Introduction
Madhur Bandarkar is a Ram Gopal Verma protege having worked with him in his earlier movies like Shiva and Rangeela. After his first failed attempt to go alone, Chandni Bar is Madhur’s second movie. The subject of dance bars in mumbai was enough to raise interest in the movie.

The Plot
The movie is about Mumtaz(Tabu) who has come to mumbai after the killing of her parent’s in communal riots in UP. She is accompanied by her uncle, Irfan. Her uncle comes to know from his distant relative Iqbal (Rajpal Yadav) that it is easier for Mumtaz to get a job than he himself.

Iqbal gets Mumtaz a job in a dance bar called Chandni Bar. This is supposed to be a temporary arrangement till Irfan gets a job himself. But, Irfan finds it easy to live on his niece’s money and hits the bottle. In one such drunkard state he rapes his niece as well.

Meanwhile, Mumtaz is taught the ins and outs of the Chandni Bar by the other girls at the bar. They teach her how to titillate with the audiences and how to understand their signals. Somewhere down the line a local don Potiya (Atul Kulkarni) comes to the bar and falls in love with Mumtaz.

Potiya comes to know of Mumtaz’s rape and enraged he goes and kills her uncle. Then the two of them get married and have kids and Mumtaz feels that her dancing bar days are thankfully over. But then fate strikes again and Potiya is killed in a police encounter. Let with the prospect of bringing up two kids, Mumtaz has to return to Chandni Bar and as she is too old to dance now, she takes up the job of waitress.

Mumtaz’s resolve to keep her kids away from both the underworld and the dance bars suddenly comes under intense pressure as her son is implicated in criminal charges.

So what happens to Mumtaz and her kids? Check out Chandni Bar for the details

Critic’s Viewpoints
Chandni Bar is an offbeat film shorn of all glamour. The movie is based on the lives of dance bar girls. Dance bars are places where people come to booze and there are these girls dancing with suggestive and often vulgar steps to enamour the male audiences.

The best part of the movie is Tabu. The role of Mumtaz seems to be tailor-made for her. Her vulnerability and unconventional looks give her a natural edge playing this role. Also the deglamourised looks go brilliantly with her as it did in movies like Maachis. This performance has to go down as one of the best performances by Tabu.

Atul Kulkarni looks very competitive in his role as Potiya, but his role is very small and does not get to show his talents fully. The rest of the crew have also given decent performances.

Keeping with the theme of the movie, the language used in the movie is often lewd and filled with curses. Of course, without saying this movie is not meant for kids!! The movie has some strong sexual moments as well has lot of crude dialogs to boot.

But, Madhur has done a great job of bringing the dance bars onto the big screen. He has been able to create a sense of reality into his picturization of the dance bars and the tragedies of the lives of the dance bar girls.

Also given the fact this is only Madhur’s second venture and also that there are a lot of relative new comers both in the movie as well as in the technical departments, the movie has come out very well.

The movie does not have songs of its own. Of course, the dance bar girls dance to existing hindi songs from other movies.

Awards

National Award for best Actress: Tabu

National Award: Atul Kulkarni

National Award for best directorial venture: Madhur Bandarkar.

Summary
All in all a good attempt by Madhur to bring the dance bars onto the big screen.

For the novelty of the content and the way subject is dealt with, I would give this movie a 4 star rating.

Plot Revealed In The Review:	Somewhat revealed
Best to watch with:	Alone
Movie Genre:	No Comment
Best part in the movie:	No Comment