Fida

The tagline of this movie is aptly kept: "Not all love stories have the perfect ending." The opening scene is interesting with an Internet hacker transferring a gargantuan sum of money from a underworld don's bank account to a Swiss bank account. The innocent, naive Shahid Kapoor falls in love at first sight with Kareena. At first, the film seems very melodramatic and filmi, but that is later understandable after a startling fact is revealed. Fardeen was decent, and Kareena was good. Shahid's performance was amazing.

We've already seen that he's an awesome dancer; he's an even better actor now. He's definitely going to go places. Songs are good, especially "Aaja Ve Mahi" and "Maine Jisko Chaha." The story is very different. It's a good story, but it's not very entertaining. This movie is a drama basically, and the different ending leaves you with the feeling of a Hollywood film.

Watched Fida without any particular expectations and was not surprised by anything in it. This is an ordinary fare at best which is worth a one-time watch. The story is full of clichés, such as unconditional love and how a loving guy would give his life for a girl, how he gets accused for no fault of his own because of her and so on. Ken Ghosh's direction is nothing great. The script does not add much and at points it is ridiculous. After the so-called twist through which the truth is revealed, the film turns into a thriller but this part is heavily flawed and unconvincing, though it does have some entertainment value and suspense. The film's main protagonist is played by the very young Shahid Kapur, and the guy evidently tries very hard to do the best of what he was given. Although in terms of acting he was not there yet (as he is today with such performances as Kaminey), you can't but appreciate his efforts. Kareena Kapoor plays the bad girl probably because she noticed it was a trend for leading ladies to play negative roles. This role is sort of a take off on the many roles played by Bette Davis, but Kareena does a forgettable job. That's not entirely her fault because her role was not well written. Fardeen Khan is bad as the bad guy. The music of Fida does not stand out but I liked "Nazar Nazar" a lot as it was melodious, and I enjoyed "Maine Jisko Chaha" to an extent. Otherwise the film is simply better to avoid, with the ending being particularly pathetic. Do not expect much from Fida.

(2004) Fida (In Hindi with English subtitles) CRIME DRAMA/ PSYCHOLOGICAL

It opens with a mob magnet, Babu Anna (Akhilendra Mishra) throwing a temper tantrum finding out that the electronic theft of more than 5.3 billion rupees stolen between two banks was money belonged to him. He then demands his goons to find the identity of the culprit and have it or them bright over to him. The movie then switches to love sick romantic, Jai Malhotra (Shahid Kapoor) bonding with his best friend, Sonia (Kim Sharma). And as soon he spots a girl he becomes madly in love with, he then goes out of his way to find out everything about her, including where she lives, we find out her name is Neha Verma (Kareena Kapoor). And for the first 40 minutes or so, we then see Jai profess his love for her in the most cringe worthy way before he tells her that he would even commit suicide for her. He does and Jai's best friend, Sonia then drags Neha from her place to the hospital to show he was was not kidding. It was during then is when the ridiculous begins to happen. It is when some men were seen leaving her apartment, and Jai catches Neha attempting to hang herself. She then tells him that she is the daughter of the father who owed money, and thought hanging herself would be a solution. And as soon as she tells him how much she owes him or them, and turned out to be a huge amount of 60 million. Jai promises her he would get her that money without robbing the bank. And upon going to the bank he then sees a guy withdrawing a lot of money, and he decides to follow him to his place of residence, only as he soon as he comes inside, jai is then caught and knocked unconscious. By the time he gains unconsciousness, Jai then tells the wealthy resident, Vikram Singh (Fardeen Khan) the entire situation and story. Vikram then tells him he will gladly give Jai the money he needs, providing he will be the scapegoat of the person who robbed Babu Anna 5.3 billion on line. And Jai then goes online on some library - and almost immediately he gets caught as soon he is instructed to type things on the computer, as it is not long he gets nabbed by authorities. A twist happens is when Jai manages to escape when a shootout ensures when Baba Anna instructs his goons to get involve into his capture so that he himself is able to punish Jai himself. After Jai manages to escape the clutches both of the police and by Babu Anna's goons, by the time he reaches Neha's apartment. He then sees Neha coming out of the shower with Vikram right behind her. Giving Jai and it's viewers the assumption that it was nothing more but a set up all along. As if both Vikram and Neha knew all along Jai was going to take the bait, as well as it was both of their plan to get Jai follow Vikram all the way to the bank for the intention of robbing hi, is way too much of a coincidence. Motivating I as a viewer to ask more questions than I was getting any answers.

This movie is one of the most chameleon-like I have ever experienced. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it; but the mainly relaxed, whimsical, romantic opening (after the first encounter with the crime boss, who almost then seems to get forgotten for about 40 minutes, though you know he must resurface sometime) is filled with extravagant Bollywood dancing (though often with a more sexy feel than I have usually encountered in my so-far limited Bollywood experience) and over-played but highly amusing protestations of love on the part of the main character, Jai. In this portion, the aficianado of Bollywood ladies has plenty of opportunity to admire the very sexy Kim Sharma as Jai's childhood friend Sonia, and also of course his new love Neha played by Kareena Kapoor, who is more restrained in her sexiness but just demurely lovely. But after about 30-40 minutes, the pace and tone completely changes with one dramatic moment, and after that we are very much engaged in a helter-skelter action movie with multitude plot twists, wide-ranging shifts of location from India to Dubai to South Africa and even (I think) a small vignette in London, and a fair share of unarmed combat and exploding gunshot wounds. This is not a movie for the faint-hearted or the lover of simple romantic Bollywood stories, but overall it is an enjoyable ride!

Too Much Coincidence to Accept, But Certainly One-Time Watch

Shahid sees a girl, Kareena, in his dream, and magically she exists in reality. At first glance, he falls in love with her. Okay, accepted. In a few weeks, he meets her twice and even goes to her home at night to prove his love. She clearly refuses to meet him, so he slits his hands and writes her name in blood... Okay, accepted. True love exists. But then, one day, some people threaten Kareena for 6 crore rupees, and she makes up a story that she needs that much money in three days. Shahid decides to rob a bank but then sees a rich man. Guess what? This rich guy captures Shahid and turns out to be Kareena's original boyfriend, who hacks into the bank's server to steal money.

The police later capture Shahid, but he escapes, gets shot, and even survives.

Don't you think this is really too much to digest?

One star deducted for the poor script, one star deducted for Fardeen's subpar acting, and one star for the excessive plot armor and cheesy introduction given to Shahid. A few things I did appreciate were Shahid's effort and Kareena's acting, which were good. The last scene, where he takes his revenge by taking Kareena's life, was also quite satisfying. Only because of this, I decided to give it 7 out of 10.