Kites (2010)

Kites is directed by Anurag Basu, produced by Rakesh Roshan & stars Hrithik Roshan, Barbara Mori, Kangana Ranaut, and Kabir Bedi amongst others. Story by Rakesh Roshan, Screenplay by Anurag Basu, Robin Bhatt and Akarsh Khurana, Music by Rajesh Roshan, Cinematography by Ayananka Bose.

My review is for the 130 minute Indian version. For your info, next week a 90 minute international remix version of Kites is going to be released which was re-edited under the supervision of Brett Ratner (director of Rush Hour series and X-Men:The Last Stand).  

Some of the reactions that I observed in the theater. At the 80 minute mark, the person adjacent to me is whispering in a tired voice "Oh my God! how much more time is the movie going to last?" At the end of the movie, I saw a group of friends waking one of their friends. There are uniform sighs of disappointment from the audience by the time end credits started rolling. You may guess now in which direction this review is going to be.

I saw the trailer of Kites a couple of months ago and was not at all impressed by it. So I went to the screening with a bit of low expectations. But the movie was worse than my already lower expectations.

If the purpose of the movie is to entertain the audience, then the movie failed miserably. The romance between the leads appeared very forced to me. I love love stories but this romance didn't touch my heart at all. Baring a couple of scenes, the comedy too appeared as if it is placed because it has to be there. As far as the actions sequences goes, I don't know how many of my fellow movie lovers felt they are good but I felt more thrilled while playing NFS than watching these action pieces. Since when does American police cars have become crackers which explode at the slightest crash? Every day you can see atleast one movie in HBO or Star Movies whose action sequences are better than these. Are there many dance sequences in the movie? Nope. There is one at the beginning which by now should have been present at YouTube or some other such site.

I couldn't believe that 4 people are involved with the story and screenplay. I can guess their initial thought process here. Rakesh Roshan got the idea about a love story where the lovers don't understand each other's language. Then he commissioned others and they wanted to make this love story an epic with great romance and great action. But neither of them, especially the romance part is not at all interesting and the worse thing is that it is boring. I think that on every page of the script, there is only a poster of Hrithik and how to cash his name and nothing else. Basically what you have in the movie is a romantic scene - action scene - romantic scene - action scene. After a while it really is a torturous experience to hear the dialog between Hrithik and Barbara and I was thinking "Oh no! not another romantic dialog please".

You know your supporting cast acting was bad when Kabir Bedi gives a robotic performance. It is also time for Kangana Ranaut to say no to such repeat roles of psychologically damaged woman. This is some serious talent caught in an image which is damaging the career.   

So what are the good points of the movie. Undoubtedly Hrithik Roshan. This is a Hrithik show allover & he is fantastic. Nobody in his generation in Bollywood has his screen presence. In the single dance sequence of the movie, he dances superlatively. His performance is also very good. Much has been written about Barbara Mori. She is beautiful no-doubt and she is good in her role. The music is average fare but the cinematography is good.

I strongly think that it is high time Hrithik comes out of his 'khandaani' films (films that have anything to deal with Rakesh Roshan) and select some good subjects outside. It feels bad to see the wastage of such a talent. Most of his films depend on his style but style is temporary. I'm very sure that Mithun Chakraborty was a style icon in 80s but who cares about his films and style now except the judges and contestants of Dance India Dance. The style of Hrithik is going to be outdated in 20 years and so would be films such as this or Dhoom series because by then more trendy movies and some other cool hunk will appear. One should admire Ranbir Kapoor for his job as far as selecting the movies is considered.    

This movie is strictly for girls or gays who are absolutely delirious & crazy about Hrithik. Since I am neither of those, Kites didn't work for me at all. A movie could be anything but boring which Kites sadly is. I really hope that the international version being released next week isn't as boring as this although I'm not very optimistic about it.

Verdict: 3/10    

p.s: The really best part of the 130 or so minutes that I spent in the theater didn't came from this movie but rather from the trailers of Vedam and Raavan which were shown in the interval. My friends know that Maniratnam is one of my all-time favourite Indian directors. With a fantastic music, I think Raavan is going to be an excellent watch. I'm actually dying to see this in Telugu rather than Hindi because I think Vikram is a far better actor than Abhishek Bachchan and he is going to rock as Veera. But the real surprise was the trailer of the Telugu flick Vedam which I absolutely loved. Telugu film industry needs some good multi-starrers. Lot of politics and factions right now. By the trailer, Vedam looks like a movie without too much artificiality. Vedam is directed by Radhakrishna (Gamyam fame) and the cast includes Allu Arjun, Anushka, Manoj Manchu, Manoj Bajpai, Brahmanandam. The performances and the dialogs in the trailer were great. Check this dialog by Anushka who portrays a prostitute "In any job, the more the experience the more the pay. But in our job, the less the experience the more the pay". Hope the movie lives up-to my expectations. A couple of Vedam posters below.

Love to hear what you thought about Kites or my review,