'Kites': a star-crossed love story, Bollywood style

Few Bollywood movies have found mainstream crossover notice in the U.S., and it's unlikely that "Kites" will be more than a blip on 2010's American summer slate. But as a fairy tale jampacked with action, romance, comedy, tragedy, drama, music, dancing and Western pizazz, it's a painless entree to the archetypal Bollywood style. That it takes place against the backdrop of the American Southwest makes it even more accessible as a cracking piece of popcorn entertainment.

An amalgam of the above genres salted with heavy under-

currents of emotional melodrama is what usually defines traditional Bollywood epics, and "Kites" pulls no punches in its histrionic story of love and revenge. It also spares no expense in the telling with the cast of primarily Hindi actors gnashing their way through a beautifully stylish production and several large-scale action set pieces.

The star-crossed love story concerns J (hunky Bollywood heartthrob Hrithik Roshan), a Las Vegas hustler and lothario who's latched onto Gina (Kangana Ranaut), the daughter of a dastardly, filthy-rich casino owner. J's motives are purely avaricious, but Cupid hits him for real in the form of Natasha (Bárbara Mori), the ravishing Mexican fiancée of Gina's psychopathic brother Tony (Nicholas Brown).

J and Natasha share only a few fractured bits of language in common (the dialogue is a mishmash of English, Hindi and Spanish, often in the same sentence), but their love is destiny, as is their escape from danger and conformity. With Tony and his henchmen in murderous pursuit, the chase is punctuated by breathless timeouts for bank robberies, bloody shootouts, an electrifying dance number, hair-raising stunt sequences and dewy-eyed love scenes.

Bonnie and Clyde and Romeo and Juliet may come to mind amid the volatile theatrics, but the overblown action is all part of a piece in a giddy, hyperbolic style that has made Bollywood more popular than Hollywood to much of the world.

Ted Fry: tedfry@hotmail.com