Billu Barber

This is a movie about a poor village barber (Irrfan Khan) who had mentioned in passing once that he used to be a friend of the biggest Bollywood star (Shahrukh Khan playing a character close to himself). The star comes to the village to film for a movie. Everyone pushes the barber to meet his old friend but the barber keeps avoiding this. Is it because he's ashamed of his poverty or thinks a famous man wont remember him? Or did he ever know him and perhaps made it all up?
The movie's focus is on the barber so while SRK is woven throughout the movie he is very much secondary to the barbers story, and how 'ordinary people' react in various ways to celebrity.
Irrfan does a good job but his wife (Lara Dutta) didn't look that 'villagey' (more like a Bollywood lady dressed as a poor woman).
SRK plays the star appropriately well. He has charisma that is tangible whenever he is on screen. The best parts of the movie for me were the very showy song and dance numbers (done as scenes from the movie being shot). SRK partners with Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor and Deepika Padukone in separate big numbers.
If something slipped it from higher potential it was a slowness and repetitiveness at times with people trying to persuade the barber to contact his friend and him dodging that. Another biggie was a speech SRK gives at the end that went on and on to spin into greater absurdity (even for Bollywood).
However the movie's heart is in the right place. It is an entertainer, SRK I find always watchable even when he reaches for some excesses (driven by the script more this time) and the music and dances alone were enough to keep this movie.
Elsewhere on the Net it tends to average around 6-7 out of 10. For me its also a little above average for the dance and music.