KOI… MIL GAYA ***1/2
Dir: Rakesh Roshan
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Preity Zinta, Rekha
After this film it is very likely that the refrain will be “Hrithik ko hit mil gaya”. He is, by far, one of the best reasons to see Rakesh Roshan’s much-awaited film. After their last successful film Kaho Naa… Pyar Hai, father and son regroup and create new jadoo.
Kudos to Roshan junior for playing the bravest role of his (potholed) career. It takes some guts for an actor in our fickle, star-struck industry to play a mentally challenged child-man, with stiff body language, a geeky look, funny voice, getting beaten up by the town bullies and yet winning the day. The triumph of the underdog — who doesn’t want to see that.
Right, so there’s Rohit (Hrithik), son of a dead scientist who dedicated his life to contacting alien life via his ‘Aum’ computer, being raised by his widowed mother (Rekha). Keeping him company is his gang of school friends — an amiable lot of boys and girls.
As kids do, one day they play a prank on new girl in town, Nisha (Zinta). Not realising Rohit’s condition, she mistakes his innocence for insolence, but eventually befriends the gentle, untainted boy.
This is the gang that has a close encounter of the alien kind with a spaceship attracting the vibrations sent out by Rohit’s father’s computer, a toy for the boy, but in fact a powerful machine designed to communicate with life in space.
From mid-way, the film veers towards Steven Spielberg’s ET, with some scenes being almost exact lifts. Much like Elliot did in ET, Rohit must protect Jadoo (the blue alien) from the army and scientists keen to capture him.
But you overlook that plagiarism because by then Rakesh Roshan (who is a better director than an actor as his turn as Rohit’s father in this film shows) has you hooked. He leaves no stone unturned in spinning a lavish formulaic tale.
Where one expects the USP of this mega-budget flick to lie in the much-hyped alien creature, created by Australian graphic artists, it actually lies in the director’s age-old cinematic skills and imaginative storytelling.
He takes a film about extra-terrestrials and adds a Bollywood spin to it, complete with romance, thugs, chases, friendship and hope.
Preity Zinta holds her own and makes ample room for Hrithik to outshine her and redeem himself after his over-the-top role in Mein Prem Ki Diwani Hoon. But the two do make a charming on-screen couple.
The songs work in the context of the film and never hamper the pace. The special effects are slick, especially the spacecraft, but the alien rendition leaves you disappointed, being more Teletubbies than Spielberg.
You walk into Koi… Mil Gaya expecting to find a mysterious alien, what you end up discovering is a child inside you.
http://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/hindimoviesreview/2003/august/60630.htm