Raees review|Box office thread - Page 17

Raees movie cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Mahira Khan, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Atul Kulkarni Raees movie director: Rahul Dholakia
Raees movie rating: 2.5

Shah Rukh Khan returns in and as Raees , a golden hearted mobster who does bad things for a good cause. It is a role constructed to grab back his pole position, and to that end Shah Rukh Khan strains at fulfilling every single point of the In and As trope. He sings and dances, he fights and romances: he also tries to fulfil the outlines of a character.
And that's where the film gets stuck, between the two stools of restraint and full blown tamasha: the In and As SRK is as familiar as he has ever been, despite the trimmings added on to induce freshness " the gold rimmed glasses, the kohled eyes, the deliberate delivery, and that Scarface moment- guns, arcing bullets and blood- which all actors dream of.

Watch | Shah Rukh Khan During Raees Train Ride: I Wish I Could Bring AbRam

Which makes Raees a mish-mash of things we've seen before in a plot which owes allegiance to the real life story of a liquor baron who made his pile and his name in dry Gujarat. The filmmakers have denied any similarity but anyone with half an eye can see the overlaps - the ingenuity of a man who could think on his feet (hooch- filled tomatoes!) and cart his maal under the eye of the cop (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) who swears to catch him.

In fact, amongst all the effective supporting parts which bouy SRK, it is Nawaz who shines most. His dry one liners , and he has several, have a zing which SRK's don't. And in a film where the leading man's dialogue baazi is meant to wow the crowd, that is telling.
Dholakia knows his Gujarat . That was clear in his Parzania . There are some flashes of that insider knowledge here too, but you can see how fear of being censored has blunted the edges of this film which could have really lifted off the screen. The riots, both in Mumbai and Gujarat, have a seriously anodyne feel. And the predictable arc of the story weighs the second half down.
SRK's romantic interest, Mahira Khan, too is not as fresh as she could have been: the coyness is old Bollywood and in a film which should have embraced its masala roots much more firmly, it just sinks. So do all those slo-mos. And that Sunny Leone, who shakes it, shakes it, to no avail.
So this is what we get: a Nawaz who is having the time of his life, and making us crack multiple grins, up against an SRK who breaks through in some moments (especially one in which he shares with his bete noire, when the film shuts everything else down so that we can focus on the duo ) but gets bogged down in florid, seen-too-many-times flourishes.
A song in the film reminds us that Raees played by SRK is a single piece in this world. Yes he is, but maybe we'll be more aware of that the next time around.