Race (2008)

It is a performances centric movie

Instant Favorite.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Okay then, yes, Race is another unoriginal work of fiction by the director duo Abbas Mastan. Watching Race, you can't figure who's who, who's supposed to be good, who's supposed to be bad. The plot is incredibly twisted, and it's so unpredictable that you start predicting another twist coming. The movie tries to be very cool with its technical advances, noisy westernised songs and overly glossy costumes, and everyone is made to look overtly sophisticated, able to plan the most complicated of conspiracies. It, however, greatly lacks in substance, and the many twists unfolded throughout the movie become at some point really senseless. But Race is entertaining to an extent, and it can definitely be watched with family and friends. It has comedy and suspense, and it has its share of enjoyable moments. The action is very good, the locations are nice, the girls are hot, the editing is quite slick, and the movie is extremely fast paced. Some of the songs are very good, like "Pehli Nazar Mein Kaisa Jadoo", but most of them sound repetitive and annoying. Saif Ali Khan plays the leading role, and he is required to keep a serious restrained expression throughout the movie, though still he is pretty good. Akshaye Khanna is well miscast. Katrina is just there, and Bipasha has nothing good to do but she looks a million bucks. Anil Kapoor is quite funny in his role. Race is another masala flick. It's pretentious, but as a one-time watch, it's quite okay, particularly if you don't look for logic behind its story.

I don't know about you but it's been weeks since I last saw a good commercial Hindi movie — the kind that requires you to suspend your disbelief and go along for the ride. Thankfully, Abbas-Mastan's Race is exactly that kind of film, it's a pretty far-fetched thriller much in the tradition of their previous hits Khiladi and Baazigar, and yet it's exciting enough for you to stop looking for holes in the plot and to go with the flow instead.Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna play Ranvir and Rajiv Singh, brothers who've inherited a stud farm in Durban. While the older one Ranvir is focused on saving the business from bankruptcy and an avid derby enthusiast, Rajiv is the aimless, alcoholic spoilt-little-rich-kid. What both men have in common, however is an evil streak which becomes more than apparent as the reels unspool.Sacrificing his love, Ranvir hooks up his younger brother with his sweetheart Sonia (played by Bipasha Basu), hoping marriage will cure his chhota bhai of his drinking habit. Sadly, that never happens. In a moment of weakness, Ranvir and Sonia slip between the sheets, and that incident sets off a series of betrayals, double-crosses and murders.Add to this mayhem, Ranvir's doting secretary Sophia (played by Katrina Kaif) who's nursing a secret crush on her boss, who in turn mistakes her affection for job efficiency. Then there's the fruit-chomping detective RD (Anil Kapoor), and his dim-witted assistant Mini (Sameera Reddy) who jump into the scene to investigate a mysterious death. You learn soon enough, that nothing is what it seems, and nobody can be trusted. With enough plot twists to confuse a GPS navigation system, Race keeps you on the edge of your seat for the most part.Like any good thriller film, Race never reveals all its cards at once. The layers come off one by one, and each time you think you've got it all figured out, another shocker hits you out of the blue. That's not to say you haven't guessed some of the surprises in advance. If you've watched enough Bollywood films — let me rephrase that — if you've watched enough Abbas-Mastan films, then surely you can predict at least a few of the twists yourself. After all, brothers back-stabbing each other and wives double-crossing their husbands are staple ingredients of their every film.Nevertheless Race keeps you engrossed because it's fast-paced and slick, and because it doesn't allow you much time to consider its flaws.The dialogue is clunky and full of labored lines, and instead of the clever one-liners you'd expect in a smart thriller, you get cheesy quips that make you cringe with embarrassment. Yeh toh bahut hansta hai, Akshaye Khanna tells Saif about a rival who's just walked off after rubbing their noses in defeat. You see, Abbas-Mastan aren't famous for their smart lines or their original screenplays, but they're usually at the top of their game when they're dealing with themes that center around sex, lies and murder. And Race is a return to that formula.The perfect antidote for a lazy weekend, Race is not a great film but delivers what it promises to deliver. It's slickly photographed and has some exciting action scenes, but it's got too many unnecessary songs that only add to the film's length.About twenty minutes shorter and you'd probably enjoy it much more, but in its present form it's not such a bad deal. Of the cast, Saif Ali Khan stands out as the chap with the least dialogue but the one who makes the best impression, whereas the usually dependable Akshaye Khanna delivers an amateurish performance by hamming through his scenes. Of the ladies, only Bipasha Basu scores with an understated performance. As for Anil Kapoor, what does one say about a fine actor who's resorted to taking on such tacky roles? Surely you deserve better than those double-meaning dialogues and suggestive scenes!In the end, Race has fast cars and fast babes, and it's better than anything else its directors have made recently. Because there's barely anything else at the movies currently, I'm going to say – go watch it, you won't be disappointed. And don't miss that one scene with Johnny Lever. He's back after so long and he's so good.

This movie has twists that may/may not surprise you. But it is an Excellent Movie. It's got Excellent Production Value. Overall, a must see Bollywood flick. Won't reveal the story but it's worth watching at least once!!!What works for Race is that you can never predict exactly whats gonna happen next. Just when you think, this could be the last twist in the tale, it surprises you with another twist. There is almost a twist in every reel!Directors Abbas – Mastan deserve credit for their execution, they succeed in holding your attention throughout the movie. The direction is complimented by the screenplay although the impact would have been much better had the story been more convincing. With so many twists and turns, the viewer after a certain point could get confused as to whose with who. Also it gets a little tedious to sit through.As far as the editing is concerned two songs can be easily chopped off for better impact. The music is brilliant, Pehli Nazar Mein stands out. Dialogues are superb. Cinematography brilliant!

I won't add a synopsis of the movie as by now it should be obvious from reading the other reviews what this so called movie is all about.It seems that Abbas-Mustan have still not woken up from the 80s where over the top action sequences and inappropriately placed songs ruled the screen. Fast forward 20 years later and the audience is given the same formula which is glossed up using modern technology.If the votes went into negative numbers I'd give this a minus 5. As a story it didn't start off too badly and up until the first plot twist it was looking rather nice. But everything fell apart after that and things went downhill with each new plot twist. I didn't know whether to laugh or yell out numerous expletives- the movie was that maddening.There is only one saving grace of the movie- the humour offered by Anil Kapoor and Johny Lever (which is why I gave this a 2 out of 10). Saif was decent, Akshaye went over the top at times, Bipasha looked intoxicating, Katrina's voice was dubbed as usual so all she provided was eye candy and Sameera's presence was utterly pointless. The action was downright idiotic and no worth watching at all which meant that the movie could shortened by a good 25 mins. The timing of the songs was stupid and at least 2 could have been cut down. The plot twists are so dumb and run like a TV soap opera which means switch off your brains or have a gun ready to shoot yourself once you've figured everything out...All in all a pointless, useless movie.If anyone goes regularly to India FM to get their reviews please take the review of Race with a HUGE grain of salt. The reviewer (who also reviews all the movies) is the biggest idiot ever who can't tell the difference between his left and right hand. Somehow he manages to provide a gushing review of a movie that must have been different to what the rest of us watched. His reviews are downright biased towards the big so called actors and directors.