Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai (2000)

Such Bollywood. Very Hrithik. So melodrama. Wow.
(“Say you love me”) So this is the movie that Rakesh Roshan made to launch his son’s career. This is the superhit that launched Hrithik to stardom. It’s not bad, actually. I mean, the plot makes it the sort of movie you’d show people if you wanted to confirm all their stereotypes of Bollywood, but the ridiculous situations, people falling in love for no discernable reason, criminals with the collective intelligence of boiled cabbage and Hrithik’s flashy dance moves are just what I like. I enjoyed it far more than I was planning to. There’s silliness and warm fuzzies, the songs are catchy, and the commitment to emotional drama, regardless of logic, is impressive.

Our fresh-faced young hero

The soft-focus heroine
Rohit (Hrithik Roshan) is an honest, cheerful fellow who supports himself and his orphaned brother. He meets Sonia (Ameesha Patel) and lectures her into a dupatta within the first 15 minutes of the movie, which has to be some kind of record. They fall in love when Rohit is hired as a musician on a cruise to Singapore.Through a series of drunk coincidences, they’re stranded on an idyllic deserted island together for some first-class frolicking.


Also that awkward moment when you're sitting on a beach in your underwear with nothing to do. 
They declare their love to each other (over and over) but a rescue boat bearing Sonia’s father breaks up their kiss. Sonia’s father (Anupam Kher) is rich and doesn’t want Rohit to marry his daughter, so Rohit tries to gain success as a musician to impress him and be worthy of Sonia. But on the day of his first concert, he witnesses a murder committed by some drug dealers (whose boss is Sonia’s father, because, well, why not) and they drive him into the river, where he hits his head and drowns.


Sonia is devastated, and her father packs her off to New Zealand presumably because her moping is throwing him off his drug-dealing groove. There she meets Raj Chopra (also Hrithik, it’s that sort of movie), tanned, muscular, and mysteriously similar to Rohit. Why? I ran through the likely possibilities, such as amnesia or long-lost twin brother, but it’s nothing so logical. In fact, it’s never explained. You just have to go with it. Despite Sonia’s habit of running away crying whenever she sees Raj’s face, he falls in love and of course it’s time for a song where he imagines her frolicking amongst the sheep on the hills of New Zealand. (There’s a lot of frolicking in this movie. Probably just as much frolicking as crying, and that’s saying a lot.)


Raj, in the ever-classy mesh shirt
When Raj follows Sonia back to India, he’s mistaken for Rohit by the drug dealers, who start shooting. Instead of hopping on the next plane home, he agrees to a plan to catch Rohit’s murderers which consists almost entirely of an excuse to put on a huge Hrithik-tastic dance number. This works! Raj takes care of the murderers and captures Sonia’s father with the most menacing use of a Nokia ringtone I think I have ever seen on screen.


It's helpful that he's there under his title instead of his name.

Intense Hrithik-stare!

Sonia then gets engaged to Raj, so it’s a happy ending for everyone, except Rohit, because he’s dead. I can’t really give this movie an objective rating. If you like these sorts of movies, then watch this one. You’ll be grinning like a loon the whole time and singing the songs to your cat. (Or that might be just me. Well.) Plus, check out this outfit of Ameesha's.

Every single item of clothing and accessory is lavender. You can't see it, but so is her eyeshadow.

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