance number. Then another one. Three songs back-to-back at the end feel less like a creative decision and more like someone remembered they had already paid to shoot them.

The editing deserves special mention, and not for the right reasons. Zero points. Scenes crash into one another without rhythm, emotional beats disappear before they register, and the film never pauses long enough to let anything or anyone breathe. There are pop-up elements, animated ones, which I believe were intended purely for interaction purposes, but turned out to be a massive distraction.

By the third song in the post-credit sequence, the wait wasn't for the film to end, it was for the spine to recover from sitting through Bhai Tera Star Hai. If there's one lingering feeling, it's sympathy for Raghav Juyal. The film doesn't just waste his talent; it practically buries it. And Niharika deserved a far stronger Bollywood debut than this.

Laughter was in painfully short supply. The only genuine giggles came courtesy of Raghav Juyal's unintentionally funny one-liners. The loudest reaction of the morning, however, arrived at the interval, and it had nothing to do with the film. Thank you, Vijay Deverakonda and Vijay Sales, for the much-needed entertainment.

- Ends