Kites - a seriously boring movie
The father-son duo of Rakesh and Hrithik Roshan have been known to give some interesting movies – movies with a strong storylines, better screenplay and some pretty good performances. When ‘Kites’ was announced, there was quite a hype about it – after all, It had Hrithik Roshan and a new, exotic face and Anurag Basu as a director. Does the movie do justice to the hype – read on.
Kites is the story of a mysteriously named ‘J’ (Hrithik Roshan) who is living in Vegas as a pauper, doing the odds and ends jobs in the City of Gold – eve taking part in the now common Green Card scam. Life takes a turn for the good when his dance student, Gina (Kangana Ranaut after putting on weight post Fashion) falls in love with him. Of course, the metrosexual man throws out a woman who breaks into his house to wish him a Valentine’s Day, only to walk back to her to find out she’s the daughter of a Casino in Vegas. Don’t worry about the size – everything is big in Vegas.
J thinks that his life is changing, and his dry runs on the road lit with glary lights will soon be soaked in champagne and whatever the casino owners in Vegas drink, until he sees Natasha, the Mexican beauty who is supposedly Gina’s brother Tony’s fiance. Well, cupid strikes and the two fall into a plummet of unrequited love and you know what happens when unrequited love is shown on Indian screens, no?
Let’s be frank about it – the hypers of the Industry will say that this is the modern Romeo and Juliet, etc, but this movie is as bland as they come. For a script whose ending you have an idea of since the first frame, you are worth a twist ending or even a happy ending at the end – but the movie maker is not in a good mood today.
The film is full of wasted opportunities and situations where direction takes over the storyline and performances. Come on, you have a movie based in Vegas and Mexico, you have Kabir Bedi as a casino owner who has a trigger happy son, you have a Indian con man and a Mexican woman who finally confesses that she is a con woman too – do you except an action packed adventure or a staid by the book love story? At the end of it nothing salvages the movie. Not the Hummers, not the sort of Mexican stand off that lasts for thirty seconds, not even the initial hood dancing – which is by far the best justified hood dancing this side of the Arabian Sea.
Even at two hours, the movie seems to be long and dragging you through the beginning, the middle and the end. And this is the movie where people will tell you that Hrithik Roshan reminds you of Robert De Niro, but hey, even a half handsome man wearing a fedora in Las Vegas will remind you of the Niro. At least he begins to get his pout right. The only saving grace of the movie is Barbara Mori, who has a much stronger character than her lover, J. She’s the one who does the hard work most of the time – from opening a train compartment shutter to robbing a bank – this Mexican gringa has it in her. If she remains in the film industry, she will end up with Jennifer Winget, as someone whom the film industry would hype up because the ‘other’ exotic beauty has become too pricey.
Make no mistake about it, Barbara Mori is a extremely beautiful lady who with the right backing can become a very good actress. She’s not one of those dumb actresses who are in the movie because they are exotic – she actually has the acting chops to execute the role of a woman who comes to Las Vegas and hooks a guy because she loves his money, is looking to get out because of his abusive ways, and is slowly but surely falling for a man whom she knows is in the same boat as hers.
Hrithik Roshan acts well as the person who is doomed because of his unrequited love, but his performance is hopelessly marred by yawn inducing slo mos, unneeded detailing and basically a storyline that you are ready to read off the last romance movie you saw. Doomed lovers were phased out of Bollywood right back in the ’80s and ’90s, and we have a modern, thinking audience that doesn’t go out of theaters thinking that this is their lot in life. The main culprit of this movie is the story – which may work with the saas bahu brigade and the young college goers, but if you are looking for fun and frolic and a bit of Vegas, get Oceans 11.
One star for showing me a Cadillac after a long time.
In short, director director Anurag Basu gives a seriously boring movie which is not helped by a storyline that is dug out from the canisters that were lost and forgotten back in the eighties. A movie about unrequited love in Las Vegas that lasts a bit too long for you to digest. Watch the movie if you want to see pretty Barbara Mori – she is beautiful.
