Kites (2010)

Star Power: Hrithik Roshan

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 7 Chilies

Music: 3 out of 7 Chilies

Choreography: 3.5 out of 7 Chilies

Synopsis:
While unloading a train car, a group of Mexican workers come upon the unconsious body of a man shot in the back. The man, Jai (Hrithik Roshan) is nursed back to health by nearby farmers and begins a long trek across the Mexican landscape, recalling the series of events which have left him in this state.
Three months earlier, Jai was a poor dance teacher in the city of Las Vegas, conning the casinos and marrying women eager to get green cards in order to make an extra buck. One day, one of his dance students, Gina (Kangna Ranaut) follows him home and professes her love for him. He refuses and sends her home, only to find that she is the daughter of casino-owner Bob Grover, one of the richest and most well-connected men on the strip. Rethinking his refusal, Jai sets out to marry Gina for her money. Even when brutally confronted with the Grovers' mafia-like control of the city and their nonchalance to violence, he decides to keep playing along, but it is his meeting with Natasha (Barbara Mori), Gina's brother Tony's fiance, that changes everything. Natasha, (whose real name is Linda) was the last of the eleven women that Jai married, and the only one he ever really noticed. On the pretence of finalizing their divorce in secret, the two meet up and discover that they are both only marrying into the Grover family for the money and that their true love is for each other. A fight with Tony makes up their minds and they decide to flee the city together, but escape is anything but easy...

Comments:
"It always rains in Vegas." This utterly absurd statement about a desert city in which the average rainfall per month is never more than half an inch and which boasts about having more than 300 sunny days per year is just a small indication of just how silly, confusing and terrible this movie was. After watching this film, my family and I sat down and had a good long laugh about all the stupid things in this movie which made absolutely no sense. Here's an example, just to give you an idea: about half-way through the film, Jai and Linda are on the run and the bad guys are about to catch up to them in the middle of the desert when they run across a bunch of people taking off in hot air ballons. They suddenly decide to make their escape by jumping on to one of these ballons as it lifts off into the air and they leap in from their moving truck, taking control from the passengers, who only speak Chinese. Their truck then crashes into another car and explodes, the smoke cloud screening their escape. Now, let's think about this. For one thing, I don't think you could find a slower, more highly visible and vulnerable means of escape than a hot air balloon - one shot in the canvas and you come right back down to earth, and the smoke cloud would hide them for all of, what, thirty seconds? All the bad guys had to do was walk around it and our heros would still be there, twenty feet away, slowly drifting skyward. But no, in the next scene Tony gets a call saying they've gotten away (temporarily, of course). Also, one has to wonder how a pair of Chinese tourists who don't speak a word of English managed to arrange to be part of a ballooning group and then got sent up alone. Unless these are ballooning experts from Szechuan, it really doesn't make a lot of sense. The movie is filled with silly and annoying moments like this and the continuity is not helped by the choppy narrative style, which switches back and forth between the present, Jai's flashbacks and flashbacks within the flashbacks. Clearly a lot of money was spent making this film, with lots of high-speed chases, explosions, gunfire and Hrithik himself, but in the end you can't help feeling that it was all kind of wasted. The music is basically a non-factor - there's not much of it and it's not particularly remarkable. Kites, (a title which, by the way, has no explanation in the story, except for a non-sequitur voice-over in the beginnning) basically tries to capture the feeling of about fifty different movies - Bonnie and Clyde, Ocean's Eleven, Dhoom, etc. - but ends up so confused that it's worse than all of them. "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" - so please, by all means, leave this movie there.

Jeevan Mrityu (1970)

Star Power: Dharmendra, Raakhee Gulzar, Ajit

Overall Rating: 5 out of 7 chilies

Music: 4.5 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 4 out of 7 chilies

Synopsis:
Ashok Tandon (Dharmendra) is released from prison after serving his term and tries his best to pick up the pieces of the life he left behind seven years before. But he finds that much of the world he remembers has changed: his mother has died, his friend has moved away and the woman he loved has disappeared. While on the way to try to find the house of a friend, he is robbed by a thief who is then hit by a train, convincing the rest of the world that he is dead. Ashok begs a place to sleep for the night in the back yard of a wealthy man's home and while there, manages to avert a robbery planned by the wealthy man's nephews. Out of gratitude, the wealthy man invites Ashok in and coerces him into relating the sad story of how his life had gone so wrong, a tale of betrayal, wrongful accusations and lost love. The story is not over, however, and with the rich man behind him Ashok sets out to seek justice and revenge...

