Even as Hrithik Roshan tried in vain to put his labour of love in context by saying, “Till now I’ve offered you biryani, with Kites I want you all to try pasta,” the audience was in no mood to feast on his “biryani in arrabiata sauce”.

Kites has become a case study in the Bollywood Flop File. On paper, the film had all the ingredients to make a neat pasta (ahem) film. A Hrithik movie is always an event, especially when it’s after a gap of two years. Moreover, Hrithik and Papa Roshan have always spun screen magic right from Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai, Koi Mil Gaya to Krrish. With Kites, they wanted to experiment and tweak the Bollywood boundary. So they got Anurag Basu to direct the film. Enter Latina telly star Barbara Mori and Kites was all set to soar high. Rumours of a Hrithik-Barbara romance only added to the curiosity value of the film and the success of Kites was all but taken for granted. But the audience gave it a thumbs down, and Kites crash-landed.

The trade circle is still in a tizzy. The extent of the loss is yet to be counted as the Brett Ratner Hollywood version has also tanked. The postmortem continues. The Spanish/English dialogues are being blamed. The chemistry between the Kites lovebirds is also not much to write about. The Basu-Roshan mix didn’t work. The old world story (credited to Roshan Sr.) and Basu’s stylised treatment just didn’t gel. There are stories of Bihar distributors suing the Roshans for having sent them the “English” print.

In hindsight, Kites failed on the idea level more than the execution level. The Roshans had the big idea in place: they wanted to make a Hindi movie that truly crosses over to Hollywood. So they decided to repackage the typical ’80s style Bollywood action-romance and sell it to the West. In the process they forgot their core audience — The Indian Audience.

The Indian Audience is a quaint and difficult-to-categorise species. Their tastes are varied. While the multiplex-loving city audience has moved on from the ’80s to the noughties and would rather watch Love Sex aur Dhoka, the mass crowds who throng the single screens, would rather watch a Wanted. Yes, they love their action but they want to be entertained.

There are few stars who can cater to both these segments. Hrithik with his pan-Indian appeal cracked it best with Krrish and Dhoom 2. In Kites, Hrithik was trying too hard to be a Hollywood hero. The bronzed look and the American twang all went against the very appeal he has for his audience. The guy in Kites looked like Hrithik but he didn’t sound or act like him. That was a major disconnect for his audience.

As an experiment, Kites works. But as a film it doesn’t. Moreover, the price tag that it comes with makes it a pretty expensive experiment. The Roshans will be careful the next time round. Maybe Hrithik will really become our Bradley Cooper in Hollywood. Maybe that was the plan. The postmortem continues.