Race 2

Abbas-Mustan always believes in dashing looks, tough fights, engaging storytelling and nail biting climaxes. Well, it worked really well in Race I collecting 85.5 crores worldwide; unfortunately in Race II, although the casts are super cool and fight scenes are quite impressive but the movie lacks immensely on that engaging-story-part.! The movie starts with a bang and takes convoluted route with lots of twists and turns but a bit too slowly because of frequent and unnecessary songs; then in the middle the script looses its element of surprise and you get 'remake' scenes from Zorro I (sword fight where Saif magically redid the epic scene by Antonio Banderas but with 'blunted' swords!) and instead of a sequel you get an ill-advised rehash. The good 'bad-guy' Ranvir/Saif steals the 'highly protected' Shroud Of Turin with just a simple password-forgery and then escapes through the under ground drainage system (which was totally unprotected except an iron-lid); question is, why couldn't he use the same vent to enter the chamber in the first place?!! Can't blame the casts, everyone of them tried hard to live upto their expectations except Amisha Patel playing the role of Anil's extraordinaryly dumb, sex-starved secretary with her poor dressing sense and heavily innuendo-laden dialogues like "When will you pop my cherry?" In short, Race II is a wreck of a movie with pointless screenplay. Only thing racy about the movie is the sizzling Deepika Padukone.

Revenge is a dish, best served cold. Abbas-Mustan is back with their patented ingredient of Suspense Thriller(More of thriller this time) & they serve it cold. It is a action-packed entertainer. It is a type of movie where different people will have different opinion. First half is very good with excellently shot chase scene(first of its kind in Bollywood), twist & turns(not like Race), action(fist fight in 2nd half), grey shades characters, glamor and of course countless money. But in 2nd half their is no suspense like Race(2008) with lots of loopholes . Climax Plane scene is not effective as expected. Be ready for RACE 3 as story is left open. Direction is good. Cinematography in awesome. Script is not as tight as expected. Except Ameesha, everyone is perfect in their roles. This time Saif outperform Abraham with mature dialogue delivery. Abraham Both girl looks really stylish & charming. Anil justifies his role completely. Last Word: Go for crazy action & thrill, not for twist & suspense.

I wasn't expecting much from the director duo after "Players." But, since Race was a very good watch, I watched Race 2 and was disappointed.

It starts with fabulous action sequences in great locations and as you try and perceive what it will be all about in the remaining 2 hours, a twist awaits you and the total number of twists we have here is colossal and that is why I gave it 5 stars. It is surely a thriller, I guarantee that. But too much of style and Bollywood punches ruined this broth.

But, as a cinemaholic, I felt the plot was saggy, the performances by the cast wasn't up to the mark. Saif is cool, John is beast and lacks character depth, the lead girls act dumb and try VERY hard to be killers. Anil Kapoor has disappointed me the most with his not-so-witty jokes along with emcee voluptuous Amisha! And it also demands total attention or else, you will lose your way into this maze.

Direction is sweet; the screenplay sucks and the story, which has to be a foundation of such high-octane flicks is feeble, fickle and sometimes even super-fly. Music is like... good - but the songs - film- makers were forced to slide them in.

Race 2 is not a red-lounge-reclining seat movie, but looking at the 2013 releases, it is better than Matru but feebler than Table No. 21.

Bottom Line: Some Race 2 sequences will make you whine and swear, but the rest MAY... I repeat, MAY make you happy. It is a type of movie where different people will have different verdicts. And my verdict is it is a preposterous caper where no only a couple of rich Indians run the town. It is like hue & saturation. You can go for it if you haven't anything to do this three- day weekend! It will entertain you to some extent, but if you are a serious cinema-goer (and critic) and aspire logic, Race 2 cannot be compared with its predecessor or with any action flick for that matter.

Some pivotal plot points have been copied from Nicholas Cage starrer National Treasure & certain Hollywood spy movies.

WATCH OUT FOR: Saif, explosions, ridiculous stunt scenes, numerous plot turns, expected ending, cheesy dialogues and a useless wrestling sequence.

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES

Language: Clean | Sex: No | Foreplay: No | Violence: Strong | Gore: Very Mild | Alcohol: Strong | Nudity: Medium | Smoking: No

The directing duo of Abbas-Mastan created Race back in 2008 that deals with the twists, turns, and double/triple crossings between two brothers Ranvir (Saif Ali Khan) and Rajiv (Akshaye Khanna), against an ostentatious backdrop that included the requisite flaunting of material wealth, horse racing, romance, and shady characters that included the likes of femme fatales in Bipasha Bashu and Katrina Kaif in one of her earlier Bollywood roles. The sequel boasts no less, although with only Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor as the now ex police inspector Robert D'Costa returning, but adopting a similar formula that focused on the con.

