A scene from Kites, opening Friday.

Sometimes you want the Michelin-rated three star restaurant, and sometimes you just want that all-you-can-eat buffet.

At the movies, those hungry for the quantity side of that equation should consider seeing Kites, a film that can honestly bill itself as having absolutely everything: Romance, fantastic action, singing, dancing, vengeance, car chases, intrigue, betrayal, poverty, fabulous wealth, destiny, immigration and bank robbery. And dance contests. And bikers. And subtitles. There’s so much going on in Kites that one lifetime isn’t nearly enough to cover it — the movie has to go into the afterlife to wrap it all up.

Kites is, essentially, a love story. With exploding cars. The movie stars Hrithik Roshan as Jay, a street-wise dance instructor living in Las Vegas. Jay narrates his own story at the start, talking about how he gambled and lost at many things in life. Then one of his dance students falls in love with him. Gina (Kangana Ranaut) is a beautiful young woman and obsessed with Jay. At first, he’s not interested, but the discovery that Gina is fabulously rich gets Jay’s attention. He begins a calculated courtship.

Gina’s father owns a casino. Her father isn’t just rich, he’s also dangerous, and more dangerous still is Gina’s psycho brother Tony (Nicholas Brown). Tony is engaged to the beautiful Natasha (Barbara Mori), and too bad he’s a brute who slaps her around. But it turns out that Jay and Natasha have met before. In fact, Jay and Natasha have a lot in common. They’re both on the make, they’re both getting married for money and they’re both shot in such loving close-up and with such heartfelt music that you’ll swear you’re seeing an Air Supply video.

(Intense close-up seems to be the shot of choice in Bollywood movies, and we think we know why. After the camera lingers in Roshan’s green eyes or likewise swims around in the peepers of the beeeayutiful Barbara Mori, viewers are hypnotized into watching the rest of the movie. Seriously.)

Jay and Natasha are star-crossed lovers, torn between their passion for each other and the marriages that will bring them the wealth they desire. Sorting it all out takes a very long time, some near-death experiences, a police chase, hot air balloons and singing and dancing in the pouring rain.

You can only sit there in the dark and marvel at the thing.

Kites has pockets of lovely comedy and deep troughs of lugubrious tragedy and a lot of dialogue like this: “Tony has power and money, but we have love!!!”

Nonetheless, it’s the sort of Bollywood/Hollywood hybrid that should find a big audience and make Hindi megastar Hrithik Roshan as big here as he is there. The actor, who will remind you of Bradley Cooper, inspires a fan frenzy known as Hrithikmania in India.

Kites is a wonder to look at. It’s a very different experience in the cinema. You never really forget that you’re watching a movie and you can’t overlook the element of fromage, but that doesn’t mean you won’t like it.

Those constitutionally incapable of sitting through a Bollywood extravaganza like Kites can wait around until May 28 to see the Brett Ratner remix of the film. This English language version is only 90 minutes long, has lost many of the song and dance numbers and has been somewhat ‘Americanized’ for international audiences. Wow. Whose dumb idea was that?

liz.braun@sunmedia.ca
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