Just a 'kati patang'

The lead pair looks arresting, clothes or no clothes. But they are linguistically challenged. One speaks Spanish, the other English and Hindi. And that’s reason enough for Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori to spend a good 10 minutes staring into each other’s eyes, studying brows, lashes, cornea, etc. Not a bad exercise though — both have beautiful eyes.

Now the problem is that the love story meanders (why not, it’s titled “Kites”) and never soars high enough to match the hype. Technically, it’s topnotch. And with ultimate hunk Hrithik, and a hot and smouldering Barbara (a smart Uruguayan-Japanese-Mexican discovery by the Roshans), the movie looks really good. That’s that. The story is a complete letdown, told mostly by guns.

Both Hrithik and Barbara are gold-diggers waiting to marry the scions of a casino family (Kangna Ranaut, confused as always, and Nick Brown, cardboard villain). Then they start sharing childhood sob stories and fall for each other. Hrithik loves Barbara because “you bring colour to my black and white life”, and Barbara loves Hrithik because... sorry, we need a Spanish-English dictionary for that.

Both elope and it’s a chase-athon till the end. The lovers dodge a zillion police cars and plant kisses in between. And Barbara talks babies whenever hit by bullets. The chemistry is remarkable, though.

Kangna reappears in the climax to go bang-bang, but is outshone by Barbara’s intense act.

The visual treat oscillates between Las Vegas glitz and Mexican countryside. The action sequences smack of a hundred and one Hollywood movies and cause even more car crashes. A little more attention to the now-here-now-nowhere love story could have helped.

In the end, it’s just a ‘kati patang’.