Reviews

This movie is a remake of a very good Bollywood movie called Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya, which in turn was a remake of Walter Mathau and Goldie Hawn's Cactus Flower. Adam Sandler gives a typical performance. Two stars because I like Jennifer Aniston, but watch either of the previous versions instead of this.

Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya is a particularly good introduction to Bollywood comedies if you've never seen one before. The music is great and the captions won't get in the way of the movie. In fact, you could almost turn the captions off and still get the humor. The locations (Dubai and the Maldives) will blow you away.

I did not expect this to be anywhere as good as it turned out to be. I mean, who wants to see a murder mystery where the main characters break out into song every 30 minutes or so? Yes, they actually do sing in their own voices over recordings you will recognize.

The songs are a perfect fit to the story, moving it along and providing a lot of context. My personal favorite was the head to head between David Morrissey and David Tennant, both singing "These Boots Are Made For Walking."

Sarah Parish has always been a personal favorite, starting with "Cutting It" and doing a killer job as a lawyer in the short lived series "Trust". David Morrissey did a fantastic job. You'd swear he is a total sleaze in the beginning of the series, but by the end, your opinion will probably change. Likewise, David Tennant (the new Dr Who) seems to be the perfect cop, but is he really?

PS - If you saw this on BBC America, you missed about 10 minutes out of every episode. Several songs were cut, as were a lot of key scenes that made the story much easier to follow, and also developed some of the the characters much further. Especially Hallworth, the character played by David Bradley who was protesting the conversion of the arcade into a casino.

Do yourself a favor - get a multi-region DVD player, and order the DVD from the UK.

I really wanted to like this film. The premise has potential and the actress playing Charly is good. Unfortunately, this movie is basically a recruiting film for the Mormon church.

The story could be summarized: Sophisticated New York girl arrives in Salt Lake City, meets geekie (think "Palm Pilot") country boy at airport and within two days, regularly attends church, reads Book of Mormon, says she believes it and starts calling other women "sister."

There are much more subtle ways to make your point. I have no problem with a member of the LDS Church producing a positive, uplifting movie that promotes his personal beliefs. Just wish it had been identified that way on the jacket.

The high point of this movie was seeing Andi in a very pretty white bra & panty getup. Unfortunately, enduring 90 minutes of the most boring film I've ever seen to get that 5 seconds is a tradeoff I'd just as soon not make again.

OK, Garry Marshall was able to get millions of people to believe (myself included) the fairy tale in Pretty Woman. I mean really, the magic it took to make a movie with a plot about a successful businessman falling in love with a hooker is just this side of unbelievable.

So expecting the reprise (in the same sense as Fierce Creatures was to A Fish Called Wanda) to have the same emotional impact is a bit unrealistic.

But I was really hoping it would.

Still it was a nice movie. There were lots of inside dialog references to Pretty Woman, and having the continuity of some of the supporting actors made for a sense of visiting with old friends.

This movie was released about the same time as Notting Hill. If you're looking for more of an emotional connection to an unbelievable plot, rent it instead.