Battle of the blockbusters: Kaabil versus Raees

Here's why both films look set to do exceedingly well

It's a box office clash that has been widely written about -- but there are high chances that both, Kaabil and Raees releasing on Friday, will do exceedingly well.

In Kaabil, Hrithik Roshan loves his wife to death and is ready to go to any length to avenge the wrong done to her. The last 20 minutes of Kaabil are so heart-in-the-mouth, you would be advised to hold your bursting bladders till the last drop of blood is shed and avenged on screen.

Kaabil is by far Sanjay Gupta's best work, more emotional and dramatic than any of the violent sagas he has helmed in the past. Hrithik gives his finest, most searing and passionate performance since Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai and Guzaarish. His intensity of emotional expression is haunting.



Raees is also a love story. And it's got nothing to do with Mahira Khan. Shah Rukh Khan's character of a man of ill-gotten power and wealth from Gujarat in the 1980s, is in love. With himself. Since I believe Shah Rukh in real life truly loves himself, the merger of the actor and the character is so brutally complete, it's like watching mirror images of two identical souls -- one off camera, the other on it -- in very different clothes.

This is perhaps the first time in his entire career as a leading man that Shah Rukh has found a co-star who is compelling in his own right. Nawazuddin Siddiqui does with Shah Rukh what a Rishi Kapoor or Vinod Khanna could never do with Amitabh Bachchan. Tit for tat.



The two actors keep us ruthlessly riveted to the screen. The movement of the plot is almost maniacal, matching the manic energy and mutinous passion of the two men at each other's throats.

More than anything else, the two films this week prove what Hindi cinema has known all along. Nothing can replace the cult of superstardom. The magic that Khan and Roshan bring to the screen has to be seen to be believed.

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