Overall Rating: 2.25/5
A plain vanilla ice-cream would taste frivolously different if we add a delicate layer of chocolate syrup over it. Add raisins, almond, cashew nuts, whipped cream, hot fudge and sprinkles – the same plain vanilla ice-cream worth ten rupees would carry the weight of an exotic dessert, would find its place on the carte of the best luncheonettes and as the case may be, might sell for more than thousand rupees.
Anurag Basu did a smart remix-job with his directorial extravaganza – ‘Kites’. He added the charming cinematographic sauce of Ayananka Bose to the magical chemistry between Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori, garnished the blend with the editing mastery of Avik Ali, frosted the mélange with the choreography of Flexy Stu and Loren L and beatified the cliché love story with the color of three different languages: English, Hindi and Spanish. The final product – a slick movie that scintillates the screen with the Greek God looks of Hrithik Roshan and the oomph of Barbara Mori, but unfortunately, terribly predictable and too long for my appointment with a predicted disappointment of 127 minutes.
Anurag Basu’s ‘Kites’ has an international appeal, gone unsteady at places. I couldn’t understand what exactly Basu tried portraying Roshan Junior as - an optical feast or an intense lover!! Basu’s desperate attempts to present Hrithik as a modish cowboy met with the defense system of Hrithik to present a lame picture of an untidy script. Basu should have watched ‘Midnight Cowboy’ to know why a background score lifted from a cult cowboy flick doesn’t add substance to a character that wears a hat for no clear reasons. I would save some amount of energy by not discussing the music of the movie. The same Rajesh Roshan of Koyla, Kaho Na Pyaar Hai and Karan Arjun fame drew up the music of Kites!
In a bid to add an international flavor to the movie, the director invested heavily on the technical details of the movie and the chemistry between the light-eyed J (Hrithik) and Linda/Natasha (Barbara). While the Spanish language was sublimely romancing the lingua franca of ‘Main ullu ki pathhi hoon’ and was passionately kissing the tongue of ‘Now return my kiss...’ through the language of love, the screenplay lost all its hopes from the pale story that showed no zeal and rested its case.
Hrithik’s dance number would undoubtedly mesmerize you to the point that you would ignore Kangana Ranaut’s sincere efforts to match his histrionics. She came, she shook her legs and she left but not a single heart missed her. Barbara, though not phenomenally breathtaking, would certainly make you believe in her broken English. The one word that goes for Nicholas Brown as the essential villain is ‘superb’. Kabir Bedi played the churlish casino owner with a dash of sophistication. This ‘Kites’ would for a fact fly to the territories yet unexplored by Bollywood.
The one thing i liked most in the movie was the intermission for then was showed the theatrical promo of the forthcoming movie ‘Raavan’. It looks and sounds like a movie that brings together the likes of Mani Ratnam, A R Rahman, Gulzar and Santosh Sivan. My hopes are high but you never know. Promos are mostly deceptive and Bollywood has time and again strengthened my belief.