You don't really need to watch the first film because everything pretty much moved along in standalone fashion in this follow up, which spent a considerable part of the first half hour cementing the nastiness of brother-sister team Armaan (John Abraham) and Elena (Deepika Padukone). One's a street fighter who has never lost a fight, and brought out of the scene by Elena, the brains of their enduring and successful partnership, dabbling into various cons from casino tables, to just about owning an empire both in the light, and in the shady underworld. They form a formidable team, and individually, Shiraz Ahmed's story shows just how bad ass each can be, never batting an eyelid if they have to rely on good old fashioned murder or seduction to get at what they want.

We're soon introduced to another new character played by Jacqueline Fernandez as Omisha, a thief who soon hooks up with Armaan not only because of his good looks but more importantly, his wealth and wicked demeanor, while Ranvir enters the picture to try and gain trust from the ruthless siblings to take on a larger con together, with Elena sending out her foxy signals right from the start. For a Bollywood movie, this covers the romance angle where the leads have their counterparts to woo, or in this case accelerated into the expected song and dance sequence in lieu of something more kinky that can't be shown on screen.

But really, things just aren't that simple, where soon Ranvir gets involved with both women, though for different reasons, and has an objective and motivation that ties in with a key character from the past, as well as to answer the rather open ended prologue in this film. To say a lot more is to ruin the surprises that Abbas-Mastan have in store for audiences. This is a Race movie that has qualities to be expanded into yet another Bollywood franchise of rotating villains played by a top star for each installment, going along the Dhoom route. So expect that things will never be as they seem, and there's almost always a motive behind what someone will say and do, where loyalties can shift at will, and one-upmanship is the order of the game.

Which happens to be the film's weakness as well. Sometimes the flip-flopping extracts a chunk of imagination, coincidence and stretches one's belief that the con actually began many steps beforehand, like a chess grandmaster playing against an amateur, that surprises spring out from the blue, with constant smirking that one got on top of the other, only for that smirk to be wiped out by an even larger wink. It can get tongue-in-cheek at times, and opened up loopholes that would be best glossed over for the entire narrative to work. Heavy reliance on sleight of hand techniques also called for plot convenience, with its fragmented narrative style forced to hide, and then present details of the con.

Heavy reliance on CG is also telling, but here the CG still seemed rather cartoony, which suited the hyper-reality style of the world that the characters in Race exists in. It's entertainment for the masses, so Abbas-Mastan waste no time in plying implausible stunts in every death-defying escape, although a parkour sequence was expertly handled. Set action pieces get bigger as the film moved along, culminating in a really nutty climatic showdown thousands of feet in the air. It's one thing presenting large set action pieces, but another in presenting them well no matter how cheesy it would be. Someone forgot to tell the filmmakers to ease up on the cheesiness, but perhaps they had comedy in mind as well, with a key unintentional one given gossip rags on the John Abraham-Bipasha Basu relationship that will have audiences in stitches.

John Abraham's hulking frame got put to good use, and in what would be the usual Salman- Khan style, there's built-in opportunity here for clothes to be shed in a stylized MMA caged fight, for some brawn to be added rather than to put him in a role whose character is only interested in whatever it takes to make money, and horde cash, in what would be a major negative role since his turn in the first Dhoom. Saif Ali Khan continues with the swagger and poser requirements as Ranvir from the first film, playing the ultimate conman now with a more personal vendetta at hand, and paired up yet again with Deepika Padukone for the umpteenth time. If anything, Deepika's role as Elena fit into the typical Bond girl role, in having little to do, little to add to the story, but there for the eye candy. And she carried off the lightweight role really well, as does Jacqueline Fernandez in yet another sequel of her career. Anil Kapoor is grossly underused here, if only to serve as the plot's conduit between characters, and spending most of his time with his character's secretary Cherry (Ameesha Patel), leering and spouting sexual innuendos.

If movies with twists and turns at every other instant is your cup of tea, then Race 2 would be that popcorn entertainer you're looking for, with a good looking cast providing eye candy to wild away those two and a half hours. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and neither should you.

"Race" was truly an classy thriller loaded with serpentine twists. A benchmark so high that warranted the makers to surpass if not match. Sadly the franchise clearly is out for the money that can be milked and therefore loses its steam.

For starters instead of taking the linear continuation, the franchise should have been independent in its own right. Too many references to "Race" spoil the proceedings.

Anil Kapoor sadly resorted to gawdy adult jokes. Ameesha Patel, the bimbo secretary was a stocking filler for Sameera Reddy which I am sure nobody cared. Saif reprised his role and look from the first one. Bipasha has a two-minute cameo. Jacqueline & Deepika attempted to fill the void of Katrina and failed miserably. On that note, Jacqueline has the looks and the style to carry it off - sadly lacks in acting department. John Abraham seems to reprising his role from "Dhoom" only this time around steals bits and pieces from "Force" to showcase his chiseled body in the match sequences. Aditya Pancholi is passable.

Pritam has done full justice to the music and is in line with the first "Race". And thats the only saving grace about this sequel.