Aug 27, 2003 10:38 PM
1539 Views
(Updated Sep 02, 2003 06:24 PM)
Koi Mil Gaya. hmmmmmmm... Kaun mil gaya ? One thing is for sure, director ko paisa mil gaya. Please don't mind me being so cynical.
It all stems from me wanting to see good Hindi movies. I stopped watching the “average” Bollywood movie as soon as I reached the age of reason.
That however does not mean that I have lost faith in our directors and every now and then I come across a few good movies. For instance I liked movies like Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai.. Can’t say when was the last time I saw a good movie.
I travel a bit and spend quite some time out of India. Every time my friends taunt me about the Bollywood movies being nothing more than an overdramatic emotional saga and dancing around trees I try to teach them the history of Indian cinema, about the different kinds of movies we have, the different genre Indian movies belong to. Hey it’s a different form of storytelling… there’s nothing wrong with that. A movie like “Chicago” which wins scores of Oscars is considered special and Bollywood movies overdramatic! When “Chicago” is like your average Bollywood movie, the only difference being the amount of clothes your average Hindi heroine would wear compared to Rene Zellwegger or Zeta Jones. But hey…
But you know what? The word that I am really afraid of is “original”. Every time someone uses this word for a Hindi movie I get extremely suspicious until I realize that ''O'' original means “original Hollywood”. I can give you a million examples but I’ll pass on that. My last disappointment was Kaante. Before the movie was released I read and was told about how “original” it was. Completely shot outside India, completely different plot, completely original and this and that. So obviously I renewed my faith and hoped that maybe this time it was true. Invited a few of my friends to watch it with me in Amsterdam. To my horror as the story started unfolding I could see before me the Hindi remake of Reservoir dogs. See I have nothing against getting “inspired” by Hollywood but c’mon at least change the plot and characters a bit, get ideas from it don’t just blatantly copy it.
So having said that, Koi Mil Gaya is original because instead of being a copy of one Hollywood movie it is a copy of two. So even if this ET meets Forest Gump drama does come across as something new you can’t but fail to notice the similarities and make comparisons with the originals. Especially if you thought that ET and Forest Gump were very good movies, which left a mark on you, you would consider Koi Mil gaya a second rate take on those movies.
Although one has to say that this kind of storyline is new to Bollywood cinema and Rakesh Roshan has been bold enough to try something new. I’ll give him that. Rakesh Roshan makes a statement by saying that “aliens don’t only land in USA and do embarrassing tests on Texas farmers but they also started landing in India”. Hritik proves that he can play a handsome retard. That’s where the praise ends !!
