Susan Granger’s review of “Kites” (Reliance BIG Pictures)
If you’re tired of the seemingly endless sequels and re-visiting uninspiring fare, here’s something new, distinctive and different: an extravagant Bollywood-meets-Hollywood fantasy.
As the story opens, a hunky Las Vegas hustler, simply called J, has been left for dead, dumped from a freight train in the scorching heat of the Mexican desert. Barely clinging to life, charming, chiseled, emerald-eyed J (Punjabi megastar Hrithik Roshan) recalls the events that led to his predicament. These somewhat confusing flashbacks reveal how he was teaching dance classes when he met Gina (Kangana Ranaut), the spoiled daughter of an Indian/American casino owner (Kabir Bedi), and they became romantically involved. That leads him back to Linda (Japanese/Uruguayan/Mexican Barbara Mori), an illegal immigrant whom he once ‘married,’ so she could get her green card and who is now betrothed to Tony (Nick Brown), the hotheaded son of the same casino owner. Problem is: roguish J and sultry Linda are still legally married and now smitten with each other, becoming lovers-on-the-lam despite their gold-digging ambitions to marry for security and status in the United States. And Tony’s determined to wreak revenge.
Written by Robin Bhatt, Akarsh Khurana and Anurag Basu, who is also the director, from a story by producer Rakesh Roshan, there are two versions hitting select theaters – the overblown original runs 130 minutes and the second, pared down by director Brett Ratner, only 90. In the original, dialogue is in English, Spanish and Hindi with English subtitles. The second, “Kites: The Remix,” is all in English and aimed at a younger, hipper audience. This is an unprecedented strategy, offering an alternative to viewers who want to see more – or less – of the film at the same time.
Filmed in Las Vegas, Santa Fe and Los Angeles, these action-filled adventures are a preposterous, often incoherent hodgepodge of musical numbers, melodrama, robberies, shootouts and car chases, along with lots of stunts and special effects. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Kites” is a lush, lavish 7, hoping its highly entertaining international appeal will resonate at the box-office.
