Race 2: A disappointment with plenty of eye-candy

The movie is a total let-down minus Deepika’s gorgeous on-screen shots.

KARACHI:

When one makes a multi-starrer action thriller in Bollywood, exotic locations, luxurious life styles, fancy cars, electrifying dance sequences and a few serious action scenes with the usual special effects, it should be enough to draw in a crowd.

But what if, despite all the spicy ingredients, the product itself turns out to be bland? This, unfortunately, is the best way to describe director Abbas Mustan’s latest offering Race 2. Unlike many Bollywood sequels, it does have a connection with its prequel — however insignificant that may be.

The story begins in Istanbul where actor John Abraham plays the role of Armaan Malik, a street fighter-turned-billionaire who loves money and gambling and is shown exchanging money with his half-sister Elena (Deepika Padukone). She is later joined by actor Jacqueline Fernandez, who plays a sexy pick pocket who later becomes Armaan’s love interest. Saif Ali Khan plays Ranvir Singh, the hero of the film, who meets his old friend RD (Anil Kapoor) to get close to Armaan, to whom he wishes to offer an irresistible deal.

Like its predecessor, Race 2 is about various cons the lead characters pull off, with the ultimate aim of stealing the Shroud of Turin. Unfortunately, Race 2 doesn’t come close to its prequel as the character development is weak and the one-liners offer no help. Aside of the gorgeous ladies and buff gentlemen on display, you’ll have to rely on a lot of pop corn to sit through this one. To make matters worse, the best song Allah Duhai is at the end of the film!

Fragmented excitement

The central problem with Race 2 is that all the parts don’t work together. That is the reason why the experience of watching Race 2 is divided into fragments of excitement that do not contribute to the overall product. The choreography and cinematography of the song Allah Duhai are simply stunning and bring a change in a narrative that is going nowhere. It’s actually funny to see Anil Kapoor, John Abraham and Saif Ali Khan trying lip synch to Atif Aslam’s vocals and not matching them at all. The shots of Turkey are breathtaking and so are some of Saif’s chase sequences. But other than these elements, the film has nothing new to offer. The other song by Atif, Be Inteha is not as good as his previous Pehli Nazar and does not have the effect the original Race had.

For James Bond, a lesson from Bollywood

The most interesting and hilarious part of the film is the over use of some unimaginable technology. Let’s hope that the makers of Bond and Batman take notice, because the technology introduced in Race 2 is beyond Bond’s perception and too innovative for Wayne Enterprises. For example, Armaan and his half-sister Elena are big gamblers and bet millions of dollars and Euros while gambling — but there is a secret behind the exorbitantly high amounts they are putting at risk; Elena’s sunglasses. Now, these are not your usual glasses; we have seen Shahrukh Khan having X-ray vision in Badshah, but these glasses are something else; they play with the opponent’s perception. They are equipped with a technology that makes the final round of an opponent’s cards change as the remaining three cards appear the same, while the player all along thinks that he has winning numbers. As soon as the deal is done, Elena removes her glasses and gives her moment of victory gaze to the loser.

Verdict

The film is a disappointing thriller with a pointless screenplay that relies too much on technology rather than actual twists and turns, taking Race 2 notches below its predecessor .The only thing racy about Race 2 is the sizzling Deepika Padukone; the film is certainly not worth a ticket but definitely worth watching gorgeous Deepika on screen.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2013.

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