Fida

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.

An account belonging to a major underworld don has been hacked into, and has been totally wiped out (around 220 crores!). Cops, media, and the said don all are very upset. [Scene change] Boy (Shahid Kapur - new promising kid on the block) sees girl (Kareena Kapoor). Boy goes ga-ga over girl! Boy convinces girl she is the girl of his dreams. Girl embraces boy. Boy starts singing/dancing etc. After much songs - story goes for a twist. Girl has financial problems (around 6 crores worth). Boy decides to rob a bank. Boy goes to the bank, sees another dude (Fardeen Khan) withdrawing a huge amount from the bank (around 7 crores - how convenient!). Boy decides to steal from the dude. And so the twists pile up on twists with a final twist at the climax!

Sounds thrilling? It cudda been!

The best part about Fida is that it clocks in at an amazing 2 hours and some change (and the songs are easy on the ears too). But the proceedings tend to disappoint every time you think the excitement level is going to notch up a little. Pacing is uneven, and the performances are inconsistent. Shahid Kapur has good screen presence and is a hit with the ladies, but his future strictly depends on his shrugging off the SRK hangover. Kareena Kapoor and Fardeen Khan are just OK. Make no mistakes - this is a director's vehicle, and Ken Ghosh seems to have lost his enthusiasm for the project somewhere after the first few reels.

The subject of the film was very interesting, but the film wasn't treated well enough. I felt that the main twist when Shahid finds out that he has been betrayed was unfolded too soon in the storyline. And after that the film dragged up to the climax. Even the climax was not as 'shocking' as it was made out to be. The ending is not satisfying, it seems abrupt. For the exception of Kareena (who was awesome) no other actor delivered a great performance. Shahid was fine in the first half, but he seemed completely lost in the second half. And what was the reason for him to imitate Amitabh Bachchan in the finale (I wonder if anybody else noticed that). Fardeen was just about okay, he played the role of the suave Vikram nicely. This is Kareena's best performance to date. She looks gorgeous and makes a great looking pair with Shahid. The actor who played the don was horrible. He hammed throughout the film. The songs are good specially Maine Jisko Chaha and Aja ve mahi. Cinematography is fantastic. The film wears a posh and classy look throughout. Fida doesn't live up to my expectations 7/10.

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.

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!