DVD Clinic

Awfully Good #99
November 4, 2009

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Strike Back Below!

Source: DVD Clinic

By: Jason Adams

For more of the best Bollywood has to offer, check out the Awfully Good take on DHOOM 2 and HUMRAAZ.

Race (2008)

Director: Abbas-Mustan
Stars: Saif Ali Khan , Akshaye Khanna, Anil Kapoor

Is there a plot?

I feel like this disjointed plot synopsis from Wikipedia does a perfect job describing this movie:

“Set against the high flying social studies of modern India, RACE is about jealous and laughter, hilarious and revenge. Even love comes laced with a slow-motion. The stakes are too high. Double them and you have the perfect grounds for a perfect murderer. What was the game? Who held the meeting? The model with a past Sonia, whom Rajeev loved or the beautiful secretary Sophia, who loved Ranvir. The killing of Ranvir was the mission of Rajeev and something else happened. The sudden appearance of Inspector Robert D'Costa and his assistant Mini, deep inside the plot into a fairy tale of drama at its best. With the brothers pitched against each other who will win? The one who plays to win or the one who plays to defeat?”

What's the damage?

Last year a friend asked me to go see a Bollywood movie called RACE at our local foreign/arthouse cinema. Fearing it would be a tedious drama on race relations in subcontinent Asia (aka CRASH with dancing brown people), I did a quick check on IMDB. The first thing I noticed were the plot keywords: Horse, Betrayal, Apple, Detective, Jump From Height, Buxom. Was this real? Could all these things actually be in the same movie? You see, already I was underestimating RACE, one of the most ridiculous movies I’ve ever seen.

This is the handsome face of one of Bollywood’s biggest stars. I wonder if William H. Macy is considered a sex symbol over there.

If HBO’s Mr. Show ever did a skit called PLOT TWIST: THE MOVIE, this would be it. Technically RACE is a remake of the 1998 Patricia Arquette noir thriller GOODBYE LOVER, but its 100% Bollywood through and through. That means soap opera dialogue and acting, cheesy unbelievable action, lots of random dancing, and off-the-charts ridonkulousity. No joke, RACE contains about 9 or 10 MAJOR plot twists—enough to make M. Night Shyamalan roll his eyes. It’s absolutely absurd; every character is trying to screw over everyone else, while simultaneously working with everyone else to screw each other over. (Does that even make sense?) At one point, after yet another person has magically come back from the dead to reveal a new twist, a character actually shrugs as if giving up trying to make sense of it all. And when the guy finally explains what the hell is going on in the end, it takes 10 minutes and multiple flashbacks. It truly is like a gloriously bad soap opera mixed with a parody movie.

A line from CONJOINED AT THE BOTTLE, the touching drama about Siamese twins who share the same liver.

The Indian directing duo of Abbas-Mustan is obviously the collective Michael Bay of Bollywood, with their flashy camera movements, aggressive editing and loving contempt for the audience. (Except there’s two of them, so you get twice the insanity.) When cars crash in RACE they inexplicably fly 40 or 50 feet in the air, just to make it awesome. Characters momentarily achieve superpowers to be able to fly through the air or break the laws of physics. And in a glowing homage to SPEED, the end features two cars that can’t slow down; one that has it’s brakes cut, and one that with a bomb that will detonate if the brakes are applied. Granted, the first car could just naturally slow down until it came to a complete stop. But the movie is called RACE, dammit!

The global success of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE sure has gone to Anil Kapoor’s head.

The only actor you might recognize is SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE’s Anil Kapoor, who I swear has been in every single Indian movie I’ve ever seen. Here he stars as Inspector Robert D’Costa, a no-nonsense detective who is obsessed with solving murders while eating fruit. (And because the movie needed to be almost 3 hours long, they even give his minor character his own romantic subplot…and dance.) The rest of the cast are forgettable pretty faces, who only exist to overact in hilarious ways. As you can see in the Best Parts below, the filmmakers love to overdramatize almost every scene with ridiculous reaction shots and crescendoing musical cues. It can be effective if you do it once in a film. But literally every 30 seconds? Then it becomes funny.

This guy is still a cooler rock star than Fred Durst.

"Best" Line

I’d be confused by this guy’s final line, but I’m too mesmerized by his amazing sunglasses.

"Best" Parts

1) A sample of some of the film’s awesome action, including Vin Diesel-style extreme sports, high flying vehicles, superhuman stunts, a car chase ripped off from SPEED, and a crash that’s conveniently close to a gasoline truck.

2) These are only a small fraction of the hilarious overdramatic and suspense building reaction shots in the film. (Remember, as per the drinking game, you have to take a shot every time one of these pops up.)