After the disastrous ‘Naqab’ and the below average ’36 Chinatown’, Abbas-Mastan are back with their latest offering ‘Race’. Desperately in need of a hit, the director duo have added every possible ingredient into their latest offering being dished out. Hot peppers(hot chicks), cool mint(cool dudes), an appetizer(Anil Kapoor), loads of garam masala in the form of sex, comedy and action. In addition, there is tons of cold beer(beautiful locales, cars and studs) on the house. As a supplement to all of the above there is a ‘PLOT” embedded as well.
The plot: Two step brothers, one is a hardworking, business man, the other is a good for nothing alcoholic. They have inherited millions, own a stud farm and a few top notch properties in South Africa. They are both into racing and enjoy the company of ‘Hot Chicks’. Most important, they are seemingly close but are out to get each other. Who wins the ‘ultimate game of life’ and’how’ is the roller-coaster ride that the directors take you through all the way until the end of film.
The Hot Chicks: Sonia(Bipasha), Sofia(Katrina) and Mini(Sameera Reddy): It’s a feast for the guys to watch the skimpily clad gals prancing around in the beautiful locales of Durban, South Africa and Dubai. All three gals seem to be a master at following through plans made by ‘their men’ but are seldom shown to make use of their own gray cells, somewhat’Bimbos’ shall we say! Of the three, Bipasha’s character has got maximum footage and seems to utilize her brain cells occasionally. Her performance is fairly decent through out the movie. Katrina plays a crucial role, but she seriously should consider taking acting lessons. Her lack of expressions so far has been over looked because of her good looks, but she really needs to put her act together. Simply providing glam quotient for every movie isn’t enough. Sameera as the dumb secretary didn’t have much to do over all, except provide comic relief and look sexy.
The Cool Dudes: Ranvir(Saif) and Rajiv(Akshay Khanna): Saif plays the elder, more responsible of the two brothers. He’s gone shirtless, shaven his chest, has a stubbled look and has shown off his body quite liberally. But Saif is NO Hrithik a la ’Dhoom 2’. Given that it is Saif, we’ve come to expect top notch performances from him and he lives up to it. He gets into the skin of his character(literally and figuratively).
Akshay Khanna, (also gone shirtless, but clean shaven face with hairy chest, had to be a contrast to Saif) plays a complex character with many shades. As a conniving brother he is good, but is let down by the lack of impressive dialogue writing that was required for his character.
Anil Kapoor(as RD) sporting a French beard and brown hair plays a detective investigating a murder. His character was inspired by that of yesteryears T.V. serial detective ‘Karamchand’ who kept chewing carrots. Anil on the other hand munches all kinds of fruits and mouths dialogues such as ‘Anar kha raha hoon, to anari to nehi samaj rahe ho’. In addition to moving the story along, his character is mainly planted in to provide some comic relief and mouth a few gross double meaning dialogues. The scene in which Anil Kapoor is trying to enlighten Sameera with ‘sex education’ is supposed to tickle our funny bones but ends up looking ridiculous. He’s capable of much better, and in some ways I feel the directors have failed to utilize him.
Johnny Lever (special appearance, one scene) manages to make the audience smile. The scene is reminiscent of his ‘Baazigar’ days. In fact, from time to time, it feels that the directors are suffering from a ‘Baazigar’ hangover. Some similarities with Baazigar are pretty obvious : In both movies, one of the characters is pushed off the terrace of a tall building. Dalip Tahil(who had a major role in Baazigar) plays a high stakes bookie and is brought in for couple of horse race scenes. And lastly, one of the most famous dialogues of Baazigar: ‘Haar kar jeetnevale ko Baazigar kehte hain’ has been rehashed into ‘Tum kabhi jeet nehi paaye kyon ki tum hamesha mujhe haraane ki sochte the, Aur main kabhi haara nehi kyon ki main hamesha jeetne ki sochta tha’ in ‘Race’.
In terms of direction, ‘Race’ is certainly better than ‘Naqab’ or ’36 Chinatown’ but in an attempt to make it a blend of ‘Fast and Furious’, ‘Sea Biscuit’(horse race scenes), and provide high dosage of twists and turns, the directors have gone over board and ended up with some what a mix n match plot. When we look back, some scenes just don’t make any sense. Consider the scene where Soniya hands over a photograph to a contract killer as instructed by Rajiv. Later on it is revealed that it was her ‘own photograph’. How is it possible, that she would not even be aware of what photograph she was carrying in her own hands? Even Bimbos would know.
Most songs seemed to be forced and are an absolute hindrance to the plot over all. Except for Atif’s number, the rest are not worth mentioning. How does one explain Saif breaking into a song and dance within two weeks after he had a major accident. Most songs are club numbers and don’t gel well with the plot at all. Pritam’s music is mediocre, but background score of the film is excellent.
Shiraaz’s screenplay is impressive though first half drags quite a bit. Some scenes were unnecessary, for example(Akshay-Saif conversation about the pros and cons of drinking). Ravi Yadav’s camera has captured the beautiful locales of South Africa and Dubai superbly. However, the horse race scenes could have been better and is no where near international standards. Half of those scenes are shown ‘as being viewed on a monitor’, instead of being shown’live action’. This certainly makes those scenes relatively lackluster and is a short cut employed by the makers. This film is another testimony as to why Alan-Amin are considered the best in terms of ‘action choreographers’ these days in Bollywood. Their work speaks volumes and keeps the audience glued. There are a few excellent action scenes, but the climax stands out, though the concept was right out of the movie’Speed’.
Overall, ‘Race’ is certainly not what I would call as ‘an edge of the seat thriller’ but it is worth a watch, for good cinematography and action sequences. If that doesn’t seem attractive, there is enough eye candy in the form of gloss and glamour, if you are into it. Releasing the movie and its dubbed versions during a festive weekend, surely bolsters the chances of the film having a good opening and a decent initial at the box office. My overall Rating 2.5 stars.