Race (2008 film)

Race
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Abbas-Mustan
Produced by	Ramesh S. Taurani Kumar S. Taurani
Written by	Jitendra Parmar Anurag Prapanna (Dialogue)
Screenplay by	Shiraz Ahmed
Story by	Shiraz Ahmed
Starring	Anil Kapoor Saif Ali Khan Katrina Kaif Bipasha Basu Akshaye Khanna Sameera Reddy
Music by	Songs: Pritam Background Score: Salim-Sulaiman
Cinematography	Ravi Yadav
Edited by	Hussain A. Burmawala
Production company	Tips Music Films
Distributed by	UTV Motion Pictures
Release dates	21 March 2008 (2008-03-21)
Running time	155 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹350 million (equivalent to ₹680 million or US$10 million in 2016)
Box office	₹1.06 billion (equivalent to ₹2.1 billion or US$31 million in 2016)[1]

Race is a 2008 Indian action thriller film directed by Abbas-Mustan and produced under the Tips Films banner. Released on 21 March 2008 worldwide, it stars Saif Ali Khan, Bipasha Basu, Akshaye Khanna, Katrina Kaif, Anil Kapoor and Sameera Reddy in pivotal roles. The film also stars Dilip Tahil and Johnny Lever for thriller and comedy sketches. It is the first installment of Race film series.

Set and mostly filmed in Durban and Dubai, Race explores themes of sibling rivalry, betrayal and passion.^[2] It became the fourth highest grossing Bollywood film of the year.^[3] Race was dubbed into Tamil as Panthayam and in Telugu as Race Telugu. The film's sequel Race 2 was released in 2013, and was also a success.

Plot

A voice-over by RD (Anil Kapoor) introduces the four main characters: Ranvir Singh "Ronny" (Saif Ali Khan) who runs a successful business he inherited from his father. His younger brother Rajiv Singh (Akshaye Khanna) who mooches off of Ronny and is an alcoholic. Ronny is dating an upcoming model Sonia (Bipasha Basu), while his personal assistant Sophia (Katrina Kaif) appears to be secretly in love with him. Ronny is also involved in an intense competition with a rival horse-owner Kabir (Dilip Tahil). The film opens with a murder plot involving a car accident which Ronny narrowly survives. When Ronny loses money in a race because his jockey had been bribed by Kabir, Ronny plants a bomb in the jockey's car and kills him, showing Ronny to be a ruthless businessman. Later, Ronny also destroys Kabir when the latter offers him money to buy his business, which is in debt.

In a drunken stupor, Rajiv confesses to Ronny that he likes Sonia and that he would quit drinking if he could spend his life with a woman like her. Ronny immediately stops dating Sonia so that Rajiv can have her. Rajiv and Sonia begin dating and appear happy until, in a twist, Rajiv reveals he knows of Sonia's shady past and has a plan to use Sonia to his advantage. Rajiv reveals that his father had secured identical life-insurance policies for huge sums on each of the sons. He explains that he wants to kill Ronny in what would appear to be an accident and inherit $100 million in insurance payments and wants Sonia to play along. Sonia agrees to help in exchange for $20 million. They pretend to get married and Rajiv ignores Sonia in this fake-marriage while continuing to play an alcoholic. As per his instructions, Sonia seduces Ronny who confesses he loved her all along. Rajiv reveals the rest of his plan: to threaten to commit suicide in response to Sonia and Ronny's affair by leaping off a tall building, have Ronny appear on the terrace, and get Sonia to push Ronny off. However, it turns out Ronny was aware of the plan all along as Sonia had been keeping him updated, having always been in league with him. They then plan to apparently kill Rajiv, using his own plan against him.

Things go according to plan but Sonia double-crosses Ronny and pushes him off, saying she loved him, but the money was more important. Inspector RD appears at this point to investigate the death, accompanied by his idiotic assistant Mini (Sameera Reddy). Upon his arrival, he immediately suspects foul-play in the death. During his investigation, Ronny's assistant Sophia reveals that she was married to Ronny and produces a legitimate marriage certificate. Sonia is shocked that their plan has been thwarted as Sophia is now the heir to the insurance money. In another twist, Sophia was in on the plan all along and is Rajiv's secret collaborator. Rajiv plans to bump off Sonia after he and Sophia get the insurance money. However, RD figures out during his investigation that Sophia and Rajiv had faked her marriage with Ranvir and that he had been tricked into signing the marriage certificate. RD confronts Rajiv about this and agrees to remain silent about it in exchange for $25 million.

Rajiv hires the same hitman who had attempted to murder Ronny at the beginning to kill Sonia, revealing that he had been behind the first murder attempt, too. Sonia is lured into following Rajiv and Sophia to a parking lot where the hitman attacks her. Just as the hitman is about to kill her, Ronny reappears and rescues her, killing the hitman in the process.

Later, when Rajiv and Sophia plan to celebrate, Ronny appears and confronts them. He explains that he had overheard Rajiv discussing the failed murder attempt with the hitman and had been playing along the whole time so he could get the insurance money from his own fake-death along with the insurance money from killing Rajiv. Discovering that Rajiv's hatred towards him as a step brother was his main reason for doing this, he allows Rajiv one last chance to win by agreeing to a car race. Ranvir shows up to the race in a sports car, whilst Rajiv doesn't. When Rajiv protests, he switches cars with Ranvir. This turns out to be a trick as Rajiv had tampered with the brakes on his own car. Ronny, in turn, lies to Rajiv, claiming he had planted a bomb in his car, similar to the one that killed the jockey, and that it would be detonated if Rajiv ever slowed down below 100 mp/h. This causes Rajiv to crash into a petroleum tank, killing him and Sophia, who had been riding with him. Ronny narrowly escapes death himself. Ronny then says that there was no bomb in the car, and that Rajiv had "killed himself".