Comments:
This is a good, solid film out of vintage Bollywood. The plot is based off of the famous novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, and the movie really does a good job of adapting it to the world of 1970s India. Dharmendra gives another great performance, both as Ashok and the many disguised aliases which he adopts over the course of the film - he's so believeable it can be hard to realize it's really him! There isn't much music here - only two songs: "Jhilmil Sitaron Ka" and "Zamane Mein Aji", but they're both thoroughly enjoyable numbers.

Kisna: The Warrior Poet (2005)

Star Power: Vivek Oberoi, Sushmita Sen (Cameo in Item Song)

Overall Rating: 3 out of 7 chilies

Music: 5.5 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 5.5 out of 7 chilies

Synopsis:
When a famous wealthy British woman comes to tour India, she surprises everyone by deciding to make her first stop a little-known mountain province. Though usually reluctant to discuss her past, that evening she begins to explain the story of her life.
More than 50 years earlier, Katherine (Antonia Bernath) is the daughter of a strict provincial governor growing up on the eve of Indian independance. When nationalists attack her family and burn her home, Katherine seeks the help of a childhood friend, a young man named Kisna (Vivek Oberoi). Leaving behind his fiancee, Lakshmi (Isha Sharvani), he agrees to help guide her to safety, evading both the radical nationalists and the brutal Prince Raghuraj (Rajat Kapoor), who wants Katherine for himself. As the two cross India looking for refuge, Katherine realizes her love for her protector, and Kisna finds himself torn between the promises he has made...

Comments:
Another historical film in the vein of Lagaan and Mughal-e-Azam, Kisna: The Warrior Poet unfortunately lacks many of the qualities which made those other films great. Perhaps the greatest testament to this film's blandness is the fact that it took me several weeks just to get through it. The characters are all pretty flat, with Katherine one of the worst offenders. She is first gratingly cheerful and then mournfully lovestruck, and spends most of the film waiting for Kisna to save her from some predicament. After the first twenty minutes, the film bcomes one long chase which does nothing if not prove the fact that the world is a very small place, as one group of bad guys or another seems to catch up to Kisna and Katherine just about every few minutes. The music is really very good, but even songs like "Woh Kisna Hai" or "Chilman Uthegi Nahin" with great choreography and beautiful melodies can't really save this film. I have to admit, the part of the film I enjoyed the most was probably the short sequence surrounding the latter of those two songs, featuring Sushmita Sen as the dancer Naima Begum, but that was only perhaps twenty minutes out of the total 171 minute running time.

Dhoom (2004)

Star Power: Abhishek Bachchan, Esha Deol, John Abraham

Overall Rating: 4 out of 7 chilies

Music: 4 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 3 out of 7 chilies

Synopsis:
Mumbai is in the grip of a wave of robberies commited by a gang of thieves riding high-speed motorcycles and ace investigator ACP Jai Dixit (Abhishek Bachchan) is called in to find them and bring them to justice. Tearing himself away from his beautiful wife, Sweety (Rimi Sen), Jai begins to investigate the bike-racing world and soon meets up with Ali (Uday Chopra), a happy-go-lucky racer who's not above bending a few laws to make a buck. After Jai puts the pressure on, Ali agrees to help him catch the thieves, but catching up to them may take more than just speed...

Comments:
This first installment of the Dhoom series is a good introduction to both of the main male characters, but there's not a lot of substance to this film. There's just a few too many scenes spent in closeups on the female leads' hips and not enough time spent really getting to know the characters. The dynamic between Jai and Ali is quite well developed and we get to understand Ali quite well, but no one else has much of a personality. Little attempt is made to humanize the thieves or the hero - Jai wants to catch them because it's justice, and the thieves steal because they want money - no backstory, no motivation, they just do. The songs are good, but not really outstanding - "Dilbara" is cute and sweet, and "Dhoom Machale" has a good beat. Basically, if you're looking for a fun action flick, I would recommend you give this one a pass and go for Dhoom 2 instead.

Gumnaam (1965)

(Please excuse the webaddress on the image)

Star Power: Helen, Pran, Mehmood

Overall Rating: 5.5 out of 7 chilies

Music: 6.5 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 4 out of 7 chilies

Synopsis:

While at a nightclub, a group of strangers discover that they have won a drawing for free vacation. On the way to their destination, the plane develops engine trouble and they land on a seemingly deserted island for repairs. The group disembarks, along with one of the crew members, only for the plane to take off again, leaving them stranded. Eventually they find their way to a mansion in the forest, where they find they are expected. As they settle in and learn more about each other, they discover their pasts are linked and when people start turning up dead, old secrets might be fatal...

