DUBAI // The hazel-green eyes and sculpted physique of the Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan do not save Bollywood's English experiment Kites: The Remix from diving big time. Firstly, in the interest of full disclosure, I actually like the bronzed Roshan, the male star, who usually chooses his projects with care.
However, from the moment that a battered and bruised Roshan staggers across the desert searching for his love after waving goodbye to a Mexican family who saved him from succumbing to gunshot wound, the sinking feeling intensifies that the plot will make little sense. Why does Roshan not ask for a ride, as a horse would do fine here, from the family? Instead he collapses, whispering "I need water" on reaching the spot where he last saw his lady love, the Mexican actress Barbara Mori, and where her thug of a fiance left him for dead.
The crux of the story about Roshan and Mori, who use their American green-card status to wed illegals for cash, could have made for an interesting movie if handled better. Instead, the choppy film lurches from a mindless car chase to an unintentionally hilarious hot-air balloon escape from the bad guys, to more mindless car chases peppered with badly done, stylised gun-toting scenes. A Bollywood dance sequence may have actually lifted the English version. There is one stereotypical rain dance that Hindi-language movies are famous for, where Mori in a slinky black dress prances with Roshan.
What is ultimately disappointing is that the film makes no attempt to make sense. The lovers cannot communicate because Roshan speaks Hindi and English while Mori understands only Spanish. Still, in one scene, Mori breathlessly tells him: "Me no die. We make babies." Now that's dialogue. The story moves so jerkily between the past and the present that you lose interest in whether the two lovers will find each other. The final verdict - wait for Roshan's next big film.
@Email:rtalwar@thenational.ae
