Knight and Day, the 2010 Hollywood action comedy starring Tom Cruise as a Central Intelligence Agency operative on the run and Cameron Diaz as initial hostage and eventual girlfriend, clocked in at 109 minutes ‒ and even that was too long for the movie's detractors. Bang Bang!, the unfortunately titled Hindi remake directed by Siddharth Anand and starring Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif, adds 47 minutes ‒ the sum of song sequences, family melodrama, lovingly framed close-ups of Roshan’s bronzed body and chiselled face, and a tutorial on kissing.
The “how to align two sets of lips” moment is one of many in which Roshan’s Rajveer puts Kaif’s Harleen in her place and reaffirms her floor-level intelligence. It’s all done with tremendous charm, of course, rather than in the caveman style of the eighties. But there is no escaping the fact that Harleen, unlike Diaz’s garage mechanic in the original, is this movie’s dumb blonde who will spend all her time gaping at her co-star’s ability to dodge bullets, evade surveillance, smash his way through all manner of construction material, drop wisecracks during tense situations, travel around the world without a passport, and command his bulk into performing sinuous dance moves.
How do you solve a problem like Katrina?
Most of Bang Bang!’s plot contrivances are from the original, but at least Knight and Day took the trouble of giving Diaz an equal share of the proceedings. Kaif, who has delivered a series of hits in spite of (or perhaps because of) severely limited acting skills and stilted dialogue delivery, is introduced in a shower sequence, which sets the tone for the rest of her screen time. When Harleen tells Rajveer that she wants to tear off his clothes, she exposes Bang Bang!’s worst-kept secret: this movie has been marketed on the strength of its two leads, but it’s a solo show all the way. Bang Bang! fires on one cylinder: Hrithik Roshan.
The tawny-eyed actor, looking every inch the movie star, dominates the proceedings soon after he slinks into frame tossing the Kohinoor diamond, which he has stolen on a dare by international terrorist Omar (Danny Denzongpa) from the Tower of London. Is Omar secretly an Indian patriot who wants to return the stone to its country of origin? It’s a tantalising question the movie never answers.
The series of chase sequences that follow includes an entertaining man-who-swims-like-a-dolphin pursuit in the waters of one of many gorgeous but probably bankrupt European countries that Bang Bang! visits in its attempt to appear truly international. Roshan’s aqueous stunts rival Cruise’s breakneck motorcycle ride through a Spanish town in Knight and Day. The action sequences, a few witty scenes, the leading man’s endless charm, and frequent invocations to his physical beauty make the watching experience tolerable, though not quite memorable.
The “how to align two sets of lips” moment is one of many in which Roshan’s Rajveer puts Kaif’s Harleen in her place and reaffirms her floor-level intelligence. It’s all done with tremendous charm, of course, rather than in the caveman style of the eighties. But there is no escaping the fact that Harleen, unlike Diaz’s garage mechanic in the original, is this movie’s dumb blonde who will spend all her time gaping at her co-star’s ability to dodge bullets, evade surveillance, smash his way through all manner of construction material, drop wisecracks during tense situations, travel around the world without a passport, and command his bulk into performing sinuous dance moves.
How do you solve a problem like Katrina?
Most of Bang Bang!’s plot contrivances are from the original, but at least Knight and Day took the trouble of giving Diaz an equal share of the proceedings. Kaif, who has delivered a series of hits in spite of (or perhaps because of) severely limited acting skills and stilted dialogue delivery, is introduced in a shower sequence, which sets the tone for the rest of her screen time. When Harleen tells Rajveer that she wants to tear off his clothes, she exposes Bang Bang!’s worst-kept secret: this movie has been marketed on the strength of its two leads, but it’s a solo show all the way. Bang Bang! fires on one cylinder: Hrithik Roshan.
The tawny-eyed actor, looking every inch the movie star, dominates the proceedings soon after he slinks into frame tossing the Kohinoor diamond, which he has stolen on a dare by international terrorist Omar (Danny Denzongpa) from the Tower of London. Is Omar secretly an Indian patriot who wants to return the stone to its country of origin? It’s a tantalising question the movie never answers.
The series of chase sequences that follow includes an entertaining man-who-swims-like-a-dolphin pursuit in the waters of one of many gorgeous but probably bankrupt European countries that Bang Bang! visits in its attempt to appear truly international. Roshan’s aqueous stunts rival Cruise’s breakneck motorcycle ride through a Spanish town in Knight and Day. The action sequences, a few witty scenes, the leading man’s endless charm, and frequent invocations to his physical beauty make the watching experience tolerable, though not quite memorable.
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