Bachna Ae Haseeno - Liebe auf Umwegen

The word surprise has several meanings... may be this is one of them .

I hate most films from the Yash Raj Genre for their cheesy sense of humor & tasteless acting & screenplay. But somehow went on to see this movie.

Initially this was only as sick as any other boy-meet-girl movie but then somehow this movie gained some meaning. And even though you had to tolerate Ranbir Kapoor's Demented facial expressions, the movie wasn't that bad after all.

It had some good acting by the damsels & the plot grew to become more mature & involving. Over all in the end, you'd feel satisfied by the entire turn of events My advice - survive the first half hour!!! Somehow..

Just when you thought, Bollywood's first family Kapoor khandan is ready to hand over the title to Bachchan family, here comes a young, handsome, dude, who is here to stay. I never cared to watch Sawariya (from all its promos, it looked too wimpy). But this one surely is going to place him on the hot-stuff category! The three heroines are adequate, with spl mention of Deepika P. Though the character is bit unrealistic (who cares for realism anyways in commercial bollywood films?), but she definitely carries on the role of an independent, yet vulnerable character! Music is great, Khuda Jaane is going to the classics. You just can't get enough of it. Jogi Mahi takes time to grow, but when it does, it sticks. Lucky boy is yet another dhin-chak number with less substance. Shreya Ghoshal & Lucky Ali's Ahista Ahista is a lovely track, that takes time, but it becomes addictive. Another good note: thanks to Vishal Shekhar to have given youngsters some chance: Raja Hassan and Himani Kapoor are on the tracks, though very small contribution.

Cinematography: well, I really don't believe in going to nice locations, Australia, Italy, Switzerland to make a nice 'looking' movies, however cinematographer has made use of locations well. While the movie cinematography is alright, but song picturization is surely a winner! Loooove the long sweeping camera movements in 'Khuda Jaane', the camera rotations in colorful 'Jogi Mahi' or the 'Bachna Ae Haseeno' title track with the morphs, or the scooter-on-the-move sequences in 'Ahista Ahista'! The movie is a great watch. Very contemporary, even the languages and dialogues. The other casts, like Kunal Kapoor, and Sachin (isn't he Paintal Jr?) do a great job.

Overall, a decent watch. If you do have the DVD, watch the deleted scenes too. Kapoor is definitely going to become the next Hrithik Roshan (though real HR is not going anywhere).

Anand's 'Bachna Ae Haseeno' is an improvement when compared to the rip-off 'Salaam Namaste'. Loosely inspired by 'Alfie', it tells the story of Raj and the three women at different stages in his life. The treatment given to the film is very formulaic and highly sugarcoated with songs appearing out of the blue and shot in exotic locations, expensive locations and outfits, melodramatic scenes, deja-vu romantic scenes, a very clichéd story and a predictable plot but there is something entertaining enough to make it worth a one-time watch. The soundtrack is below average. There are some okay songs and some horrendous numbers.

The three women form three stories. The first one seems to pay homage to 'Dilwale Dulhania Lejayenge' (Aditya Chopra was the director of that film and he is the writer of this film). Interestingly, it sort of gets the viewer to ask what if in 'Dilwale Dulhania LeJayenge': Raj's feelings for Simran were merely momentary, what if Simran married Kuldeep...and these questions, to an extent are answered here. The following two stories have a bit of 'Salaam Namaste'.

Ranbir Kapoor is plain okay. I don't see why his directors have to constantly remind us that he is Rishi Kapoor's (who wasn't even a great actor) son and Raj Kapoor's grandson. What was with that light flickering (from 'Bobby'), the title song and what not? Kapoor has to learn to stand on his own and has to make his directors promote his acting only, rather than his family background. I still do not see that star quality in him (that almost everyone else seems to be so sure of) and nor does he have what it takes to carry an entire film, yet.

He is clearly (and thankfully) overshadowed by his three female co-stars. A supercute Minisha Lamba is vivacious as the young Mahi and she is very elegant and brilliant as the cold-hearted wife. A ravishing Bipasha Basu does one of the best acting jobs of her career and a sassy Deepika Padukone does fine too. Kunal Kapoor seems to have replaced Jimmy Shergill as Yashraj's favourite supporting actor and even though he's not as good an actor as Shergill, he does an adequate job here.

Overall, it's not a classic and certainly not the best of Yashraj films but it makes for a decent one-time watch. Some heavy editing (because of the slow pace), a stronger male lead and perhaps less waste of money would have helped.

Raj (Ranbir Kapoor) thinks of himself as a lady killer, and seriously breaks the hearts of two young women: Mahi (Minissha Lamba) as a teen, and Radhika (Bipasha Basu) as a twenty-something. Shortly after devastating Radhika, Raj falls in love with Gayatri (Deepika Padukone), only to have his own heart broken. Seeing how it feels, he sets out to try to make amends with Mahi and Radhika.

I was surprised at how good this romantic comedy-drama was. All four leads were convincing, the film work was good, and the story was strong. The music ranged from really terrible to average. (That first song nearly put me off the movie entirely.) I enjoyed the overall movie enough to ignore the bad songs, though, and do recommend it.

Siddharth Anand is one of the brilliant young Director in Bollywood. Salaam Namaste (2005) and Ta Ra Rum Pum (2007)was purely entertaining movie, and so is BAH. I am really surprised to see Ranbir Kapoor. He has totally broken down the "Saawariya (2007)" image. Some of his expressions surely make you laugh. He was brilliant all over the movie. Minisha Lamba, Bipasha Bashu and Kunal Kapoor also did a great job. But didn't like Deepika Padukone very much. I think her role was not to strong here and performance was so so. The locations were great. Songs were not so bad. Every shot is brilliantly taken. If you want a pure entertainment, buy the ticket and popcorn.