It is hard for directors to treat Hrithik Roshan as ‘normal.’ He is either Jalluddin Mohammed Akbar or Krish or a vaguely challenged Rohit or an ace thief who can be a dwarf, a queen in drag, a superman vrooming to the beat of ‘Dhoom..dhoom‘ or a self-made chawl don spouting Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s Agnipath as he hangs a rather bulky Sanjay Dutt from a tree. Only in a rare film like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, do you see him as a person without special powers if you discount the charisma he oozes even if he doing nothing more than cooking paella.
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In Bang Bang, he is both. A human and a super-human and veers from a common criminality into the charmed zone of a gravity defying, bulletproofed Buzz Lightyear who can be beaten by iron rods, restrained with chains, trapped in a burning plane, jump off from Simla’s picturesque roofs and always land on his heels or into the vicinity of a beautiful woman who is waiting to be swept off her feet by someone exactly like him. There is also that scene where he is stripped down to the waist, and she is watching him like her eyes would pop out as she glugs down a bottle of water. Gaze reversal anyone?
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Also the fact that the helpless woman being presented with this hard to resist temptation is the erstwhile Sheela and Chikni Chameli is worthy of note. So not far-fetched to say that one of the many unbelievable feats only Hrithik Roshan can pull off on screen is to reduce Katrina Kaif into a plain Jane. So yes, the film is a celebration of Hrithik doing stunts, Hrithik outdancing everyone around him, Hrithik without his shirt, Hrithik playing Ethan Hunt and Ek Tha Tiger and Roy Miller from Knight and Day (the film that has inspired this remake) and a good Indian boy who changes his woman’s clothes without looking at her. In a complete contrast to her powerful, jaw smashing role in Ek Tha Tiger, Katrina plays a bimbette here who dresses like a little girl and sighs wistfully at wall papers of exotic places and dreams of ‘someday,’ till ofcourse ‘change’ clad in rippling muscles and ripped jeans, walks in.
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It is futile in the end to look for deeper meaning and sexist overtones (unless they are offensive and need to be pointed at) in a film like this. Siddharth Anand directs the movie with a grin and a shrug through Vishal Shekhar’s zingy music, sun washed locales and set pieces where he pull stunts out of his box with the glee of a child showing off a new set of toys. The film is pure eye candy, starting with the lead pair and has a sense of fun that doesn’t engage your mind but surely entertains. Bang Bang doesn’t take itself seriously. You should not either.
with The New Indian Express Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and where she can write more books, paint, listen to music and just be.