Race Ki Kahaani (Namrata style!)

India is known in the world for making the most films. Which, in my opinion, is a pretty poor record to be proud of. Every year, hundreds of bakwaas movies hits the big screen out of which a few of them actually deserve an applause at all. This year's films, so far, have been quite amusing frankly, and one particular one ticked me off.

The biggest movie to hit the screen at the moment was Race. It's obvious that the cast attracted the people into even seeing the film. The title said it all, the movie was obviously a race to keep up with other English action films. I really admire the people who had to summarize the movie on pamphlets, seeing that there is no plot and the story takes very random turns where you start off with horses, you end up with outdated fruit puns (sounds like a summary of my life.)

Now as the story goes, Sonia is supposedly married to Ranvir's step brother Rajeev when she obviously loves Ranvir but actually she is plotting with Rajeev to kill Ranvir thus conveniently ending all discussion on whether she actually loves Ranvir. But we must also keep in mind that she's actually on Ranvir's side and the duo are plotting to out-plot Rajeev by plotting with him to help plot against him thus gaining access to his plans and then always staying a step ahead of him. A simple enough story line.

So now keeping in mind all of the above, we proceed with the story from our new best friend Rajeev's point of view. The boy has cunningly concluded that to end his life-long aversion to his brother's, well, brotherliness, and to get a few million bucks in the bargain, obviously, he must be discreet and subtle. He must kill him. Now it would be convenient to just push him, say, off a cliff, but that, obviously would be a very un-glamorous ending to our tale so he decides that the lady-who-actually-loves-his-brother-but-married-him must do the killing by the simple method of pushing him off a building. Smart boy.

Rajeev acts heartbroken on hearing that his own brother has had an affair with his wife and declares that he will commit suicide. At this point, the crowd has been given a subtle clue that Ranvir knows of Rajeev's mischievous endeavours. And so with this in mind Ranvir rushes over, oblivious to the fact that Rajeev wants to kill him (wink wink!) and the two of them, like the intelligent men they are, have an over-the-edge-of-a-very-tall-skyscraper, heart to heart talk which is very rudely interrupted by a certain Sonia dramatically entering the scene. But her applaud-deserving entrance is in turn, rudely ignored by both the men who are now pretending that they don't know perfectly well that their beloved has entered the fray. Now the audience is hanging on the edge of their seats, wondering what the eccentric Sonia will do. Who will she push?

It would have been a very interesting ending if Sonia had been a wee bit smarter and pushed them both off the building hereby getting all the money to herself. But to the surprise of the crowd, she remains annoyingly obtuse and sticks to the original plan thus removing Ranvir out of the picture for a while.

The first real eyebrow-raiser comes when police officer RD and his mini-size skirted (and equally mini-size brained) secretary arrive at the scene of crime and decide to "investigate", which is completely pointless seeing that they are also on Ranvir's side and know the whole plan. Officer RD keeps stuffing himself with phal throughout the movie while his pea-brained secretary conveniently points out for the blind people in the crowd what fruit RD's eating until you develop a lifelong aversion to anything with seeds. His jokes are decidedly not-funny and you don't, in fact, even realise they are jokes until you see the you-can-start-laughing-now looks on the actor's faces accompanied by the da-dum-dum-dum beats that follow good, hearty PJs.

And I also thought I should point out that RD's extremely phalthu secretary had a disturbing mental disability to comprehend any explanation that lasts more than ten seconds.

Katrina Kaif, on the other hand, plays the angel faced, sweet tongued, black hearted secretary of Ranvir, and like all secretaries, has taking a strong liking to her boss. And after Ranvir's shocking but predictable death, we find out to our utmost horror that Sophia is actually married to Ranvir. Now that, we weren't expecting. What's more, Ranvir's money that would have gone to Rajeev now goes to Sophia, Ranvir's secretary-cum-wife.

So what does Rajeev do? Kill her? Not at all! Win her over of course. And to dear Sonia's dismay, Sophia was already with Rajeev from the beginning and now that Ranvir is gone, Rajeev wants to kill Sonia off. Guesses as to what happens?

Well being a Hindi movie, obviously the hero must return. At the horrifying scene where Rajeev sensibly tries to run Sonia over with a truck and Sonia unhelpfully does not cooperate, Ranbir comes flying out of nowhere and somehow miraculously avoids being seen by the assassin truck driver to whom Sonia handed over her own picture for victim clarifications and saves his girl. The movie undauntedly ends with a car race between the two brothers and their girls where obviously, Ranvir wins.

The songs make up for Anil Kapoor's pathetic jokes, and they vary from the soft beats of Pehli Nazaar Mein, to the loud rock of Race Saanson Ki, to the tantalizing music of Zara Zara Touch Me. But the songs should fit in with the general theme of randomness and so to promote the above mentioned, the director has inserted dance numbers almost as if he had eeny-meeny-miny-moe-ed them in. And apparently, the three heroins are having their own Race; who can wear the skimpiest outfits?

Now this is only one person's opinion, but regarding this movie, my outlook is entirely skeptical. The film is a desperate attempt to present the Indian crowd with an Indian styled Keanu Reeves Blockbuster and has emerged as a poorly failed attempt of "trying to be cool". The movie in general entertained me to some extent and left me breathless with disdainful laughter. But then again, Race saanson ki, kyon nahi?