Hrithik Roshan‘s Kites may make his fans very happy by the way he has been presented (and he enacted) in the film but those looking out for a never seen been before experience that was promised through its mega marketing blitzkrieg will be in for a major disappointment.
J. (Hrithik Roshan) is a dance teacher in Las Vegas, who is also in the business of marrying illegal immigrants in order for them to get green cards. While being at his dance class, a rich casino heiress Gina (Kangana Ranaut) falls for her dance instructor. When J. comes to know of the background of Gina, the lust for green paper makes him play along the romance and marriage game with Gina. But when Gina brings him home to meet the family, J. meets Natasha (Barbara Mori) and discovers a piece of his past. The film travels back and forth time and locations – just as J. and Natasha find love in each other and elope to Mexico to start their live afresh while Tony and his gang is baying for their blood.
The biggest problem for Kites is its main lead characters played by Hrithik and Barbara lack sympathy what with both being gold diggers. While it may be trying to impress the Hollywood films audience, the basic plotline is extremely dated for a Hindi film. In fact at places you even feel you are watching Koyla in its remixed avatar. Yes it is visually stunning (brilliant camerawork by Ayananka Bose) and Hrithik seems to have given it his all. But the most important factor of the film, the script falters big time and the uneven pacing being the additional issue.
To give due credit, director Anurag Basu has given the film a gloomy operatic feel and the background score enhances this effect. Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori’s chemistry sizzles on screen despite their character’s language barrier. Their English-Spanish banter adds up to some funny moments. The countryside ambience of New Mexico, picturesque fountains of LA or the freeway chase in US, the virgin locations have been superbly captured. Rajesh Roshan’s music is very good, especially the song Zindagi Do Pal Ki. But mind you all the songs are played in the background and are not lip synced.
While Hrithik is outstanding in his role, Barbara is extremely good as well. There is an extremely endearing quality about her that you can’t help but end up falling in love with her as an actress. Nicholas Brown is menacingly good and is also a welcome change from the typical villain faces we see regularly. Kabir Bedi suits the part. Anand Tiwari playing Hrithik’s best buddy also is a refreshing addition. Kangana Ranaut does what she has been doing in all her past films. But just that she is just about a guest appearance.
Kites doesn’t justifying the hype surrounding it but if you still want to have a dekko, go in with zero expectations and some things including the unusual, unexpected ending may take you by surprise.
Rating: 2/5
Starring: Hrithik Roshan, Barbara Mori, Kangana Ranaut, Nicholas Brown, Anand Tiwari, Kabir Bedi
Director: Anurag Basu
KITES
Damned Dumb Dykes
Produced By: Rakesh Roshan
Directed By: Anurag Basu
Music By: Rajesh Roshan
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Barbara Mori, Kabir Bedi, Kangana Ranaut, Nick Brown
Review By: Dr Usman Khawaja
In 70s Shakti Samanta styles a masterly movie that alluded to the Indian allegory of kite being an illusion in time, which now is a genuine classic.
In 2010 we are faced with a horror road romcom which goes all the way on the American freeways from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and than back into Mexico, in the premise of promoting love across borders and demolishing barricades across cross cultural biases, in doing so it manages to crash multitudes of vehicles in clumsy car chases courtesy of Hollywood thrillers like ‘Ronin ‘and ‘Bullet’ and simultaneously it crashes all sound barriers with its sycophantic and grotesque background score that grates as harshly as the Nevada sun.
Mean while the non-existential plot involves a dance instructor called ‘J’ (Hrithik Roshan) who is a vibrant, extremely vivacious Indian living as a streetwise con man in Las Vegas, who deals in everything from gyrating on dance floors in obsequiously vulgar dance pieces styled from the best of Hema Malini and Vyjantimala ‘snake dances, as he has run out of all his previous tricks to plagiarise Govinda and Mithun Chakraborty.
He is stalked by a ravenous nymphomaniac, played by the lady Kangna who here is cast as the vamp, while her brother is the villain and their dad (Kabir Bedi) is the corny mafia chief who runs the state of Nevada.
Meanwhile a Mexican illegal immigrant is smuggled in and as she is the most beautiful woman to tread the casinos in Vegas, ever since Elizabeth Taylor, so everyone from Roshan to the brother of the vamp are enamoured of her.
Of course Mori falls for Hrithik and as this is discovered, they are marked for deletion, the two make an escape struck by the lightning bolt of love, and the whole of American-Mexican mafia chases the two lucky lovers who obviously escape every weapon from a handgun to a bazooka, while everybody else in sight is blasted into smithereens, very similar to our senses including the audio-visual and the sixth sense.
I will suffice to say that every ‘genre’ is stolen, rigged and tried by the director to make the kite fly but it does not even budge as the strings are so entangled in banal stereotypes and plagiarised from every classic Bollywood and Hollywood has made from ‘Buster Keaton’ to ‘James Cameron ‘.
Anurag Basu has two distinctly varied and acclaimed movies in his kit, namely
Murder and Metro and why he took this kitchen sink on board is a paradox as the storyline is a slander and the casting even worst as Hrithik Roshan can neither act nor dance,which is surprising, since the Dhoom 2 title dance was much better executed by the choreographer.
Mori and Roshan have atrocious accents and they mouth the most vile dialogues written in recent times, which ranges from Spanish to English to Hindi to Urdu, as the essential Muslim Samaritan cops up in the middle of Mexico to help the divine lovers, he is called Jamal Bhai and is quickly despatched with the obligatory holy Muslim dialogues.
Mori is neither photogenic nor an actress and is a total loss, while Kangana is totally wasted in a charade darting dragon eyes and dreadful dialogues.
The rest of the cast is who is who, with Kabir Bedi as the acrimonious mafia baron, who seems to be rather fed up of fathering two feckless ferociously evil kids, while all the white Americans are there to be shot at in a turkey shoot.
I am amazed that the cinematographer was actually taking this seriously, while shooting this horrendous mess with a finger in every pot.
But than if you are trying to make a dyke into a kite than you cannot be blamed for being dumb and the only denizen here is Las Vegas as everyone else is an alien and that explains the disaster.
As to how and why they all got there you do not want to go there but the director forces you into the most irritable and lamentable flashbacks to that fracas, which almost forces you into a sonorous Mexican siesta and that is the only quality of this ground breaking epic love story that transcends all your senses and still keeps from ascending an inch into the sky as a Kite.
Rating: 1/10