It’s fast-paced . But it also feels like 20 episodes squeezed into three hours. In that, plots and characters are often left without rhyme or reason. It’s like a film racing on skates. Albeit ones with wobbly wheels.
The film opens with a brief childhood sequence, a ’70s set piece. The young Raees is street-smart, and with a head-start into criminal activity. Yes, he’s poor. And overtly touchy about being called “Battery”, slang for someone who wears spectacles. But there’s no scarring humiliation or tragedy, or “Mera baap chor hai” tattoo.
When he grows up, in one broad stroke, he’s out to conquer the world with two basic lessons: mommy said “No business is small”. And smuggling mentor Jayraj Seth ( Atul Kulkarni) said he has “baniye ki dimag, aur Miyabhai ki daring”. The first lesson he interprets as a license to break the law. The latter, if you think about it, comes from a person who’s hardly a role model.
But though Raees is creative at getting illegal shipments past cops ( so was Escobar) , he isn’t the smartest businessman around. He bungles up his effort to get seed money, trusts the wrong people, and picks fights for every slight.
And he does pick a lot of fights, taking on dozens of men, alone. If only a film on Escobar was made in Bollywood, he, too, would be Parkour-ing through Colombia.