Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008)

Director:

Siddharth Anand

Writers:

Devika Bhagat (screenplay)
Aditya Chopra (story)

Release Date:

15 August 2008 (India)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Plot:

During 1996 Raj Sharma, while in Switzerland, meets with Amritsar-based Mahi Pasricha, successfully woos...

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman

Awards:

3 nominations

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
Brad Kennerley
Rashmi Kulkarni
Andy Kumar
Roy Lange
Bhanu Mehra
Cameron Pearson	...	Taxi Passenger
Florian Philip
Ramandeep
Gurbhej Randhawa
Jay Ruparelia
Gurpreet Sandhu
Andrea Santarelli
Shyam Mashalkar		(as Sham Mashalkar)
Ravprit Singh		(as Master Ravprit Singh)
Sukhmeet Singh		(as Master Sukhmeet Singh)
Madurima Tulli
Parvati Vaze
Stefanie Wirz

Also Known As:

Untitled Siddharth Anand Project (India: English title) (working title)

Runtime:

152 min

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Ireland:PG | Australia:PG | India:UA

Filming Locations:

Bangkok, Thailand

Company:

Yash Raj Films

Trivia:

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

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In the scene where Mahi misses the train, she is shown reading Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince. Even the first book in the Potter series wasn't released in 1996.

Movie Connections:

References Bunty Aur Babli (2005)

Very Sugarcoated and Clichéd but Still A Decent One-Time Watch

Anand's 'Bachna Ae Haseeno' is an improvement when compared to the rip-off 'Salaam Namaste'. Loosely inspired by 'Alfie', it tells the story of Raj and the three women at different stages in his life. The treatment given to the film is very formulaic and highly sugarcoated with songs appearing out of the blue and shot in exotic locations, expensive locations and outfits, melodramatic scenes, deja-vu romantic scenes, a very clichéd story and a predictable plot but there is something entertaining enough to make it worth a one-time watch. The soundtrack is below average. There are some okay songs and some horrendous numbers.

The three women form three stories. The first one seems to pay homage to 'Dilwale Dulhania Lejayenge' (Aditya Chopra was the director of that film and he is the writer of this film). Interestingly, it sort of gets the viewer to ask what if in 'Dilwale Dulhania LeJayenge': Raj's feelings for Simran were merely momentary, what if Simran married Kuldeep...and these questions, to an extent are answered here. The following two stories have a bit of 'Salaam Namaste'.

Ranbir Kapoor is plain okay. I don't see why his directors have to constantly remind us that he is Rishi Kapoor's (who wasn't even a great actor) son and Raj Kapoor's grandson. What was with that light flickering (from 'Bobby'), the title song and what not? Kapoor has to learn to stand on his own and has to make his directors promote his acting only, rather than his family background. I still do not see that star quality in him (that almost everyone else seems to be so sure of) and nor does he have what it takes to carry an entire film, yet.

He is clearly (and thankfully) overshadowed by his three female co-stars. A supercute Minisha Lamba is vivacious as the young Mahi and she is very elegant and brilliant as the cold-hearted wife. A ravishing Bipasha Basu does one of the best acting jobs of her career and a sassy Deepika Padukone does fine too. Kunal Kapoor seems to have replaced Jimmy Shergill as Yashraj's favourite supporting actor and even though he's not as good an actor as Shergill, he does an adequate job here.

Overall, it's not a classic and certainly not the best of Yashraj films but it makes for a decent one-time watch. Some heavy editing (because of the slow pace), a stronger male lead and perhaps less waste of money would have helped.