Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008)

The story of a young man and the three loves of his life, from 1996 to 2008.

Director:

Siddharth Anand

Writers:

Aditya Chopra (story), Devika Bhagat (screenplay),

Stars:

Ranbir Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, Minissha Lamba

7 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Ranbir Kapoor	...	Raj Sharma
Bipasha Basu	...	Radhika / Shreya Rathod
Minissha Lamba	...	Mahi Pasricha / Mahi J. Singh Ahluwalia
Deepika Padukone	...	Gayatri
Kunal Kapoor	...	Joginder Singh Ahluwalia
Hiten Paintal	...	Sachin
Puneet Issar	...	Mahi's Father
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Menekka Arora	...	Mahi's Mother (as Menaka Arora)
Sumit Arora	...	(as Sumeet Arora)
Ntasha Bhardwaj	...	Preeti
Pratik Dixit
Bidyut Dumra	...	Wall Street Banker (as Bidyut Durma)
Karan Gill	...	Karan Bahl
Avantika Hundal
Willi Jezler

Storyline

During 1996 Raj Sharma, while in Switzerland, meets with Amritsar-based Mahi Pasricha, successfully woos, then dumps her. Then during 2002, he meets with aspiring model, Radhika, who is also attracted to him, and both move-in to live together in a small apartment in Mumbai. When he gets the opportunity to settle in Sydney, Australia, he dumps her and re-locates there. Now it is 2006, and Raj has met a brilliant taxi-driver, Gayatri, who he falls in love with. The question remains, will his attraction again be temporary? And what will be the consequences if Gayatri finds out about his past?

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Plot Keywords:

sydney australia | switzerland | train ride | musical number | tom cruise reference | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi English

Release Date:

15 August 2008 (India)

Also Known As:

Bachna Ae Haseeno - Liebe auf Umwegen

Filming Locations:

Amritsar, Punjab, India

Box Office

Budget:

INR 180,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£100,693 (UK) (15 August 2008)

Gross:

$691,678 (USA) (29 August 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Yash Raj Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

152 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Preity Zinta was in talks for playing a role in the film.

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Goofs

During the party scene in Raj's house, the song that is being played is Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, but then neither the song nor the film had released when this story was supposedly taking place.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Raj Sharma: [In Hindi] Love. Affection. Fondness. Passion. Whenever it happens with someone, it changes one's life, the heart starts beating faster and makes you sigh. It gives you sleepless nights, one tends to daydream, it teaches you what it means to love someone. It teaches you how to take those seven steps, which lead to the journey of seven lives. If you're lucky, you find your love, in just one shot. My case is different. I am a killer. I found this love three times.

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Crazy Credits

As with many Indian films, the title at the beginning of the film is first displayed in the Latin alphabet and straight after in the Devanagari alphabet.

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Connections

References Forza Motorsport (2005)

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Soundtracks

"Jogi Mahi"
Written by Anvita Dutt Guptan
Composed by Vishal Dadlani (as Vishal) and Shekhar Ravjiani (as Shekhar)
Performed by Sukhwinder Singh, Shekhar Ravjiani and Himani Kapoor
Courtesy of Yash Raj Music

User Reviews

Very inspired, not very inspiring, but a decent one-time watch

Bachna Ae Haseeno is another modern Yash Raj fare. It is a romantic comedy at first and then turns into a... romantic drama. The film centres around the character of Raj, played by Ranbir Kapoor. Divided into three episodes each one presenting his relationships with three different women in his life, Bachna Ae Haseeno has a far stronger second half, but overall it's just another clichéd take on modern relationships. The movie shows the character of Raj as a guy who does not really take anything seriously but it aims to portray his growing maturity in life, and it partially succeeds. The first chapter presents a rather ordinary counter train meeting. It is a very cheesy episode which takes a lot from such films as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Jab We Met and actually does it admittedly. The second one is another meaningless portion portraying his relationship with an ambitious yet selfless aspiring model, and the third chapter shows how he ultimately falls in love with probably the wrong girl - an independent young lady who, among other jobs, works as a taxi driver and sees marriage as an obstacle. The first two episodes show Raj breaking the heart of two different girls, and the third shows how a girl breaks his heart. His heartbreak motivates him to try and meet his ex-girlfriends and ask for their forgiveness.

As one can see, Bachna Ae Haseeno has a very unoriginal script. Not that it copies a certain film, but it just takes inspiration from so many famous romantic comedies that it really gets on one's nerves from time to time and looks very ordinary throughout. It also has many annoying references to previous Yash Raj flicks. The second half takes more shape but it's not without its flaws either. Expectedly, it unfolds in episodes, mainly two, in which the protagonist tries to atone for his sins and clean his conscience. The first episode with that girl Mahi is handled pretty well, but come on, why would a girl lose her faith in love because she was lied to by a jerk whom she knew for one sole day? The fact she even remembers him after 12 long years looks totally awkward. The second episode re-meets him with Radhika, who was deeply in love with him and was abandoned by him on the wedding day. She is now known as Shreya Rathod, a popular supermodel whose attitude has become most cruel, malicious and evil, something which reminisces of Meryl Streep's Miranda in The Devil Wears Prada. This sequence is far more credible and it is perhaps the film's most entertaining. And then, after doing what he so longed for, he goes back to meet the girl who broke and heart. What happens next is something I believe anyone can predict.

Bachna Ae Haseeno is traditionally made, with songs, emotions and moments of old platitude, but then again, it has its pluses. The soundtrack by Vishal-Shekhar is very good. "Khuda Jaane" is the best number - well composed, performed and visualised on-screen. The casting is quite okay. The script does not really require some great acting talents to begin with, so it's passable. Ranbir Kapoor is plain okay as the main lead. He is generally well cast, but he does not register the growth in his character with total conviction. This kind of a role would have suited perfectly someone like Saif Ali Khan, whose superb comic timing is matched by his ability to mature as a person throughout a film. Ranbir is just not there yet, and although he is confident, that too is overdone at times. The girls are mainly there to look pretty, and they definitely do. Minissha Lamba is vivacious and cute, Deepika Padukone is extremely pretty, but both get overshadowed by Bipasha Basu who is so amazingly attractive that at times it's hard to believe anyone could leave her like Raj did. It looks like she gets sexier with every film, but besides that, her performance is probably the film's most convincing. Despite its flaws, Bachna Ae Haseeno is not that bad a film and it has its moments, which make for quite a decent one-time watch.