Bang Bang: Movie review; Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Katrina Kaif, Danny Denzongpa, Javed Jaffrey, Pawan Malhotra; Director: Siddharth Anand
Rating: *1/2
A film called ‘Bang Bang’, toplined by Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif, declares its intentions even before the first frame : there will be guns, there will be the sexy duo, and EVERYONE will go bang bang. When that is all that is going on, the film is a ride. When it decides to go all sentimental and family drama on us? and it does, it does? it slides.
Rajveer (Roshan) is the kind of guy who stops a maiden?s heart at six feet. He also stops bullets, punches, chains, rods : in short, he is invincible. It helps that he is a hunk, pectorals and abs agleam, and is about to save the world. We don?t surmise this, he tells us. Right.
He meets-cute the pretty but lonesome Harleen (Kaif) who goes through the film trying for the defining characteristics her character is saddled with: ditsy and sprightly. It takes a bad guy all the way to the climax to tell her to keep quiet : ‘na mazaak, na bakwaas’. Got that.
We also know that this is the kind of film that will be largely plotless because well, fast-paced thrillers don?t really need to have plot-points, do they? We are duly given some kerfuffle about a stolen diamond ( the Kohinoor, no less), a suave thief, and a bald-pated villain (Denzongpa) who wants that stone. Two fine actors (Malhotra and Jaffrey) are made to grimace and grouch and little else. And post-interval, Rajveer is made to show just how ripped he is (all over again) when he is not preparing for Masterchef, spearing fish and cooking peppers. Err, what? This is meant to be an official remake of the fairly dull ‘Knight And Day’ which had Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz whizzing about pretty European cities, dodging baddies. This is an equally glossy, globe-trotting production and Hrithik and Katrina are better looking than the Hollywood pair, but they are duller: not so much because of Hrithik who is having a blast, just the way he did in ‘Dhoom 2’, but because of the leading lady, who is given an annoyingly big speaking part. Also, I missed the heat between Hrithik and Aishwarya, his oppo in ?Dhoom 2? : Kaif is more giggle than sizzle, her lipstick immaculate in a shower. Why is Bollywood so chary of the pure, no holds-barred thriller? In case we can?t deal with flying bullets, we are given schmaltzy back-stories of deceased brothers and teary parents. And does the product placement and promotion never end? And flung in so blatantly? ‘Darr ke aagey jeet hai’? Okay then. the leading man is an electric dancer, but is used well in only one number: the other songs-and-dances are not worth a song and dance. Hrithik Roshan is the film?s eye candy and the prime shooter, all rolled into one, and gives you some amount of bang. The rest is burble.
shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com
