More like race for the exit
RACE 3. Directed by Remo D’ Souza.With Anil Kapoor, Salman Khan, Jaqueline Fernandez, Bobby Deol, Daisy Singh, Freddy Daruwala, Saqib Saleem. Sharat Saxena.At Nu Metro and Ster Kinekor. THE latest instalment in the Race series has opened to a massive start at the box office, making it the second most popular film for 2018 so far.
However, that is undoubtedly due to the presence of superstar Salman Khan, whose legion of fans will watch him in anything, including drivel like this one. The film has a wafer thin plot, is boring to the extreme and the hammy performances don’t help.
The threadbare storyline, which has no connection from a character perspective to the previous
Race films, tells of an arms dealer, Shamsher Singh, who has escaped from India to an island in the Middle East and has built a billion dollar industry supplying high tech armaments.
His family consists of a son and daughter, equally ruthless and pretty much spoilt brats. He also has a nephew, Sikander, who is the apple of his eye and a thorn in the side of his children who are bent on inheriting the empire. There’s also Yash, who is seemingly on Sikander’s side, but in a series of double and triple crosses, one is never quite sure who is double dealing who. Frankly, while watching this insipid film you probably won’t care.
The hallmark of the previous films in the series was the strong writing, great music and songs, as well as characters who were having fun offering a thrilling ride for the audience. There isn’t an iota of that in this plodding bore of a film.
Remo ‘D Souza is a choreographer turned director and that can be seen in the expertly designed song sequences and the way he executes the many actions sequences like a ballet with the help of top international stunt co-ordinator Tom Struthers. But he doesn’t have a clue when it comes to directing a film or extracting good performances from his actors, or even devising a coherent plot.
It’s been said by the producers this film is not meant for critics. In other words that just gives them licence to do whatever they want.
There are plenty of action sequences and they look good, the dance sequences employ various techniques even including some Cirque Du Soleil inspiration and the performers do well. The film is shot in Abu Dhabi and Thailand which substitutes for Cambodia. Why? I don’t know.
There is no logic in any of the scenes.
Despite a writer being credited, one feels the director used the screenplay as a guide and pretty much just did his own thing, devising countless scenes which he felt would look good on screen, but makes pretty much no sense.
Khan, a veteran of many Bollywood family melodramas, has said that with this film he wanted infuse a strong family bonding story to action elements. It makes no sense, whatsoever. Then again, very little does is this excruciatingly bad film.
It once again proves that as long as you have Salman Khan in your film, with the added bonus of Sallu Bhai appearing bare chested sporting his eight pack, a dud film will make tons of money. You’ve been warned. Watch it at your peril.
But if you’re a fan of Sallu Bhai, you wouldn’t care anyway.