Kites can never be a miss from my list as I am a big fan of the Roshan family, especially for giving birth to one of the most super talented actors Hritik Roshan. Hritik groomed under the able shadow of his family and launched himself superfluously under the Roshan banner in ‘Kahona Pyar Hai’ to reveal that the upcoming Bollywood badshah would be none other than him. (I won’t be surprised at all if he takes up the glorious crown in Hollywood too.) He is charismatic, charming and beautiful to be seen on-screen; be it dance, acting, or simple walking. I still remember the way he came up walking to Abhishek Bachchan when the cop discovered the real person behind the masks in ‘ Dhoom 2’ . Man, he took the breadth away! Or, those repressed feelings that suddenly arose on his facial expressions on seeing his earlier sketches and discovers the artist in his childhood can’t be regained after his retreat from terrorism in ‘Fiza’ . Only a class actor of immense potentials can reveal dialogues in expressions and Hritik does them flawlessly and magnificently everytime.
So when someone gives quality movies continuously and chooses minutely to select his films, it is expected that it will be above the mediocre genres. Kites seemed to be one of the most hyped and awaited movies of 2010; partially because it was coming from the great Roshan family and partially because of the controversies regarding Hritik & Latino muse Barbari Mori’s off-screen chemistry brewing in. However, the movie opened its counters last Thursday and ever since has successfully impressed the western theatre goers as one of the most near-to-Hollywood movie by any Bollywood banner - one more reason to run to the theatres and raise a toast for my dream man; though the movie was receiving mixed reactions under the Indian skies. Sunday morning I decided to plan seeing it with a close friend and also an MSian from Mumbai (ss vikas) to explore the movie.
The movie starts with a significant symbolism on Kites: that the existence of two kites flying happily in the sky is never possible. There can exist only one kite which needs to stop and overthrow the other equally powerful kite from soaring high, in order to reign alone in this vast blue endless span. We see physically wounded Hritik and love torn vagrant seeks out in search of his beloved, picking up traces from places visited in the past. And the movie goes to the flashback where Hritik an insignificant hustler of Las Vegas and a dance teacher also earns his wages through eleven fake marriages from which he gets a commission out of each wedding and the brides receive the U.S. green card. In one of such eleven weddings he weds an illegal immigrant Linda/Natasha who being unable to repay the commission to her fake husband lends out her overcoat and bra to meet the cost. In the meantime J, the name given to Hritik in this movie bumps to Gina (Kangana) who is a student and an ardent lover of J lands up proposing marriage that J turns down. But when he finds Gina the geese to golden eggs of Bob (Kabir Bedi) the famous casino owner of Las Vegas, he accepts the proposal readily and greedily. While J gets cozy with Gina’s family he learns that Gina’s brother Tony (Nick Brown) is betrothed to Natasha/Linda who was once married to J for a green card.
J realizes here that both Natasha and he are engaged to this family because of their enormous wealth but destiny plays a nasty game of bringing them closer and fall for each other. Hence they flee together a night before Natasha’s wedding and henceforth the chase begins. Rest of film you would see either the lead couples being chased by goons or fair looking cops, groomed typically Indian way, or looting banks as a means of earning or the hero chasing the goons and also being chased. Confused? Well, I was confused in the same way which successfully made me yawn.
Exceptionally poor script which was written by three great icons of Bollywood, the director himself, Anurag Basu, Robin Bhatt and Akarsh Khurana. What kind of gem was there in the script? I found ‘I love you’ spoken in 3 different languages, one of which is ‘main ullu ki patthi hu’, and some earlier used old, b-grade dialogues repeated all through. Well, ‘Love is a music’ as our hero speaks out during his marriage with the Latino beauty Linda, I wonder where the music is? Is it in the goon’s gun shots that topple everytime when the couple romances or is it in the mercilessly used lavish cars only for accident purposes? As Anurag Basu tries to bridge the gap between two poles apart individuals in union in his canvas called love, the goons are forever there ready to puncture his thought process. Neither could he portray love nor a fast-paced action movie. Have this director created masterpieces like ‘ Gangster ’ and ‘ Life in a Metro ’ where he never failed to capture any facial expressions of undercurrent grief of a gangster in his failed love, or the trauma of a young guy seeing his beloved sharing the bed with his boss in his own apartment? Gosh! What’s the matter with Mr. Basu?
The stunts shown were good and brave but picked up from earlier Bollywood movies. I would caste my vote for Abbas-Mustan unique and entertaining stunts, or Ramu’s fast ones, or Vishal Bharadwaj’s cold, ruthless action scenes than anyone over here. Coming to the story is the greatest drawback in the movie with an ordinary and predictable climax. Infact the story finishes before the intermission itself and thereafter, the movie becomes a bigtime bore. Rajesh Roshan’s music is impressive but not superb, though the background scores can be given a ‘thumbs up’ w.r.t. to other failures. The only thing that amused me as a lease of fresh air is its locales, especially the climax where J appears in a cliff near a vast blue sea. His deep blue gaze perfectly complimented the depth of the sea.
( ...Continued in the comment section on the casting of the movie)