Hari Puttar fails to conjure Harry Potter magic

When the makers of Bollywood's latest blockbuster hit on the wizard idea of calling it Hari Puttar, they certainly got noticed - not least by lawyers. But if they were hoping that Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors would work the Harry Potter magic on India when it opened in 200 cinemas across the country on Friday, they were in for a disappointment. JK Rowling can stop fretting; Warner Brothers can call off its legal attack dogs. India is not exactly gripped by Puttar-mania, and the only person who should be mildly miffed is Macaulay Culkin. The new movie is, indeed, a rip-off of a Hollywood children's classic, but it is Home Alone rather than Harry Potter that has provided the plot. The critics were not kind: 'Even those who go with zilch expectations are likely to curse the moment they bought a ticket,' wrote Khalid Mohamed in the Hindustan Times, awarding it one star. The Buzz18.com movie review website was even less impressed. 'Hari Puttar is such crap!' its headline yelled. The writer suggested the director be jailed and forced to watch the film three times a day as punishment. And the Indian Express noted that it had 'a script ... so full of holes that several large-sized trucks can drive right through'. It was left to Nikhat Kazmi, writing in the Times of India, to argue that any attempt by Bollywood to cater for the unrepresented teen audience deserved to be lauded. The movie, she said, was 'cute', adding: 'Behind all the bluster and pranks, there is the sweet little homily on the great Indian family.' Hari Puttar hit cinemas a month later than scheduled thanks to the efforts of Warner Brothers' legal team to persuade the courts to block it, claiming it infringed intellectual property rights and 'unfairly sought to confuse consumers and benefit from the well-known and well-loved Harry Potter brand'. It was not an argument that washed with Judge Reva Khetrapal, sitting in the High Court in Delhi last week. The Harry Potter books and films, she said, catered for an educated person. 'Such a person must be taken to be astute enough to know the difference between a Harry Potter film and another titled Hari Puttar.' If the reaction of those who turned up at the PVR Anupam cinema in the upmarket Saket area of Delhi on Friday evening was anything to go by, Warner Bros should have relied on the judgment of the viewing public. Many of the cinema's 300 seats were empty. As the audience spilled back on to the street, their views chimed with those of the critics. 'We thought there will be magic, but it has nothing to do with witchcraft and wizardry,' said Dinesh Kumar, 22. His girlfriend, Archa Kapoor, was equally unhappy: 'We came for Harry Potter, but it turned out to be Home Alone,' she complained. Starring child actor Zain Khan, the movie tells the story of 10-year-old Hari Prasad Dhoonda, whose family has moved to England and who is accidentally left behind when the rest of the clan goes on holiday. In an interview last week, director Lucky Kohli said the name was 'nothing but an unfortunate coincidence'. The movie is scheduled for UK release in the next few weeks.