Billi (2001)
Cast: Saima, Nadeem, Noor, Saud, Meera, Arbaz Khan
Director: Syed Noor
Synopsis: Supposedly, it’s a true story about a female victim turning scum- busting Avenger!
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

The film opens with a courtroom scene where a fiery criminal lawyer, played by Meera, is battling to put a rapist behind bars, but sadly for her, the judge rules against her, and the scumbag is set free. Though the rapist walks free from the law courts of the land, is there a power on earth who can save him from the justice of the “Billi”? —a shadowy figure dressed in a black catsuit which has taken to the streets at night, rounding up all scum and sleaze and dishing out her brand of justice to chilling effect.

There is an earnest police officer (Saud) determined to capture the cat, but he does not appear to be making much headway as this cat seems to have at least nine lives. In her brutal quest for justice, she does not even spare the lawyer representing the rapist, who was just doing his job. She corners him one dark, stormy night and hacks off his tongue so he can never twist a case to his benefit as he had done with the rape case.

Meera looks glamorous and turns in a suitably theatrical performance as the lawyer. However, she might refrain from using her English too often as her phrases are somewhat bizarre, as when she exclaims “Live Long Billi,” when she probably meant “Long Live Billi.” Another occasion is when she asks Saud if he entered from the

“Bal Konee”, where one does a slight double take before realizing what she meant.

Sadly, after the courtroom opening scene, there is not much else for Meera to do as the focus shifts to Noor and Saima’s characters for the rest of the film. The feline superhero rapist-bashing Billi becomes a feminist champion and icon for all her deeds. The downtrodden support her wholeheartedly, yet the police are embarrassed by their inability to apprehend Billi. Who is she? Where does she come from? What has turned her into the killing machine she is?

Saud has two brothers: one is a fine, upright journalist (Arbaz Khan), and the other (younger) is a total wastrel—spending his time boozing, womanizing, and listening to bad late ‘70s disco like Lipps Inc.’s horrendous “Funky Town.” He has some severe issues and hangs out in a den of iniquity where such “anarchic” words are sprayed on the walls and ceiling (such as snake, love, cool, crazy, kill, and prince). It’s almost Mansonesque.

Seasoned veteran Nadeem plays Noor’s sensitive father, a man who has lost his first wife to an accident and now must deal with a troubled daughter due to a tragedy that occurred when she was an 8year-old. Noor is also determined to find her father a replacement wife, and her primary candidate is a gold-hearted village bumpkin Saima. Though Nadeem finds the idea preposterous at first, slowly, he begins to warm up to Saima’s busty charms, and they are soon married.

Later, complications arise as the net starts to draw around the elusive Billi, and all the indications suggest that mild-mannered Noor is involved. In a mind-boggling twist, Saima is caught red-handed and unmasked as the Billi and awaits her fate at the gallows.

There is another final twist: all matters are revealed in a typically dramatic climactic scene. The film, directed by Syed Noor, opened in the summer of 2001 and died quickly at the Box Office, sinking without much of a trace. However, it was fascinating because the

Billi filmmakers advertised the film as based on a true story. One wondered when, if ever, there had been a case of a cat-suited female crime buster taking to the streets of Lahore.

Having witnessed the film, one will have to take the producer’s claims of authenticity with just a tiny pinch of salt—nice try, though. It is not an unbearably awful film as one has come to expect from Lollywood in the modern era, yet it suffers severe and fundamental drawbacks. The narrative is fragile, the script utterly threadbare, and the film tries so hard to fulfil formula requirements that it ends up with none of the elements considered prerequisites of a successful thriller or even a horror movie, such as suspense or tension. Instead, we have the obligatory comedy sequences, the long and tedious song and dance sequences, and the action scenes, including a chase and several fights—very much the usual formulaic drivel that is dished out to the local audiences daily.

A lazily made, sloppy effort, this could have been a reasonably exciting twist on the worn-out I Spit on Your Grave rape revenge scenario that is so prevalent here in Lollywood. In this case, you will be better off going for the Pashto classic Da Khwar Lasme Spogmay, a far more robust, dynamic, and demented version of Billi, which with its child rape scene, manages to leave a rather nasty aftertaste.