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'Bachna Ae Haseeno' is meant for an audience of teeny-boppers, for whom moviegoing is an exercise in giggling, imbibing huge tubs of popcorn and shrieking "so cuuuute, ya" at regular intervals.
Terms like political correctness, sexism, intellect, etc are beyond their radar. So those who think Ranbir Kapoor is cute and Bipasha Basu is hot, this film is for you.
If vanity is a word that can be applied to production houses, then Siddharth Anand's film is an extravagant tribute to Yash Raj Films—the producer of this one.
The 1995-hit 'Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge' runs thorough 'BAH' (unfortunate acronym) like a refrain, and there are nods to 'Dhoom', 'Jhoom Barabar Jhoom' and 'Salaam Namaste' (also directed by Anand). The title comes from a song in 'Hum Kisise Kam Nahin'—non YRF.
Ranbir plays Raj (Sharma not Malhotra)— first at age 18, on a holiday to Switzerland, where he and a movie-struck idiot Mahi (Minissha Lamba) do a train-missing, road tripping DDLJ romance. For her, it's the experience of a lifetime, for him a chance of boasting of all going 'all the way' with her.
Leaving her shattered, five years later, he is in a live-in relationship with Radhika (Bipsaha Basu), and ditches her at the altar to go off to Australia, because he doesn't have the courage to tell her he doesn't want commitment.
Five years later, in Sydney, he meets taxi-driver Gayatri (Deepkia Padukone), the brainy, independent one, paying her way through B-school. When he proposes marriage to her, she drops him. In remorse, he goes back to apologise to the two women whose hearts he broke callously, and who, it turns out, were so shattered by his betrayal, they need major damage control—by Raj, of course. The scores of white women he (and his sidekick, Hiten Paintal) bed and dump don't count, because 'women like that' supposedly have no feelings.
Annoyingly what the film says, is that women stubbornly cling to men or their memories, and become emotionally sterile, while men can get away with anything. And then, the independent girl, who doesn't believe in marriage, also turns out to want the 'old-fashioned' thing. Just by the way, people still slip handwritten notes under doors? Whatever happened to smart phones and email? And why does the background 'haha' track have the sound of a toilet flushing?
The first half of the film (inspired by 'High Fidelity', 'Broken Flowers', 'Teen Devian', etc ) is still somewhat cool and humorous. The second half is mawkish and ludicrous, leading to a total cop-out ending.
Still, it is Ranbir Kapoor's freshness (one more 'cute' role and he is in trouble), and Bipasha Basu's sex appeal that carries BAH through. And yes, some of the gorgeous Italian locations –makes you want to start saving up for a holiday to Italy.
BAH's biggest contribution will be the addition of the word "Rajgiri" to teen slang— the hero uses it to mean 'pataoing' girls.