Remo D’Souza recently revealed how he got the script of this film a month before the shoot was scheduled to begin. The hurriedness is visible from the first frame and it’s there throughout. At times, one feels this is a spoof designed by Indian social media giants like AIB or TVF on the ‘Race’ franchise.
Let’s try to analyse ‘Race 3’s story, if it has any. The movie starts with Shamsher Singh (Anil Kapoor) arriving in a chopper to prove how fierce and stylish he is. In the next scene, we get introduced to his weird family. Twins Sanjana (Daisy Shah) – Suraj (Saqib Saleem) and a stepson Sikandar (Salman Khan). As every other Bollywood family drama, there is a conflict in this family, too, regarding the stepson.
Remo decides to open up the family-track in the first half and leaves that in midway. In the second half, the story takes a different route in which our ‘IT’ family decides to acquire a hardisk which has confidential information about top hot-shots politicians from India. Sikandar along with the others, land in Cambodia to steal that disk. The rest of the story gets lost in between this mission and the family’s internal conflicts.
‘Race 3’ is one of those films which should’ve been scrapped at the scripting level itself. It’s a shocker to see how and why it got made? Salman Khan has previously cashed in the festival of Eid with movies like ‘Sultan’ and ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’. But ‘Race 3’ is the result of hurriedness and it’s definitely not a Salman Khan film you’re expecting it to be.
In a scene, Saqib tells Daisy “Isse apna dil nahi Dell (laptop) kholke dikha.” Just with this single dialogue, try and imagine how much of a big mess Salman Khan has made to be a part of such a film. The lavish locations, well choreographed action sequences does work well but by that time all the negatives outweigh those two minor pluses of the film. ‘Race’ and ‘Race 2’ had a certain level of class and style which is totally missing from this one. Comparing Salman Khan with Saif Ali Khan is out of the picture.
Salman Khan, who was last seen in ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’, proves how an actor can be amazing at times and plausible at others. Where in ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’, he plays the role of a daredevil RAW officer, in ‘Race 3’ he sleepwalks throughout the film. Disinterestedness shines bright on his face in every single scene. Bobby Deol’s character is the most hilariously written from all. He lives up to the expectations and ruins his part by delivering a bad performance.
Daisy Shah and Jacqueline Fernandez have been given quite some action to retain their screen presence but they drag, making it a bore. Saqib Salim’s character don’t has much to offer and hence he’s quite forgettable. The veteran, Anil Kapoor steals the cake easily from everyone as his portrayal of Shamsher makes the film at least bearable to watch.
Shiraz Ahmed, he’s the same guy who had written the script for ‘Race’ and ‘Race 2’, has delivered a no-ball with ‘Race 3’. There’s certainly a shocking emotion involved knowing how the same man can ruin the genre which once he mastered. ‘Race’ falls under the Abbas-Mustan school of cinema and post ‘Race 3’, we should let them be the ones to come up with such films. Ayananka Bose along with Artur Zurawski once did a beautiful cinematography for Salman Khan’s ‘Kick’. Taking his experience forward, he has done a superlative job in ‘Race 3’. From the deserts in Saudi to the woods of Cambodia, the movie is beautifully shot.
The album of ‘Race 3’ is long and tedious. Meet Bros, Vishal Mishra, Jam8, Tushar Joshi, Vicky-Hardik, Gurinder Seagal, Kiran Kamath – 7 composers creating 7 songs in a movie that’s around 2 hours 40 minutes long – are we back in the 90s? Apart from “Heeriye” and “Saansain Hui Dhuan”, none of the songs leave any major impact.
On the whole, ‘Race 3’ is a perfect example of why you should not cook a dish without mastering its ingredients. It’s the second back-to-back Eid on which Salman Khan has disappointed us. ‘Bharat’ (2019) will be awaited and so the record of Salman Khan being unbeatable on Eid.
Rating: 2/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBht9TG7ySw&feature=youtu.be
