BANG BANG: Mission Entertainment, Failed! [2/5]

Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz starrer KNIGHT AND DAY wasn’t an extraordinary action movie outing at the first place; so when Bollywood has come up with an idea to officially remake it, expecting anything better to come out of it is surely our fault and not of the makers. Since Bollywood has now become quite an expert with remaking their own classics into the most forgettable ones, you can only imagine what would have they done with an average Hollywood action thriller. Siddharth Anand’s BANG BANG is a regular bollywood junk suitable only to those who crave for quick, forgettable and mindless adrenaline rush for their dose of entertainment.

Rajveer [Played by the delectably charming Hrithik] is a daredevil wanted for stealing the historical Kohinoor Diamond from a museum in London and can frequently be seen in Shimla roaming with the ‘diamond’ in his pocket. In a ‘written as in the script’ incident, he meets a middle-class desperate girl [Katrina, of course] with starry dreams to tour the world someday. And now the both should be together in the hide & seek game with cops [Pavan Malhotra, wasted] & the international crime syndicates [Danny Denzongpa & Javed Jaffrey] to save each other’s lives. But there is a twist, Rajveer is hardly who he pretends to be.

Problems with BANG BANG never really end. Where the original Hollywood flick had its own share of logic behind every action and plot developments, this Bollywood version hardly tries to be imaginative or logical. One action sequence leads to an abrupt song & dance number followed by another action sequence and another song & dance number! This goes on & on until the intermission. You take the loo-break, join the movie and it starts all over again. The most irritating transitions between scenes are Katrina waking up in the bed, in a new location, in a new country. 2 hours 35 minutes and you hardly see a smart espionage moment. Yes, there are brilliantly performed action thrills but no moment of shock even in the climax. If you could not see it coming, that’s never because of their excellence but your inattentiveness.  

Siddharth actually doesn’t leave any stone unturned to make it a proper Bollywood film. A bollywood film that never doubts on the moves of its hero, in fact it tries to cover him up. BANG BANG does exactly the same…with all of the film. So, more than 25 films in her name and we still have to give reasons [read: excuses] for Katrina’s accented vocal presentation. So she might possess ‘Harleen’ as her name, she is a Canada born child whose parents are dead in a terrible road accident [as convenient as swimming is to a fish] and now she is living with her grandmother in Shimla from last 10 years or more. Established in first half an hour, now do not you dare to ask why she can’t talk in proper accent?

My two favorite moments are probably the only moment I had an effortless smile on my face. When press asks the grandmother about Harleen’s whereabouts, she tells them that she had to consult her lawyer first and one media-person reacts, “Dadi, American serials dekhna band karo!” In other, Hrithik makes faces and pun about Katrina’s boring single life and her search for boyfriend on dating sites. Genuinely funny and natural!

On the performances, Hrithik manages to keep everyone hooked with his ease at action, silkiness in dance and the big screen charisma of the heroic chiseled-oiled body muscles. Deepti Naval & Kanwaljeet mark their presence felt. Rests in the supporting cast are either wasted completely or extremely regular. Watch out if breathtaking locales, hard to imitate dance moves, some good action sequences and your favorite stars are enough to make you spend [read: waste] your precious time and hard-earned money. It deserves nothing less than a place in the list of AAP MUJHE ACHCHE LAGNE LAGE and KITES! [2/5].