Race 2 movie reviews

 

Rating: 1.5/5 stars (One-and-a-half stars)

Star cast: Deepika Padukone, John Abraham,Jacqueline Fernandez, Saif Ali Khan, Ameesha Patel,Anil Kapoor, Rajesh Khattar, Bipasha Basu, Aditya Pancholi.

What’s Good: The stylish direction; the music.

What’s Bad: The dreary twist-after-twist; the acting; logic flies away like the car out of an airplane.

Loo break: Anytime.

Watch or Not?: If Abbas-Mustan’s thrillers still excite you, then you’ll definitely like Race 2.

 

After fighting it out on the streets, Armaan Mallik (John Abraham) has now become a casino king, with his step sister Elena (Deepika Padukone), who handles his affairs as well. Dangling on his arm is the sexy pickpocket Omisha (Jacqueline Fernandez). When one of his partners (Rajesh Khattar) gets conned by Ranvir Singh (Saif Ali Khan), Armaan doesn’t waste time in allying up to him. And neither does his sister. Though Armaan tries to con Ranvir in his game, the latter agrees to partner with him in one big heist.

When Ranvir finds a photo of his ex-girlfriend Sonia (Bipasha Basu) in Omisha’s purse, he gets interested. When he finds out that Omisha is Sonia’s sister and that Armaan is responsible for Sonia’s death, they hatch a plan to get back at Armaan.

Meanwhile, Ranvir has his fruit-loving old friend Robert D’costa (Anil Kapoor) and his new sex-starved secretary Cherry (Ameesha Patel) on his team to help him flick the priceless Shroud of Turin. In turn, he plans to use this treasure to dupe Armaan.

But things are not anything they seem to be. And very little goes according to plan.

Race 2 Review: Script Analysis

The screenplay, by Shiraz Ahmad, is all fluff. It’s a revenge story with a twist in almost every ten minutes. Everyone knows what the other person is planning. There’s a lot of backstabbing, cheating and lies going around. It may be enough to get you interested, but it gets tiring after a while. Logic, of course, has no place in this filmmaker’s world. If casino owners were as stupid as Rajesh Khattar, who exchanges Ranvir’s “fake” currency for real ones without checking a single note, the world would be a richer place indeed. And that’s just the start. Armaan’s intro is some gibberish about how he’s an honest thief but he doesn’t seem to have any qualms about cheating when he gets a chance. Ranvir steals the Shroud of Turin with such ease as if it were the Stone Age and CCTVs or other hi-tech security measures weren’t invented till then.

Most of Kiran Kotrial’s dialogues are like an unimpressive 2^nd grader’s examination sheet; mostly one line questions and similar answers with no substance. “Dara rahi ho ya challenge kar rahi ho?”, “Flirt kar rahe ho ya tareef?” etc.

Race 2 Review: Star Performances

Who are we kidding? You’re not going to watch Race 2 for anyone’s acting (even if you do, there’s none of it.) You’ll go to watch the slit on Deepika’s dress end precariously above her thighs. There’s John Abraham grunting and attempting to pop his eyes out here and there. Jacqueline gets a tome full of dialogues like, “You’re such a kameena” while narrowing her eyes sexily. Saif struggles to keep a straight-face throughout the movie (there’s nothing more to do, really). Ameesha Patel gets into the skin of her air-head act and is a good reminder of why you don’t see much of her in films anymore. Anil Kapoor is, well, bearable though the tables are turned on him this time with his secretary begging to get into his pants, instead of the other way around like in Race.

Rajesh Khattar’s most memorable part is that his derriere gets censored. Bipasha Basu gets a blink and miss role in a flashback. Aditya Pancholi is passable as a Godfather of some sorts.

Race 2 Review: Direction, Music & Technical Aspects

The only change in an Abbas-Mustan film ever is the characters. At this point, all the twists are predictable and you know that the hero will stand tall with his cape flying in the end. The men and women look beautiful and no one bothers to act. The direction is stylish with everything shiny: the actors, cars, casinos, furniture… If you still love Abbas-Mustan for the fast cars, sexy women, hot men, and the insane amounts of money that just keeps flying around, you’ll be happy with this fare as well.

Pritam’s songs mostly sound like rehashed stuff from the previous film, but it’s good. Salim-Sulaiman’s background score is good. Hussain Burmawalla’s editing is slick. Peter Heins’ good action (the parkour chase) is heartening. The special effects are disappointing, especially the lame Lamborghini exploding. Ravi Yadav’s cinematography is alright.

Race 2 Review: The Last Word

Watch Race 2 only if you want to sit through two-and-a-half hours of no-brainer twists, compensated only by the booty show on screen.