It takes talent of a very special kind to remake a Hollywood blockbuster with two of the biggest Bollywood stars with proven chemistry into unwatchable trash. Siddharth Anand has that talent. And Bang Bang is that garbage of a movie.

Anjaana Anjaani was no fluke. It was Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra then. It’s Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif now. Two red-hot stars colossally wasted in two-and-a-half hours of tasteless, mindless, heartless tripe. At one-third the cost of the Mangalayaan mission, with all the resources in the world, it’s a shame that they can’t even copy and paste.

The source is Knight and Day, the romantic action comedy starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, that plays on TV every other night at primetime. The 2010 release was no big brain-churner but it was charming and breezy where genuine sparks flew between the leads as thick and fast as the bullets and the locations.

Drastically dumbed down, everything about Bang Bang is so criminally absurd that you are always too cold to warm up to the leads. You have to see to believe some of the big ideas of the Rs 140 crore movie....

The film opens with Danny Denzongpa’s bad, bad guy munching on pizza in a prison cell in the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service — yes the famous MI6 from the James Bond movies — and his men just break into it like kids running into a candy store.

Then he orders his deputy to have the Kohinoor stolen by an Indian thief to stop a prisoner-exchange treaty to be signed between India and England. Kohinoor here is not the basmati rice brand but the piece of rock which has been secure inside the Tower of London for over 150 years.

Katrina Kaif is a bank receptionist in Shimla whose grandmother sits on the pot and watches her take a shower every morning. And you thought only Haider had incestuous tones!

And someone who looks like Katrina Kaif is not only single in the film but has never had a boyfriend, has never kissed anybody in her life and goes on an Internet dating site to hook up with random strangers.

In the guise of the mysterious thief, Hrithik Roshan plays a superhero — he spells it out too: “mujhe duniya ko bachana hai” — whom no bullet can touch and no cop can catch. But if all he wants is to track down Danny, he doesn’t do anything about it till the last half hour.

In almost a reverse stance to their roles in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, here Hrithik tries to loosen up Katrina by inspiring her to live life every day as if it is the last day of her life. Unfortunately that’s where the similarity ends. Despite the lipsmacking smooch they share on the streets of Prague and the blazing hot bods they brush against each other in Greece, the two never quite get their chemistry going. Thanks to the inane plot around them.

Their best moment in Bang Bang is when Hrithik meets Katrina for the first time in a restaurant in Shimla. She thinks he is his blind date from the online dating site and he plays along. You can feel the heat they generate just by drowning into each other’s eyes and then you wonder does one really need all the action and CGI to ensure you get the bang for your buck.

Yes there are loads and loads of high-octane action sequences with Hrithik gliding through air, ground and water, demolishing and destroying everything that comes in front or behind him. Most of them are shot in front of a green screen and you don’t need the hundreds of VFX credits in the end to confirm that.

Maybe because the film was shot over a long period of time, the performances lack continuity. Hrithik is terrific in a few scenes oozing irresistible charm and letting the one-liners rip but strictly okay in others. Also, because he’s been there done that in Dhoom:2, the wow factor is missing.

Katrina struggles, going largely undirected in most scenes. She can never turn on the goofy appeal that Diaz brought to Knight and Day. It was riding on her reactions that we were in Cruise control. Here, we are left to two beautiful people strutting their stuff in what looks like a 156-minute commercial.

The toughest #bangbangdare out there is to watch Bang Bang. Most of you must have completed it by now. Well done. Now bang bang your head against the wall. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Pratim D. Gupta
Is Bang Bang the worst big film of the year? Tell t2@abp.in

BANG BANG vs KNIGHT and day

I can throw out a challenge to people to watch Knight and Day and Bang Bang… there is so much change in the story and screenplay that you will never be able to predict what’s going to happen next. I am ready to put my money where my mouth is — Bang Bang director Siddharth Anand in his pre-release interview to t2.

Well, we decided to take up Siddharth’s challenge and see how different Bang Bang is from Knight and Day, the 2010 Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz action-romance of which the Hrithik Roshan-Katrina Kaif starrer is an official remake. Bang Bang is a sillier version of Knight and Day, which wasn’t a very intelligent film — despite a plot involving a perennial power source and a heroine with the talent to reassemble old cars in a jiffy — to begin with. But while Knight and Day was campy fun — Cruise’s Roy Miller was Ethan Hunt with a sense of humour and Diaz’s June Havens was endearingly goofy — Bang Bang doesn’t get anywhere close.

