Bang Bang Review

An interesting idea for Bollywood would be to make a movie, once in a while, as good as its trailer. As much apprehension we have with these movies, we go with high hopes. And frame by frame, scene by scene, it gets dusted. While the original was mildly interesting, the remake is more or less a bland, twisted version of it. Calling it a remake is an injustice to the original, calling it fake would suffice.

One is a huge waste of talent and other is
a huge waste of money & talent.

At the very onset, the film shows us the glimpse of all the clichéd dialogs that are to follow. It’s sad to see Danny Denzongpa (Omar Zafar) in so few films and depressing to see him in one like this one. For God’s sake, he was Katya in Ghaatak! There’s also a cameo by Jimmy Shergill, who as an Army Officer visits one of the prisons created by Nick Fury for Loki in London. And then there’s Javed Jaffery as Hamid Gul, who also has a limited appearance with very limited intelligence being given to his role by writers. Then there’s Pawan Malhotra (Zorawar) as 'ISS' (Some made up intelligence agency) inspector. One trait of Pawan Malhotra is that no matter how ineffective his role is and how slim the plot is, he tries to give in his best. So when he tries to do that in a movie like Bang Bang, it ends up being laughable instead of laudable.

She had just one job - to look horrified and not laugh;
obviously its too big a task for her

Now let’s come to the Main Cast. Katrina Kaif is really in her elements. Playing a dumb damsel in distress with very limited acting to do and that too being clueless most of the times, that’s the role Katrina Kaifs are made for. I don’t remember a single dialog of hers. In fact, her Dadiji had more memorable role in the movie! And her chemistry with Hrithik is totally out of order. You just wish their conversation were lesser and lesser still. They were just making some sounds, calling it conversation is bit overselling it.

Only saving grace in the movie is Hrithik (and his 88 pack abs for girls). The talent that he possesses is immense and that he wastes it away in movies like Krissh 3 and Bang Bang is criminal. You want him to be present in every scene. He has an enigmatic presence and would have done justice to himself had this movie been a fast paced suspense thriller and not just an insipid revenge story, if you dare to call it a ‘story’.

It’s not just a wafer thin plot; it’s a paper thin plot. In terms of sizes, it’s a size zero in storyline. The protagonist steals a diamond to get to the man who killed his brother and in between all this falls out of nowhere and no apparent reason the most beautiful and annoying bank receptionist.

The ‘Knight & Day’ never touched the highs we hope from a Tom Cruise movie, but Bang Bang definitely touches the lows never expected from a Hrithik starrer and Fox Studios produced movie.

 The movie is cuisine of exotic locations, unnecessary chase scenes, non-sense dialogs (literally no sense) and action sequences which would make Salman proud. Nowadays, there seems to be a competition on who gets to break more laws of physics and levels of sound barriers. The only thing movie is faithful to is, its name ‘Bang Bang’ with the number of bullets flying around.

In the end you would hope,
that one of those bullets hit you and end your misery.

The more I think of it, it seems just another version of Dhoom 3 with less number of irritating characters.

A word on product placement: If you make the hero of the film forcibly drink Dew and say ‘Darr ke aage jeet hai”, I’ll make sure to drink Sprite and won’t ‘do the Dew’.

Ofcourse this movie fails to deliver on its promises and therefore is surely directed by Siddharth Anand (Ta Ra Rum Pum, Anjaana Anjaani), but it never looked like the one written by Sujoy Ghosh (Jhankaar Beats, Kahaani).

One could only wonder, with the acting prowess of Danny Denzongpa, Pawan Malhotra, Kawaljit Singh, Hrithik Roshan, and money prowess of Fox Studios, how good it could have been.

2/10 – 1 for Hrithik and 1 for his 88 pack abs.