Bachna Ae Haseeno - Liebe auf Umwegen

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.

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.

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).

I absolutely loved this film. It was extremely entertaining and a lot of fun. I loved Ranbir and Minissha Lamba also did a fantastic job. A lot of people, like the reviewer hottomato , are going out of their way to say that this film is a lift off, almost as if they have a point to prove. First of all, this film couldn't have been ripped off from "Definitely Maybe" that released in the US on Valentine's day this year. Obviously these people don't know how long it takes for a film to be written, produced and released. Let me tell you that it takes longer than 6 months!!!!!!! Secondly - a lot of films have similar elements, especially romcoms. That's the genre. Boy and girl meet, boy loses girl, boy gets girl and lots of stuff happens before, during and after...Like that then, every rom com is a lift off except the first one that was ever made!!!! I would recommend this film to anyone has has ever been in love, had their heart broken, has been dumped or has dumped someone. Go watch it!!!!

Ranbir Kapoor in his debut leading man role as Ranbir in Saawariya, didn't have the luck to snag the lady of his dreams, maybe because he was kind of a cad too, where karma had a part to return and haunt him. In his second feature film here, his Raj Sharma is again a cad, and credits himself being a "lady killer", able to woo any woman when he turns on his charms. We journey with him as he learns the true meaning of romance and love, and the first half of the movie before the intermission, gives the audience three situations over the course of 11 years where he toys with the emotions of different girls, broadly the sweet, sexy and sassy type, until of course, Karma catches up with him again for that all important lesson.

Girl 1: Sweet. 1996. Switzerland. In what would seem like a Before Sunrise storyline, Raj meets Mahi (Minissha Lamba) on board a Euro-train, and engineers his way to be able to spend time alone with his mark, on the pretext of sending her to Zurich to reunite with her family for their trip back to India. This episode sets the stage for Raj as the manipulative casanova, while Mahi is a very girly girl who harbours dreams of that perfect man, the perfect romantic encounter, and that perfect romance coming out just like her favourite movie. Only to discover that her puppy love, with sweet nothings and dedicated poems, resulted to naught when Raj's game is exposed. Broken Heart 1.

Girl 2: Sexy. 2002. Mumbai. Raj seemed to have moved on to another target, though it may seem from the onset he's already been domesticated by Radhika (Bipasha Basu from Dhoom 2), a hot model and aspiring actress who's his neighbour and they're living in together. Raj would have thought that a woman like her, stereotyped of course, would be easy and loose, living the fast life, and wouldn't want to be tied down to marriage because it will hamper her career. So when an opportunity to work in Sydney comes knocking and presents itself as a perfect moment to ditch her, to his surprise Radhika contemplates marriage, which he tries wholeheartedly to avoid. She's willing to sacrifice her career for him, but suffers the unthinkable in being left at the altar. Broken Heart 2.

Girl 3: Sassy. 2007. Sydney. It's actually quite a no-brainer to cast Deepika Padukone here given that she too, like Ranbir Kapoor, had 1 feature film under her belt, and are relatively successful newcomers to the industry (her first effort was in Om Shanti Om, and more recently, Chandni Chowk to China). And (ok Gossipy news ahead) this film actually was the catalyst for their much touted romance (and you can see the dynamics at work with some of the behind the scenes and interviews included in the 2nd disc). Anyway her role here as Gayatri, a business school student who works her way through school as a supermarket check out girl and a taxi driver, impresses Raj a lot, enough to romance her in Venice, and give up his gallivanting ways. Only of course for him to have met his match, and got spurned on his marriage proposal. She's a modern girl wanting to live life on her own terms, so being someone else's wife has never featured in her plans. What goes around finally comes around. Broken Heart 3. Raj's.

While the first half of the movie before the intermission was pretty plain sailing romantic stuff, the second half proved to be more powerful, because the protagonist finally has his eyes opened by his new experience, and realized he's been quite a bastard. So off he goes to make amends with the girls whose hearts he had broken, and mind you, in both real and reel life, this is never easy. Especially when you have to go back and face the women who had one point in time truly love you, and your actions had single handedly destroyed their belief in romance, and change or scar them for life.

We get a lot more jet-setting as well, all worked into the plot, such as the visits to Amritsar, Capri and Rome, as we follow Raj on his mission impossible to seek redemption and forgiveness from a housewife with a protective husband, and another who's now a renowned model with success to her head. I had enjoyed this section more because trying his best to be honest now, Raj has to strip his ego and really crack his head to device his forgiveness plan. Also, we get to see the different demeanours that both Bipasha Basu and Minissha Lamba had to tackle given their characters' failed romance with Raj, which had changed them either for the better, or worse.

The songs here proved to be catchy and fitting to each of the sweet, sexy and sassy persona that the girls bring to the table, and the beautiful locales they were shot in again were draws. Other than the very first musical number Bachna Ae Haseeno which opens the film, you don't get to see everybody on the same scene together, as each storyline took place under mutually exclusive terms, in timeline as well as locations.

If there's something to take away from the film, then it's the lesson that Raj learns, with the past being over and there's no longer control over it, but we can rectify things for the future if we take action in the present. Call me a sentimental fool, but somehow this works on me.