Chandni Chowk To China

With strands of slapstick, melodrama, pathos, action and music crisscrossing freely during two-and-a-half-hour running times, Bollywood movies sometimes feel like a lengthy performance by a virtuosic one-man band. At their worst they can feel like that same one-man band on a bad night, flailing around amidst a torrent of flop sweat, desperately trying to salvage his act with any piece of showmanship he can muster. Chandni Chowk to China is such a frantic and undisciplined mess that it feels as if the one-man band, having just played "Flight of the Bumblebee" and "Inna Gadda Da Vida" simultaneously, proceeded directly to a high diving act and a few trampoline stunts. Akshay Kumar (India's biggest box office draw and perhaps its answer to Jim Carrey) is deeply irritating as a humble cook from the small Indian village of Chandni Chowk, who is convinced he is the reincarnation of Chinese folk hero Liu Sheung and travels to China to challenge a tyrannical gangster (kung-fu legend Gordon Liu). The film's hyper-paced first half plays like a less funny and more aggressive version of Kung Fu Hustle, with massive quantities of elaborate physical comedy (at one point Kumar flies across town from the impact of a punch) piled together with little rhythm or strategy; it's broad wackiness for the sake of. Things get even drearier in the second half when the tone shifts abruptly to that of an earnest, flat-footed drama that Kumar simply doesn't have the gravitas to pull off. There are few things more depressing than a manic comedy that pauses for emotional resonance it hasn't earned. Chandni Chowk to China was the first Bollywood film to be financed and distributed by an American studio and though a complete failure both artistically and financially, I hope Hollywood doesn't give up the experiment. Even a bad Bollywood movie throws so much at the screen that some of it sticks, whetting the appetite for something better. The DVD is bare bones, aside from several deleted scenes.