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Cast:
Anil Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye
Khanna, |
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Bipasha Basu, Sameera Reddy, Katrina Kaif |
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Year:
2008 |
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Music:
Pritam |
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Lyrics: Sameer |
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Story:
Shiraz Ahmed |
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Choreographer: Ravi Yadav |
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Banner:
Tips Film |
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Producer:
Kumar S. Taurani, Ramesh S. Taurani |
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Direction:
Abbas-Mustan |
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First
things first, when you go to watch an Abbas-Mastan movie,
you go for the suspense and thrill, and not for any soft
mushy romance. With Race, you get what you want, and
probably more. Much more indeed
The story goes thus.. Ranvir (Saif Ali Khan) and his brother
Rajiv (Akshaye Khanna) are step brothers and owners of a
horse ranch in Durban. While Ranvir looks after the business
and loves his horses, Rajiv keeps swelling his throat with
alcohol. |
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Ranvir, the older of the two, is a winner in every
aspect. He even celebrates his loss. He is
aggressive to the hilt and his character is
established right away as he finishes off his jockey
who looses out to his rival's horse purposefully. He
finds an able help in his secretary Sophia (Katrina
Kaif) who is shown to be in love with her boss, but
never reveals it to him. The film actually starts
off with Ranvir meeting with an accident. Ranvir
happens to meet Sonia (Bipasha Basu) - an upcoming
model and |
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they
start dating. But when the alcoholic Rajiv meets Sonia he
tells his brother that he would give up on his addiction if
she comes into his life. Ranvir, like a nice brother, moves
out and lets Sonia approach Rajiv and soon the two get
married. And then Sonia finds out that Rajiv is an
alcoholic. One rainy night Sonia approaches Ranvir to
complain about her drunkard husband.. while her husband
looks on through his camera... |
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What is impressive about the story is that what you
may have thought would happen in the movie happens
only by the interval. And at interval point you are
left all anxious for the movie to resume so that you
can know what's going to happen next. And what's not
so impressive is the fact that the director took
certain facts for granted to let the story flow. For
one - how did they take the marriage council
authority played by Johnny Lever for |
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granted - that he will get a call from his wife - when it's
shown that they had planned to exchange papers right in
front of him?
Technically, Race is cool. It has fine camera work from Ravi
Yadav and sleek editing from Hussain Burmawala. Just that
the editor should have persuaded the director to keep away a
couple of songs! The background music by Salim-Sulaiman is
good and of course, the playback is already a hit and should
prove a prime factor to get in the audiences. The action
sequences need special mention - the races and the crashes.
Everything is handled really well. |
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Anil Kapoor is good with his comic timing
even though his dialogues are bad at times.
We wonder what was the need of having
Sameera Reddy as an assistant. Never knew
state police department inspectors could
afford to have such sexy secretaries who
have no brains. Why not a Watson! Sameera is
ok. Katrina Kaif is improving - this is her
best yet. Bipasha is good. She actually
looks seductive in the required scenes -
undoubtedly her forte. Saif looks cool and
comes up with a measured performance. |
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once again we would flag Akshaye as the winner who gets back
memories of Humraaz. Overall, this is a complete
Abbas-Mastan thriller. The story comes up with a new thrill
every half an hour. And when that's in a two and half hour
movie, we would say it almost overflows with kahani mein
twists. But did we hear the old idiom - Too much is not
always too good? Race almost gets too much for you with
multiple climaxes. The movie should get a good opening at
least due to the festive weekend and hit songs. If nothing
else, Katrina Kaif's golden run stretches from last year
with Race. |
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You feel the heat when Saif and Bipasha meet at the
stable! Bipasha lives up to her image. But if there
is something really hot about the movie, it has to
be the car race in the last scene. All those NFS
crazy people will find themselves trying to handle
the cars themselves, even trying to brake at curves!
Phew! |
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