Raees review|Box office thread 2 [Members' reviews page 1] - Page 53

By RACHEL SALTZJAN. 26, 2017

The "king of Bollywood," Shah Rukh Khan, rarely plays the villain. His specialty has been goofball sweetie-pies: romantics, nafs, the occasional superhero with a runny nose. So it's not surprising that as the criminal title character in Rahul Dholakia's "Raees" " a bootlegger turned kingpin turned politician turned folk hero " he's more populist do-gooder than villain, a man whose heart is mostly gold, tarnished but unmistakable.

Trailer: Raees'

Set in Gujarat, in the 1980s and '90s, the movie depicts an India of petty corruption, with cops and politicians on the take, and honor among thieves more aspirational than real. "This world is broken," Raees says in voice-over. "You have to turn crooked to fix it." And so he does, in a time-honored movie way. In one scene, he beats up a derelict factory owner at a drive-in, as the big screen shows Amitabh Bachchan, Hindi cinema's original Angry Young Fix-It Man, threatening a boss who is careless with workers' lives.

Avoiding flabby subplots, Mr. Dholakia keeps "Raees" taut and suspenseful, even at two and a half hours, though it probably has a song too many. (A classic Item Girl number, with Sunny Leone, seems torn between leering and being frank about the sexual threat inherent in ... leering.)

Raees is a Muslim with ecumenical good will: He sends meals to Hindu families in need as well as Muslims. And he has a stated belief that "no faith is greater than business." But in real life, business can have borders " some drawn, like India and Pakistan's, by faith. Indian film producers voted last year not to employ Pakistanis, and Pakistan has banned Indian shows. That means Mahira Khan (no relation to Shah Rukh), the Pakistani actress making her Hindi movie debut as Raees's wife, has been barred from promoting the film in India, and it won't be shown in Pakistan. Politics 1, Culture 0.

• Director Rahul Dholakia

• Writers Rahul Dholakia, Harit Mehta, Niraj Shukla, Ashish Vashi

• Stars Sunny Leone, Shah Rukh Khan,Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Mahira Khan,Mumtaz Sorcar

• Running Time 2h 35m

• Genres Action, Crime, Thriller

• Movie data powered by IMDb.com
  Last updated: Jan 27, 2017