Comments:

A campy thriller from the 1960s, this film might not be for everyone, but if you're looking for something offbeat and fun, Gumnaam is for you. The film is based on Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None, (albeit loosely) and the story can be a little hard to follow in places, as not everyone's motives seem to be fully explained and quite a lot of the exposition comes all at once at the end. Perhaps the most incongruous part of the whole thing is how nonchalant and unfazed everyone seems about the prospect of being trapped in a mansion with a murderer. The choreography is more than a little shaky, but the music really makes up for it with catchy numbers like "Jan Pehechan Ho" and the haunting "Gumnaam Hai Koi" (to the tune of Henry Mancini's "Charade").

Hum Saath Saath Hain:We Stand United (1999)

Star Power: Saif Ali Khan, Salman Khan, Karisma Kapoor, Tabu, Sonali Bendre

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 chilies

Music: 6 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 5.5 out of 7 chilies

Synopsis:

Vivek (Mohnish Behl), Prem (Salman Khan), Vinod (Saif Ali Khan) and Sangeeta (Neelam Kothari) are siblings in a tight-knit family, each with their own romantic path to follow. Vivek has had trouble finding a bride due to a disability with makes him unable to use one of his hands, but when he meets Sadna (Tabu) at his parents' anniversary party, she soon makes it clear that it is his love which matters. Prem has known Preeti (Sonali Bendre) since childhood, but neither has had the heart to express their feelings to each other. Vinod and Sapna (Karisma Kapoor), the daughter of a family friend, joke and laugh with each other, but that too is fast developing into love. Each of these relationships progresses well, but when Sangeeta and her husband are thrown out of their home by her husband's brother, the family's mother, Mamta, is coerced by Sapna's father and some of her friends to alienate Vivek to prevent him from doing the same to his brothers. Can the family ever be reunited?

Comments:

I'll be honest, there isn't a lot of plot to this movie. Of the movie's entire 2 hour and 57 minute length, the actual main conflict in the film doesn't pop up until about 2 hours in. The first two hours are taken up entirely with the development of the relationships between the three brothers and their chosen girls, but there's not really any trials or even miss-steps along the way. Everyone's just happy, REALLY happy, and while there's nothing wrong with that, it doesn't make for the most exciting watching. The music and choreography were both pretty good, especially the big numbers like "Maiya Yashoda" and "Sunoji Dulhan Ki Baat", but as there are little self-contained storylines within both songs, it definitely helps to have a version that offers subtitles for the songs as well as the dialogue (my version did not, so I had to find subtitled clips of the songs on Youtube). Another confusing point is that about 15 of the characters are introduced together right at the beginning, so it can be difficult to keep everyone straight to begin with. Overall, then, it's a good movie to watch if you're looking for fluff, but not something I think I would seek out to watch again.

Band Baaja Baaraat (2010)

Star Power: Anushka Sharma, Ranveer Singh

Overall Rating: 6 out of 7 chilies

Music: 6 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 5.5 out of 7 chilies

Synopsis:

Shruti Kakkar (Anushka Sharma) is a young college student who dreams of starting a wedding planning company before she marries. Bittoo Sharma, (Ranveer Singh) is a student at the same college as Shruti and the two first meet when Bittoo and several other friends sneak into a wedding that Shruti is helping her aunt coordinate. In spite of this rough start to their friendship, Bittoo finds a reason to meet her again and it is then that she explains her wedding planning idea to him. Bittoo scoffs at the idea at first, but when he is later confronted with the choice of returning to the family farm or finding a job in town, he decides to convince Shruti to let him become a partner in her business. She eventually agrees, on the understanding that their relationship will be strictly a business one, and they name their company Shaadi Mubarak. As their company grows, the two grow closer together, but can their business survive the trials and misunderstandings of love?....

Comments:

A good, fun modern movie with a lot of humor and good performances from both of the leads. I found Anushka Sharma's portrayal of Shruti a good deal more believable than that of her character in Rab ne Bana di Jodi (2008), and Ranveer Singh, (in his debut role) makes a great humorous counterpoint to her character. There aren't a lot of songs, but the music is fast-paced and quite catchy, especially the main theme, "Ainvayi Ainvayi", which is definitely worth a watch (see Must-See-Songs Part II).