Kites - Post all reviews HERE-First Full reviewpg2 - Page 7

I wanna see it soon...am dying to watch hrithik after two years...

the american reviews have been unanimous in praise

alrite...just saw it! herz my review

i thought the film was strictly ok...i mean most of the time it was very predictable and cliched and you could guess the so called suspense. The muvie reminded me a LOT of koyla and sadak (sanjay dutt, pooja bhatt starrer). The way hrithik and barbara fall in luv is nice but not mindblowing or anything...i expected more from anurag basu, who made some gr8 films like life in a metro and gangster. But with kites, he turns too mills and boons ish with heaps of slow motion scenes that get very irritating after a point. Every moment need not be EPIC...but anurag tried to show it tht way, which didnt work. Scenes showing the lead couple "escaping" from the bank robbery, the shootouts, and police were unintentionally funny because they were so ridiculous. The action part in the film is also not awe-insipiring, but run on the mill "car crash" stuff which we have seen in several muvies.

now cuming to the performances - kangana was completely wasted....her role and track were so half baked and her english grated on my nerves. The dude who played the villain tony, was too stereotypical and evil to believe and his american accent seemed put on. All the other characters are pretty much half baked.

Now the lead pair. Barbara Mori was a dissapointment because i couldnt warm up to her or relate to her character. She luked too mature for hrithik and flashed her teeth wayy too often. But all said and done, although her character is lovely, she is not likable. Linda is this gal who is fiesty, tough, beautiful, yet tender and sweet at the same time. but I somehow didnt find barbara convincing. There was something missing. She failed to contribute towards any chemistry with hrithik. overall, im not tht impressed. :(

Duggu! oh duggu!! u can sit through this entire movie only for duggu's performance. He is simply awesome!! All the so called chemistry, the romance came from him, because of his wonderfully expressive eyes and his pitch perfect body language. Yes, he did overact a couple of times (especially with the face twitching and crying), but he is totally convincing as J, the greedy dude whose life changes when he meets linda. Two thumbs up...LOVE U DUGGU. Although i would also add that i expected a bit more from the "fire" dance number...the choreography was mediocre. :(

all in all, a dissapointing movie. Too slow, too mushy and too cliche. but u can watch it for hrithik (especially if ur a die hard fan of his like me)...he makes all the "WTFness" in the muvie seem worthwhile.

i would rate it 2.5/5

herz raja sen (rediff) review if anyone's interested:

Kites, a trainwreck in slow-motion
Last updated on: May 21, 2010 10:24 IST
Tags: Hrithik Roshan, Anurag Basu, Barbara Mori, Cinematographer Ayananka Bose, Kangna Ranaut
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By the time you read this, men and women around the globe who drool over Hrithik Roshan [ Images ] are parading in the streets, dancing in the confetti of used ticket stubs even as they stand in line for another ticket.
Anurag Basu's [ Images ] Kites -- a slickly shot film about how pretty Roshan can look even when dusty, bleeding and miserable -- is just the thing for fans of the star. For the rest of us who might want more from a film, like characters, pace or even a plot, here's just another experiment.

Yes, I said experiment. Because while this is pure popcorn, it's not the popcorn you were expecting. Kites moves drastically away from tried and tested Bollywood formulae... and straight into a Hollywood masala template: Attractive yet mismatched people in the midst of mayhem, falling in love against all odds, the kind of thing playing right now on three movie channels.

Except, in this version, Matthew McHrithiky is a bit of a crybaby. Yup, it's a standard-issue Hollywood actioner, laced with bucketloads of tears and overwhelmingly high-octane background score. Actiomelodrama?

Then again, facts like the leading man's jawdropping dancing skills might as well be the whole point of the film, this plotless star-vehicle that careens briskly enough, but through a story so simplistic that it never quite grabs your attention. You watch initially with hope -- based on Basu's natural ability to create characters relatable enough to resonate with us -- and then -- as you see characters never compelling enough to really matter -- you watch with morbid fascination, like watching a trainwreck in slow-motion.

You know it's going very, very wrong, but it's so hard to look away.

The film is about a Vegas resident named J Ray (Jimmy? Johnny? Who wants to know?), an unscrupulous dollar-chaser who rents himself out as a green card husband to off-shore women seeking shade alongside other tiredpoorhuddled 'merica-loving masses. Anything for a buck seems about right, and when he finds a casino owner's daughter (an under-used Kangna Ranaut [ Images ], only used to reference the director's far superior Gangster) drawn to him, he feeds her loving lies only too gladly.

All goes swimmingly until he meets her brother's betrothed, a stunning Mexican girl who happens to be one of his 11 'wives,' the only one who made an impression. (Cue slow-motion.)

All hell predictably breaks loose, and it does so with showy enthusiasm. Guitars wail excitedly as Beetles are toppled, hot air balloons mounted and gunfire averted. Cinematographer Ayananka Bose has a blast and manages to keep the frames energetic and fluid, while every now and then Basu throws in a characteristically lyrical shot, as if to remind us that he's making this film, despite what it may look like.

But abrupt, choppy editing only serves to highlight the lack of story. Kites starts off well enough, but loses itself in a mess of superficiality, which would have been just fine if the film wasn't also masquerading as operatic drama. Tragedy is robbed of its grand strength if we don't care about the people who love and lose.

To be fair, the lead actors do solidly, making the film watchable. The much-discussed Barbara Mori [ Images ] has an infectious grin, an earnest charm, and speaks Spanish with a breathy accent rendering her Ts and Rs worthy of immediate adoration. She emotes strongly, and looks great alongside Roshan, who not just has commanding screen presence, but shows himself capable of brooding intensity as well as silent, happy moments.

Unfortunately, Hrithik's been parlaying his light eyes and Roman jawline into an ambiguous, androgynous pseudo-European appeal for a while now. He's been doing the same bit in advertisements for so darned long that the aforementioned silent moments of this film -- where he enchants the girl via shadow puppetry, for instance -- are themselves overshadowed by the pesky thought that a packshot of faux-Italian cookies will pop into frame. It doesn't, but the moment's potential charm fails to make up for its simplistic lack of originality.

Hrithik's main problem, however, in this film that is essentially his showreel to the West, isn't the silences. He handles those well enough, and delivers his Hindi voiceover with sincerity. His English, regrettably, falters as he pours on the accent, trying far too hard to be an American hero in a film that could really have benefited with earthier, more believable intonation, instead of a wannabe twang.

For it is a story about language, you see. About lovers who don't speak each others tongues, yet look into each others eyes and find enough familiarity in each other's cadences that they miraculously always understand and are understood, flawlessly. So much so that when a character speaks in Spanish to Mori, she looks blank until Roshan translates it into English -- a language she doesn't understand -- for her.

Clearly these two starstruck romantics have eyes that talk louder than their tongues, but we as an audience aren't as blessed, and liable to cry foul. In whatever language we can.

Rediff Rating: 2/5

gosh dissappointng reviews..

Indian critics and audience not so kind. Hoping the film does well.

Saw FDFS.Dissapointed.Hrithik is fab though!

Komal Nahta's Verdict: Kites ' You Feel Cheated

OOOHHH NNNOOO....

FINALLY A Sigh of Relief...