Monday, June 18, 2018

Race 3

I kind of guessed that Race 3 wouldn't be very good, but I expected it to be a little more fun than it was. Instead, it felt like it was going through the motions most of the time, content to splash a good-looking cast across the screen but just have them play generic crime-movie types who morph into other generic crime-movie types when some secret is revealed. I do wonder if I did this to myself, though, by going to the least-expensive 3D show I could find, which meant I wound up in there alone. I don't know if an audience would have pointed me at things in this movie that were actually good but which I'd missed, but I think I might have discovered a little more fun.

One thing I can recommend is the 3D work, which is actually pretty impressive for a conversion. I've got a sneaking suspicion that all the Indian names you see in the 3D conversation credits of other movies saving their best work for the home team.

Race 3

* * (out of four)
Seen 17 June 2018 in AMC Boston Common #5 (first-run, RealD 3D DCP)

If one's filmgoing tastes stretch far enough for Indian action-adventure and Race 3 is playing at the local multiplex - and it's more likely than usual; the big Eid release is getting more screens than Bollywood films typically get in the U.S., including some in 3D - the number in the title should not deter you; it's not connected to the two previous movies and even the returning actors are playing different characters. No, give it a pass because it's not very good, a prime example of how a movie can have a little bit of everything and not enough of anything.

It revolves around Shamsher Singh (Anil Kapoor), a weapons manufacturer chased out of the Indian town of Handia to the island of Al Safia twenty-five years ago. His family serves as his inner circle and most ferocious enforcers: Stepson Sikander (Salman Khan), who has recently spent time in Beijing; daughter Sanjana (Daisy Shah), a martial-arts expert; her twin brother Suraj (Saqib Saleem), a fast-car-loving hothead; and Sikander's bodyguard Yash (Bobby Deol), practically part of the family. The favoritism Shamsher shows Sikander has the twins plotting against their step-brother, who has recently met the charming Jessica Gomes (Jacqueline Fernandez) on a trip to Beijing. And while Rana Singha (Freddy Daruwala) is their fiercest competitor, Shamsher has his eye on a hard drive full of blackmail material in a Cambodian bank vault that could give him the leverage he needs to return home.

There's a good action/adventure movie or two to be found in there, but Race 3 has as bad a case of Bollywood bloat as I've ever seen. It's the sort of movie that tells you Sanjana knows three kinds of martial arts and that her brother loves driving fast cars in an efficient briefing at the start and then doesn't have them get into a fight or a chase for the two whole hours. In the meantime, the record labels which pay for these movies need to get their numbers on the soundtrack, even though that means little really happens before intermission - the musical numbers are either stalling scenes of them hanging around nightclubs but not actually advancing things, or very familiar romance montages. Given how the opening of the film is a major bit of tell-don't-show, it's a lot of running in place despite a couple early action scenes.

Full review on EFC

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