Shraddha’s portrayal of Haseena is no more than physical, and it's painstaking because she has tried her best, and the things holding her back are a poor screenplay and poor direction by Lakhia. Although Lakhia has a history with presenting the grim side of the Mumbai underworld, he miserably fails in this attempt of his. We would clearly give this Shraddha Kapoor starrer a miss, and watch something on Tv instead.

Lakhia designs his film primarily as a courtroom drama where two advocates are cross examining Haseena and some witnesses. We witness the loss of innocence and birth of dreaded gangsters through flashbacks. But it’s not a neutral perspective because Haseena narrates the story and it has to bear her biases. Nothing wrong in this strategy, it’s the director’s choice but it also hampers the objectivity. Basically, we watch just one side of the story, and it looks much mellowed and somewhat glorified. The film shows how Haseena pays the price of being Dawood’s sister as if she was clean otherwise. Then there are efforts to present Shraddha as a menacing mob-boss. There she appears a misfit. The tone of the film is another problem. The director keeps switching between a stylish film and a period film. Not that they can’t exist together, but he changes gears so frequently that Haseena Parkar begins to look jumbled. The only thing that works for the film, to some extent, is the chemistry between Shraddha and Siddhant Kapoor, real life siblings. But in absence of a coherent screenplay, they also become unbearable after a while. Haseena Parkar can’t boast of even one performance that’s not over the top. Despite its 124-minute length, Haseena Parkar is a tedious watch. We already know whatever is shown there.

The letdown in Haseena Parkar is the actor who plays Haseena Parkar. Many people displayed their apprehensions at seeing the 'bubbly' Shraddha Kapoor step into the burkha of the Godmother of Nagpada. While the prosthetics team got her make-up on point, they left her facial movement reduced to zero. Shraddha Kapoor's dialogues in the courtroom are delivered with a scowl and with next to no movement of her lips. Shraddha sticks out like a sore thumb throughout this tale of revenge, family feuds and gang wars. She transitions from a seemingly shy young woman to the menacing don, but there is hardly anything to write home about even there. Complementing her half-hearted act is her brother Siddhanth Kapoor who plays Bhai and Ankur Bhatia who is seen as her husbnad Ismail Parkar. Siddhanth tries his best, maybe, but the narrative drags the film down to such depths that redemption or surfacing for air is impossible. Director Apoorva Lakhia uses every tried-and-tested method in the book of gangster-filmmaking in Bollywood, but the result is a hodgepodge. From the reason to make this film, to the execution is a path that Haseena Parkar falters and stumbles badly in finishing. The story at the core of Haseena Parkar is of a woman who found herself dealing with the police and the Crime Branch just by virtue of who her brother was. And that, if you go by the protagonist's version, is something that shouldn't be done. The film doesn't technically SIDE with Haseena, but in making her voice stronger than the contradictory one (Priyanka Setia in a commendable role), does great disservice to the law of the country. So much is the process of making Dawood a loving brother who can go to any length for his sister and 'sisters' in Nagpada that one is forced to wonder if the gangster will commission Apoorva Lakhia to make a biopic on him too. The good thing about Haseena Parkar is the only song in it, that keeps appearing through the course of the film. And that's about it. Should you watch Haseena Parkar? The answer is a no. Or do, if you have a lot of time on your hands.

Shraddha Kapoor, for whom this is meant to be a career-altering outing, bites off more than she can chew. When she delivers her vapid lines, it is hard to tell whether she is biting or chewing. Seeking to convey menace and power via a darkened skin tone, puffed-up cheeks, prosthetic enhancements around her jaw and a gravelly voice, she hisses and growls to no effect, making rather heavy weather of carrying the flimsy film on her shoulders. Shraddha Kapoor certainly isn't the only problem with Haseena Parkar. Underworld period dramas have anyways outlived their utility. In terms of both style and substance, they now reek of musty monotony. The drudgery is only aggravated when the director resorts to outmoded, by-the-numbers storytelling that has little to commend itself. In the end, the film achieves neither grit nor glory. The court scenes are purported to be the film's centrepiece but so poorly are they written and executed that they cannot hold the drama together. Haseena Parkar drags because the making is pedestrian despite the superficial stylistic flourishes. And the ponderous performances weigh heavy on the film. Siddhanth Kapoor has neither the screen presence nor the dialogue delivery skills that can make him an effective onscreen Dawood. Ankur Bhatia adds no punch to the proceedings. The only actor who stands out a tad amid the ruins is Rajesh Tailang in the role of Haseena's defence lawyer Shyam Keswani although he, like everybody else in the cast, is hopelessly trapped in a stilted script. Nothing, therefore, can salvage this insipid biopic from the morass of mediocrity.

This Shraddha Kapoor film is a tiring watch. This could have been a deeply interesting sketch of a woman who is clearly capable of being much more than she started out with. But ‘Haseena Parkar’ offers no such insight. Shraddha Kapoor manages the young wife-and-mother part well enough, but her transition to the other side is never fully realized: she appears to be speaking her lines to order, and the cheek-pads to add flesh to her jowls, and the deliberately heavier voice, is all put on. Also, she never really looks old enough for the older woman’s part. That’s double the artifice. The supporting cast is also by the numbers, and tediously so. Siddhant Kapoor, Shraddha’s brother in real life, plays Dawood, and does nothing we haven’t seen before in previous iterations of the dreaded don. Bhatia is Haseena’s strapping, handsome husband does his job, and gets out of the way. The rest is a long and winding and weary telling of a story which could have been something, but comes off merely as a tired re-tread of tired re-treads.

This courtroom drama tries to decode the life and criminal activities of India's most wanted fugitive - Dawood Ibrahim's late sister Haseena Parkar, who allegedly headed her brother's crime syndicate in Mumbai and ran proxy business for him. However, given Apoorva Lakhia's poor direction and penchant for making films on Mumbai's underworld dons that ride on sensation over substance, all you get is a tanned Shraddha Kapoor who looks like she's holding two kachoris in her mouth. The actress is 'lucky' to be getting biopics (she will essay the role of badminton ace Saina Nehwal next), given her limited acting skills. But let us clarify, Shraddha is not the weakest link here. You walk into the film, hoping to understand the controversial journey of a woman, who became the aapa (elder sister) or the Godmother of Nagpada. But all you get is a silly costume drama that inadvertently victimises and thus justifies Haseena's unlawful actions and warped sense of power under the pretext of 'protecting her family'. While the intention is still subjective as it's a filmmaker's interpretation of a character, the film's biggest drawback is its lack of depth. The crime drama fails to offer an insight into Haseena's life whatsoever as an individual, beyond her infamous identity as Dawood's sister, who dropped her bhai's name to settle property disputes, extort money from builders etc.