After watching both the films, t2 lists the 10 scenes and sequences that Bang Bang has retained from Knight and Day…

Half an hour into Bang Bang, Katrina’s Harleen has already bumped into Hrithik’s Rajveer and been charmed silly by him when she discovers that he isn’t who she thinks he is. With a gang of goons hot on her trail because she has been seen in his company, Rajveer tells Harleen that officials of the Indian security service will tell her that he’s “mentally unstable, a pathological liar and schizophrenic” — yes, almost the same words that Roy had used with June. Rajveer also tells Harleen to be wary if the officials tell her she will be shifted to a “mehfooz” location. Yes, “safe” in Knight and Day.

A couple of scenes later, Rajveer is involved in a shootout with a jeep full of goons and Harleen is caught in the crossfire. When she refuses to be a party to his trigger-happy ways, he tells her: “Tum mere saath mehfooz, inke saath not mehfooz”. Yes, the same “with me, without me” trope Roy had used with June. A few minutes later, Rajveer shoots Harleen’s boss in the leg so that he can escape with his car. In the original, Roy had shot June’s ex-boyfriend Rodney, na fireman who still carried a torch for her.

Like Knight and Day, much of Bang Bang involves Rajveer drugging Harleen. But our Bolly man does it with a difference — to whisk his girl from one exotic location to another (Thailand to Prague to Santorini) and break into song and dance.

When a drugged Harleen wakes up in the picturesque Thai island of Similan and discovers herself in a bikini top and shorts, she has the same question for Rajveer that June had for Roy: “How did I get into these clothes?” Rajveer’s reply: “Agar main pachaas bodyguard aur hazaar goliyon ke beech mein se Kohinoor chura sakta hoon, toh main tumhein nahin dekh kar kapde pehna sakta hoon. Lekin main yeh nahin kehta ki maine aisa kiya hai!” Roy’s reply: “If I can dismantle a bomb in pitch black with nothing but a safety pin and a junior mint, then I think I can get you into some clothes without looking. Though I am not saying I did that!”

Minutes later, the two are ambushed by the gang they are escaping from. When Rajveer wonders how they had been traced in what he thought was a secure location, Harleen sheepishly admits she put in a phone call to her grandmom. In Knight and Day, June had received a call from her sister April.

At Prague, Harleen is intercepted by the Indian Security Service and asked to trap Rajveer so that he turns himself in. The scene is replicated right down to Rajveer throwing himself into a lake, making the officials believe that he has drowned. The only difference: the scene in Knight and Day was set in France.

Like June, Harleen pays a visit to Rajveer’s (Roy’s) parents. The scene is almost the same as the original — the parents claiming that they have won a series of lotteries but don’t remember having bought them and Harleen chancing upon Rajveer’s — whose real name is Jai — pictures in his house.

The last half-an-hour of Bang Bang is almost Knight and Day toto. Right from Harleen being kidnapped by Omar Zafar (Danny Denzongpa) and being injected with truth serum to Rajveer rescuing her. Her conversation with him: “You excite me,” is a repeat of what June tells Roy.

The bike sequence — the highpoint of the Bang Bang trailer — in which Harleen, riding pillion, turns over to sit in front of Rajveer, fish his guns out of his jacket and go ‘bang bang’ at the men in pursuit, is all Knight and Day. The only difference — while that was shot in the middle of a bull-race sequence in Spain, this is on an Abu Dhabi flyover. Unlike Knight and Day, however, the chase continues on a Formula One car and then in a submarine, contributing to its 156-minute running time as opposed to the Holly original’s far-more-bearable 110 minutes.

Omar Zafar taken care of, Rajveer lands up in hospital. Harleen, posing as a nurse, drugs him and smuggles him out, taking him with her. When he wakes up and asks her what day it is, she smilingly answers: “Ek din”. Yes, the literal translation of June’s “Some day” to Roy.

Priyanka Roy
Which is a better watch — Bang Bang or Knight and Day? Tell t2@abp.in