Director – Abbas-Mustan
Screenplay – Anurag Prapanna, Jitendra Parmar and Shiraz Ahmed.
Plot
Ranvir Singh(Saif Ali Khan) is a stunt expert cum horse breeder who has 2 passions in life, performing death defying stunts and betting on horses. He has a younger brother who is an good for nothing alcoholic, Rajiv(Akshaye Khanna). Ranvir is in love with Sonia(Bipasha Basu) who is an upcoming model while Sophia(Katrina Kaif) is in secretly love with Ranvir who is his boss. Rajiv falls in love with Sonia and pledges to leave alcohol if she marries her and Ranvir sacrifices his love for her. Due to a twist of fate, Ranvir dies and the investigation is handled to a street smart cop, Robert Dcosta(Anil Kapoor) and his bumbling assistant Mini(Sameera). After that there are a lot of double crosses and lots of twists and turn till the end.
Critic’s Comments
The director duo of Abbas-Mustan has finally given a thriller film, that was expected from them since 1993’s hit, Baazigar. Post Baazigar, they have directed a few thrillers and even one horror(Chori Chori Chupke Chupke) but all of them were either Hollywood remakes or duds. Race is the kind of film that was expected from them. The story is extremely unpredictable and if one does not watch it from the start, he/she wont understand a thing that is going on. The acting is ok and its Saif Ali Khan who has given a commendable performance. And pray, why is Katrina Kaif’s voice dubbed? Sameera Reddy has nothing much to do and her role could have been easily shelved. Bipasha Basu is ok. The cinematography by Ravi Yadav and editing by Hussain Burmawala is slick. I wouldn’t say this movie is a must watch but I would recommend a view if anyone is remotely interested in seeing something different.
Psst –
1)
Fardeen Khan was offered the role of Akshaye Khanna but he reportedly turned it down due to differences with Saif Ali Khan.
2)
There was also lots of controversies about the posters of Race which was strikingly similar to the upcoming film Tashan. Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor were the common stars of the film.
Quotes
1)
“Main Apni haar bhi celebrate karta hu.”
Oops-
1)
The movie is based in South Africa yet the currency used is dollars. In South Africa, R a n d(Sorry I cant type the full word as it is a dirty slang in Hindi and cant be used on mouthshut)is the official currency with the coins as cents.
2)
The horse race is not called the Durban Cup but is called the Durban July Handicap and it is held in the Month of July and not September as shown in the movie.
3)
In South Africa, like many other commonwealth countries, in order to get your marriage certificate, one must get 2 witnesses. We never see that happening in the scene where 2 of the star cast(Cant give names as it will be a spoiler) get their marriage registered.
4)
The other law, and very interesting one, is that the marriage certificate application must be signed in black ink and we see that getting signed in blue ink.
5)
The marriage certificate takes 6-8 weeks, as per South African Laws, to get done so how did the protagonists get it on the same day? This would have altered the story line.