Bollywood/Hollywood (2002)
Rahul Seth is a dashing young millionaire who believes he is "western" enough to rebel against his mother and grandmother. They are not too keen about his Caucasian girlfriend Kimberly who, to make matters worse, is a pop star. Before you can say "karmic intervention," Kimberly dies in a freak accident and Rahul is devastated. Instead of allowing him to mourn in peace, Rahul's mother sees the opportunity she's been waiting for. She threatens to call off his sister's wedding unless he finds himself a "nice Indian girl." Rahul enlists the services of Sue, a fiercely independent escort whom he believes to be Hispanic, and therefore not "married" to the conventions taught to young Indian women. With a wink in her eye, Sue accepts the deal to pose as his Indian bride-to-be. She needs the money and having never been a fan of the typical Indian male, she feels her heart is safe. The charade begins....
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Bollywood meets Hollywood is an excellent movie. The characters are well drawn out, and the visuals beautiful. It is in English without the subtitles, and for an English speaker this is a plus. I love all that is Indian, and when I can just immerse myself in the experience; even better. I am not always a fan of the persistent music; however, when the music is beautiful and related to actual events, visually stunning, then the song and dance is a welcome addition. This is an enjoyable movie with beautiful characters both artistically and visually. Many of the characters are a staple of a Deepa Mehta film, and as always deliver on a promise. Lisa Ray is stunning, and has a talent that needs to be explored.
Bollywood Hollywood starts off like a spoof on the films of the former (Bollywood), from the first scene where a dying father makes a speech to his young son from his deathbed on family values to the comic sub-titles in many of the scenes which take on different aspects of Hindi movie melodramas. But the movie falters and ends up looking like the very films it appears to be trying to parody.Rahul (Rahul Khanna), a wealthy young man of Indian origin settled in Canada, is distraught when his gori lover dies in a freak incident. Somewhere at this point his mother demands that he get himself a girl, an Indian one this time, else his sister's wedding might get called off. He hires Sunitha (Lisa Ray), whom he meets at a bar, to act as his fiancée. As time goes by, he naturally starts falling in love with her. But, her questionable antecedents create doubts in his mind and... I would be giving nothing away if I tell you what follows but I won't do that in case you go on to watch the film.The cast performs well enough but the ideas don't really work and thus a Shakespeare quoting grandmother seems more incongruous than funny and a cross-dressing servant wholly irrelevant. 'Nothing is what it appears to be' goes the promo for the film. However, there are no surprises in this one where everything is as predictable as it gets. It has a few funny moments, but if you miss this flick, don't get too worked up about it.
I hated this movie it was predictable and cliche the sad thing was it was deliberate! This movie had no originality what so ever poor acting very poor production values (The whole movie looks like it was shot in one day) annoying characters (I wanna kill that stupid grandma and what kind of Indian grandma quotes Shakespare? It just looks like no real effort or thinking went into this film It was intended to be a funny spoof of bollywood culture I thought it was just lame and cheesy even the cameo appearance made by Aksahye Khanna couldn't give it any redeeming qualities 3/10
For all those who felt the film was not the most fabulous or felt it wasn't a representative of the Bollywood industry etc., then you need to know this:1) This movie was sold as a spoof of the Indian film industry like 'Not another teen movie' was a parody of 'Chick Flicks' and as the 'Scary Movie' series are for horror films; this film was meant to be exaggerated and outrageous.2) Also to understand the humour of this film, you need to a know a lot about the Indian film industry and the references to the 'gossip' and films; even the music that is played as a score are insinuations to various Indian films. The transvestite driver, 'Killer Khalsa' sequence are a citation to a lot of stereotypes; Indian movies have transvestites as they are a part of society and as for the 'Killer Khalsa' sequence, the allusion to the food and the absurdity of the matchmaking are ever present in Indian films.3) The segments of the film where it is obvious that Deepa Mehta's first language is not English are the segments where there are references to Indian sayings or style of speaking and that is true of many N.R.I's.I am astonished at the people who disliked it; the audience should be aware of the context of this movie because admittedly there are people who appreciate Indian style films (in which case that audience should not have watched this film). Deepa Mehta is renowned for her art films ('Fire' (1996), 'Earth' (1998) and the upcoming 'Water') and this movie was created for a satirical view of the current films, especially the N.R.I. films.What is commonly seen as a flaw of this movies is actually a part of the sardonic look at Indian films; of course if there are are filming discontinuities, I have not noticed. I give this film a 9 out of 10 due to the technical flaws (for example, 'Kim's' accident and the 'ghost' sequence) and also because of Lisa Ray's stylists' lack of fashion IQ as she was made to look pretty horrid through out this movie.