5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Compatibility between the two leads transcends this average Bollywood soap opera, August 1, 2007
Here's the set-up for HUMKO DEEWANA KAR GAYE (Love Connects): Aditya (Akshay Kumar) is a car engineer and test driver for an auto company in India. He's engaged to Sonia (Bipasha Basu), a somewhat cold, very career oriented fashion designer. Aditya, or Adi, is a sentimental fella, Sonia is eminently unromantic. After several revealing conversations, it quietly dawns on Adi that he and Sonia don't seem to want the same things in life, and he begins to have bad vibes about their impending nuptials.
After their engagement party, Adi and Sonia part ways temporarily for business reasons. She, to work in Paris; Adi, newly promoted, is reassigned to Canada. There, he meets Jia (Katrina Kaif) and is instantly smitten. The next few days or weeks, they continue to accidentally bump into each other. Eventually, they begin hanging out, and there's an obvious spark there. But Jia is herself engaged, to a wealthy, workaholic businessman who barely pays attention to her. So, Adi and Jia end up spending even more time together and, yup, they Fall in Love. But, still, both being already engaged, they try to "do the right thing." And, then, because, it would've been all too simple and practical for them to openly declare their love and break off their engagements, the script comes up with a plot contrivance to tear them apart. Still, the ending's pretty obvious and inevitable, but the getting there is predictably rife with tears, stoic suffering, crazy melodrama, and an outrageous coincidence. But, hey, it's all par for the course in Bollywood.
If you're familiar with Bollywood offerings, then there won't be anything new here for you. The story delves into Bollywood's favorite theme, that of all-consuming love versus sacrifice and obligation. HUMKO DEEWANA KAR GAYE, released in 2006, is an average soaper made better by the chemistry between Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif. You easily buy into their friendship which turns into mutual attraction which then becomes love. Half British and a model-turned-actress, Katrina Kaif is a natural beauty, graceful and unaffected. Still fairly new to the acting biz, she isn't really challenged here, acting-wise, but she holds her own with the veteran Kumar. Her Hindi lines, however, are dubbed. Apparently, people at the top had doubts about her proficiency with the language. Akshay, as Aditya, immediately gets you on his side with his easy going charisma. And he's got that wistful, heartbroken look down to a T. They make a good pair, and they're even better in their later re-teaming in 2007's
Namastey London DVD. Anil Kapoor, who doesn't show up until halfway thru the film, brings his patented intensity as Jia's controlling fiance. Bipasha Basu does okay with her supporting role of Aditya's all-work-and-no-play fiancee.
The negatives? Well, with the Bollywood assembly line putting out a gazillion movies a year, originality is hard to come by. No surprise, then, that this film piggybacks NOTTING HILL in several scenes and CRASH in one scene. Also, the car rally sequence embarasses itself by inserting grainy and pretty obvious clips of racing stock footage. But, discounting the movie's climax, the most superduperovermelodramatic moment has to be when a hysterical woman bogarts a microphone on a Canadian football field in front of thousands of fans to beg her husband's forgiveness. Again, that's Bollywood. Basically, when you sit down to watch a Bollywood flick, you've got to come with the proper frame of mind and accept certain things at face value (the over-the-top dramatics; the unabashed romance; at times, the crude humor; the tendency for coincidences; and the song and dance acts). These films are definitely ballparks away from the typical and more "sophisticated" Hollywood product. But, if you get hooked, brother, you GET hooked! I buy a lot of dvds and, at this stage, half of my purchases are of the Bollywood persuasion.
By the way, there's a heapload of musical numbers here. However, most of the songs tend to blend into each other and are mostly unmemorable, and I only sat thru 'em because most featured Katrina. The more entertaining ones are "Fanah" and "For Your Eyes Only." Sad to say, but the best song may have been the briefly played tango "Santa Maria (Del Buen Ayre)" by the awesome Go Tan Project. To cap off this three-and-a-half-starred dvd, there's a ho-hum "Making Of" featurette (21 minutes long) and a deleted song in the Special Features department.
And if you do see HUMKO DEEWANA KAR GAYE and you think that Katrina and Akshay are good together, then, trust me, you'll be blown away by their sizzling chemistry in NAMASTEY LONDON.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Above average Bollywood romance with good chemistry, January 27, 2009
We have 2 pairs of engaged couples: Alshay Kumar with Bipasha Basu, and Katrina Kaif with Anil Kapoor. They are from Mumbai but spend time in Canada (most of the movie). A member of each couple is very tied up with career and fate brings the other 2 (Akshay and Katrina) together. These two are much better matched but also are people of integrity. So will they end up together...?
Hardly a new plot but that doesn't generally matter for those into romantic movies. What this does have is good connected chemistry between the stars (who later reprise this connection in Namaste London - also recommended). There is a slow build of what becomes a convincing connection. The shots linger meaningfully and we care about their progress. There is an unlikely change if heart in one character that was unconvincing given what we'd been told of their history - but this is Bollywood and is a good intention if unlikely.
There is also some beautiful cinematography around Canada. The songs are fine when on but I didn't take any away with me.
Akshay is really good in this and consistently so. Katrina is also even though she doesn't always bring off this level (especially when playing opposite real life boyfriend Salmon Khan in Yuuvraaj - though this latter movie is worth seeing for other reasons). I have now decided that I really like Akshay in these sort of roles but dont relate to his comedies (perhaps with the exception of Singh is Kingg).
Anil and Bipasha don't have as much of a role. Bipasha does one-dimensional model and Anil has little opportunity to do more than ego-centric businessman. However as the symbols they are meant to be they do OK.
I passed this over several times till a Sri Lankan friend recommended it as one of her favorites. Worth seeing for romantics.
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