So, let’s get down to business. Is ‘Race 2’ the latest 100 crore film? Yes. Period.
Who cares about the nitty-gritty of story and screenplay, when there are hot babes, hotter men, slick gadgets, cars, casinos and wait a minute... a heist of 15 billion Euros?
The thriller of a director duo Abbas-Mustan, engages us enough in the glitter of all the moolah and their trademark ‘who’s with whom’ game, to think about anything remotely close to logic. Hence, ‘Race 2’ is racy, but, as adrenaline rushing as its prequel? Nah.
The sequel is yet another revenge saga with good boy Ranveer Singh (Saif Ali Khan), bad boy Armaan Malik (John Abraham) and their sexy femme fatales Elena (Deepika Padukone) and Omisha (Jacqueline Fernandez). Thrown in for comic effect is the voracious fruit eater, inspector Robert D’Costa (Anil Kapoor) from the original, and his seductively dumb secretary Cherry (Ameesha Patel replacing Sameera Reddy in this one).
After the disastrous attempt at remaking ‘Italian Job’ (‘Players’), Abbas-Mustan plays it safe with ‘Race 2’. There’s an evident effort to recover the lost money of ‘Players’ by making ‘Race 2’ a winner in terms of box-office ingredients.
So you have loads of sizzling moments – Deepika sets the screen on fire – ample of breathtaking action sequences (the chase between Saif and a henchman on the streets of Istanbul especially, is well shot) and of course, there’s the quintessential gizmo and machismo. But at the core, ‘Race 2’ is nowhere close to reigniting the magic of its predecessor. It completely lacks the gripping suspense and characterisation of the first one. Like ‘Debangg 2’, you see the desperate measures by the makers to recreate the essence but in vain.
Even though ‘Race 2’ has its fair share of entertainment, it remains a bad replica of ‘Race’. The latter was no masterpiece but had fleshed out characters, good music and humour in its favour. But ‘Race 2’ has only one thing going for it from start to finish – Saif Ali Khan.
Saif is the only reason why you would perhaps want to see the third part of this series too (it’s in the offing by the way).
While many might opt for Deepika as the poster girl of this film, in reality it’s the charming Nawab. Like ‘Race’, he once again sweeps you off your feet with his charismatic presence. John, on the other hand, does what he does best – adds to the brawn quotient.
But what you miss the most in this sequel is the eclectic music and on-the-mark humour of ‘Race’. The music is not even worth a mention and the humour is annoyingly titillating. Anil and Ameesha get the lamest parts of their career.
In one scene, when the former is asked which fruit he hasn’t eaten in his life, the latter promptly says, “Cherry.” LOL? Ameesha can officially say goodbye to films after this.
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