The first half of the movie is straight lift from Jude Law starrer “Alfie”. Our Bollywood version marks the intermission where the original “Alfie” ends. I wish “Bachna Ae Haseeno” had stayed the way the original was.
But, here in Bollywood the hero cannot be a bad person, hence post interval the movie gets into the clean up act of the central character Raj ( read Ranbir Kapoor) . Just to tell the audience, he was a bad boy, but he has changed and become a nice person. Please don’t hate him…
And that’s where the movie didn’t work for me. The movie looked good in the first half when Raj is a bad boy and leaving life on his terms. Of course there were few opening sequences in Switzerland which were very poorly handled and I was really irritated with constant reference to the “Dilwale Dhulhaniya Le Jayenge” movie. But more than the opening sequence, it was the second half were the makers wanted to play safe. Second half takes the movie in a predictable zone and I was like, here we go….
A typical melodrama and they lived happy ever after. Aditya Chopra probably thought that the bad boy cannot just sleep around and then ask a question to himself at the end of all this, as it was in “Alfie”. It was a risk from Bollywood standards. But I think it’s time we come out of our comfort zones and pre-conceived notions and do things differently. If papa Yashji can take that risk with “Lamhe” in 1991, I am sure beta Aditya could have definitely done that in 2008. But, who am I to say that, they wanted to make it look like another Yashraj movie that follows the traditional beautiful locals, good music, beautiful ladies and it all ends well. Since we had 3 beautiful ladies here, they decided to go not only to Europe, but Australia and Italy as well. There is no doubt that this movie was an eye candy with neat locations and three beautiful ladies on board.
Raj meets 3 ladies in Switzerland, Mumbai and Australia. But, the one who really sets the screen on fire was the Mumbai girl “Radhika” ( read Bipasha Basu ). If I had to pick one of the 3 beauties who came out as winner , it would be Bipasha Basu. To think of it, I thought she would not gel with Ranbir as a on screen pairing. But, she proved me wrong. What an amazing screen presence she had even when she was sharing the screen with young lad Ranbir Kapoor. Not only in the first half, but even in the second half it was Bipasha who stole the show for me. Of course Deepika was beautiful, but she needs few more lessons in acting department. Also, her character “Gayatri” was return so poorly that you don’t understand the turn around towards the end. Coming to Minissha Lamba, she didn’t really work for me. I never saw the connection between her and Ranbir on screen. Again that’s just me. Also, instead adding a song in the second half with Minissha and Ranbir, it would have made more sense if they had sketched out the characters and their interactions in a way that the clean up act by Raj comes across more convincingly. I wish more time was spent on the storyline and screenplay rather than hunting for locations around the globe. Coming to Ranbir Kapoor, though his character ages from 20 to 30, there wasn’t much to do as far as acting goes. He does a good job with whatever little script had to offer to his character. I really liked the scenes between him and Bipasha, they seemed much more natural than the others.
I never really liked Siddharath Anand’s “Salaam Namastey” and “Ta Ra Rum Pum”, but looking at the promos of “Bachana Ae Haseeno” and with 2 movies behind him, I was hoping he would have grown as a director. But, I was wrong. I just have to be little bit more cautious before going for another Siddharath Anand film. Check this movie out, if you are a fan of traditional yashraj movies with gloss and glamour. I promise you will not be disappointed. But, if you put the story and screenplay before look and feel than take this chance at your own risk. One star for Locations and One for Bipasha