In the end, Ronny collects the insurance money from Rajiv and Sophia's death, along with the money from his own fake-death. Upon fleeing the city, he is stopped by Inspector RD, who had been in on the plan, too, and had helped Ronny fake his death and get the insurance money. Inspector RD takes his $25 million, only to find a bomb in the bag along with the money. The bomb does not detonate, and Ronny reveals that it was a mere precaution to see if RD would try to betray him and take all the money. Ranvir rewards RD for his relative honesty by allowing him to live, and the two drive off in opposite directions while RD hopes to never meet him again.

Cast

• Saif Ali Khan as Ranvir "Ronny" Singh: The older of the two brothers and a ruthless business man who will stop at nothing to win the game. Playing with danger is his passion and outsmarting his opponent is his pastime.
• Akshaye Khanna as Rajeev Singh: The younger of the two brothers and a spoilt, laid back and happy man. But underneath the surface lurks an anger which he tries to control with liquor. The anger and liquor get the better of him and end up controlling him and he always loses everything.
• Anil Kapoor as Robert D'Costa aka R.D.: A private detective with the deceptive air of an idiot. He is constantly eating fruits while solving a case. He is sharp, resourceful and quick. His appearance in the story thickens the plot as he unravels one lie after the other.
• Bipasha Basu as Sonia: A glamorous model with a shady past. She is looking for a man who will keep her in his heart, hoping that it will be one of the brothers, before being secretly in love with Ranvir.
• Katrina Kaif as Sophia: Ranvir Singh's secretary who shadows him around managing all his important matters. She is indispensable to Ranvir who trusts her completely but does not reciprocate her love. Sophia then dates Ranvir's brother, Rajiv.
• Sameera Reddy as Mini: The attractive assistant of Robert D'Costa who is idiotic. She constantly asks stupid questions and is forever relegated to cutting fruits or doing menial jobs for her boss.
• Dalip Tahil as Kabir: Ranvir's rival in horse races and business.
• Johnny Lever as Max (special appearance): The marriage bureau chief who provides comic relief and a vital clue which leads to solving the case.
• Kiku Sharda as servant in horse stable.

Costumes: Anaita Shroff Adajania
Choreography: Bosco–Caesar, Ganesh Acharya

Music

The Soundtrack of Race was released by Tips Music on March 1, 2008.^[4] Music for Race was composed by Pritam with lyrics by Sameer. The song "Zara Zara Touch Me" was composed by Srinjoy Bhattacharya. He reused the tune of his own Deep in the Bamboo grove’ which he composed for Taiwanese singer Lee-Hom Wang."Race had 7 Original Songs, 9 Remixes and an Instrumental Theme. The song "Khwab Dekhe (Sexy Lady)" was recorded after the release of the soundtrack. It replaced the original song "Mujh Pe Toh Jadoo" in the film. Tips Music then re-distributed the soundtrack, adding "Khwab Dekhe (Sexy Lady)" after the release of the film. Srinjoy Bhattacharya also composed the Film Score.

Track Listing

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Bollywood Hungama	[5]
Planet Bollywood	[6]
Planet Bollywood	[7]

Race got favourable reviews with the song "Pehli Nazar Mein" sung by Atif Aslam as the biggest hit of the album along with "Zara Zara Touch Me".^[8] Aakash Gandhi Noted "Pritam gives us a fairly solid soundtrack, reminiscent of a lot of his 2006 works. However, he doesn't quite live up to the expectations he'd set for himself last year. Although, one thing is for sure - he always manages to come up with at least one really great composition in each of his outings. This time it's Pehli Nazar Mein." while Atta Khan wrote "the soundtrack of Race turns out to be a typical Pritam offering for a bigger profile movie; a few solid tracks that will make the intended impact on screen (especially for the promos) and could well elevate sales for the soundtrack as well. But in all other respects it is unspectacular, unoriginal and uninspiring and apart from 'Pehli Nazar Mein' and a few nice remixes by DJ Suketu, provides little scope for repeated listening".

Plagiarism Allegations

According to a Network 18 report, "Pehli Nazar Mein" and "Zara Zara Touch Me" were directly copied from the Korean song "Sa Rang Haeo" and Leehom Wang's "Deep Within a Bamboo Grove".^[9] Sony BMG Taiwan has issued a legal letter to Tips Industries claiming damages for the song "Zara Zara Touch Me".^[10][11]

Reception

Critical reception

Race opened to mixed response from critics. Raja Sen gave the film 1.5 out of 5 stars, saying it was a "carnival of twists".^[12] However, Taran Adarsh gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, stating that "Race is a superb entertainer all the way", and that it "has not just style, but a lot of substance too".^[13]

Box office

Race went on to become the fourth biggest Bollywood film of 2008 behind Ghajini, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Singh is Kinng in terms of gross.^[3] The film opened with a total of ₹356 million (US$5.3 million) in India, ₹900,000 in the United Kingdom and ₹840,000 in the United States. It netted ₹620 million in India,^[14] before collecting $5 million from overseas. Race had grossed ₹158 million (US$2.3 million) in its opening weekend,^[15] before collecting a worldwide gross of ₹1.06 billion.^[1]

Sequel

The original production team had announced plans to make a sequel called Race 2. Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor returned to reprise their roles from the original movie before John Abraham, Deepika Padukone, Jacqueline Fernandez and Ameesha Patel were new additions to the cast. Bipasha Basu was the only other returning member and appeared in a cameo role as Sonia.^[16][17][18] The filming for Race 2 started on 5 October 2011.^[19] It was released on 25 January 2013, and was another success, grossing over ₹1 billion (US$15 million) domestically.^[20]

References

External links

• Official website
• Race at the Internet Movie Database
• Race at Box Office Mojo