Race (film)

Infobox Film
name = Race

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caption = Theatrical poster
director = Abbas Mustan
producer = Tips Films
starring = Anil Kapoor
Saif Ali Khan
Akshaye Khanna
Bipasha Basu
Katrina Kaif
Sameera Reddy
music = Pritam Chakraborty
distributor = Tips Films
released = March 21, 2008
runtime = 154mins
country = flagicon|India India
awards =
language = Hindi
amg_id =
imdb_id = 1017456
website =

"Race" (Hindi: रेस) is a 2008 Bollywood film directed by director duo Abbas-Mustan and produced under the Tips Films banner. Released on March 21, 2008 worldwide, it stars Anil Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Akshay Khanna, Bipasha Basu, Sameera Reddy and Katrina Kaif in pivotal roles.
The film also stars Dilip Tahil and Johnny Lever for thriller and comedy sketches. Set and mostly filmed in Durban, South Africa and Dubai, Race is a comedy, thriller and action film which explores themes of sibling rivalry, betrayal and passion. The film is loosely based on the 1998 Hollywood movie Goodbye Lover.

Synopsis

Ranvir Singh (Saif Ali Khan) is a rich, dedicated and adventurous individual. He is the owner of a successful stud farm known as the Stallions. He frequently bets on horse races against his arch nemesis Kabir Ahuja (Dilip Tahil). While Ranvir is adventurous, cunning and clever, his younger brother, Rajeev (Akshay Khanna) is an alcoholic who is jealous of his elder brother. Ranvir is in a relationship with Sonia (Bipasha Basu), a successful model. His secretary, Sophia (Katrina Kaif) is also in love with him, however Ranvir mistakes Sophia's love and care as her efficiency.

One day, Ranvir's car crashes on the way back from work. Luckily, he recovers, without any fatal injuries, and a party is held to celebrate. Here, Ranvir introduces Sonia to Rajeev. In an instant, Rajeev falls in love with her and claims that if she were to come into his life, he would give up alcohol forever. Ranvir links the two by lying about a past girlfriend's return. As Ranvir backs off, Sonia and Rajeev become closer -- so close that Sonia asks Rajeev to marry her. However, Rajeev refuses as he feels he cannot come to terms with Sonia's past life (she was adopted,ran away from her foster home by accusing an old man who worked there of trying to molest her, and finally she also killed someone with a beer bottle while committing a burglary).Rajeev manipulates Sonia into helping him with a dangerous plan - to kill Ranvir. Sonia's need for money and the guarantee that Rajeev will not tell anyone about her past life is enough for her to strike a deal with him. The two plan to kill Ranvir so that they receive his the 100 million dollars from a double indemnity clause in their life insurance policy. It is later revealed that Rajeev actually hired someone to make Ranvir's crash look like an accident, hoping he would die, but this plan obviously fails.

Rajeev and Sonia get married and,as planned,Sonia convinces Ranveer that he has made a mistake by marrying her off to an alcoholic.As ordered by Rajeev, Sonia eventually seduces Ranvir. Rajeev later explains to Ranvir that Sonia is having an affair with someone else. Ranvir is uneasy but nevertheless hides the truth from both Rajeev and Sophia.

Finally, Sonia and Rajeev execute the final stage of their plan to push Ranvir off a building and to make it look like an accident. However, it is revealed that Sonia was in alliance with Ranvir as she told him everything about the plan. Ranvir instructs Sonia to stick to the plan, but instead of pushing him, she will push Rajeev off the building. The plan goes ahead but Sonia instead pushes Ranvir off the building, telling him that her twenty million dollar cut was too much to let go of.

Ranvir is found dead, and his investigation is headed by Robert D'Costa (Anil Kapoor) and his assistant Mini (Sameera Reddy). After some investigation, Sophia confesses that she married Ranvir whilst they were in Cape Town together. Therefore the money will go straight to Sophia. To get rid of her, Rajeev hires contract killer. Eventually, it is revealed that Sophia is in a relationship with Rajeev and the contract killer was hired to kill Sonia. Sonia gets suspicious when she sees Rajeev and Sophia together, but realises she has been lured into a trap. Sonia is about to be killed when suddenly Ranvir appears and saves her.

The two brothers plus Sonia and Sophia, finally confront each other over the deceit, jealousy and lies. To settle the score, Ranvir challenges Rajeev to one last race: whoever survives gets the money. The race ends with Rajeev and Sophia crashing their car and getting killed. Ranvir wins the race and is 200 million richer. In a final twist, it is revealed R.D and Mini were actually working for Ranvir. It shows how it was Ranvir's and not Rajiv's plan. Ranvir gives some money to R.D and Mini and drives off with Sonia. He warns R.D that he will kill him if he sees him again.

Cast

*Saif Ali Khan as Ranvir Singh
*Akshaye Khanna as Rajeev Singh
*Bipasha Basu as Sonia
*Katrina Kaif as Sophia
*Anil Kapoor as R. D. aka Robert D'Costa
*Sameera Reddy as Mini

Critics and Response

Although receiving a mixed response from critics, Race went on to be the second Bollywood hit of 2008 behind Jodhaa Akbar. The film opened with a total of Rs.35,61,00,000 in India, £880,423 in the United Kingdom and $ 1,376,024 in the United States of America. As of May 30, it grossed Rs.63,67,00,000 ($14,886,600) in India, and $9,505,321 in other parts bringing a worldwide total of $24,391,921.Taran Adharsh 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". Hanumant Bhansali praises the film and also says that Race is "a winner all the way". In contrast to Adharsh and Bhansali, Race also met with some negative reviews, forcing the response from critics to be mixed. Raja Sen gave the film 1.5 stars out of 5 and described the various number of plot twists and poor character development as its main deficiencies. The mixed reviews continued with AOL india [http://www.aol.in/bollywood/story/2008032106289019000001/index.html] reviewer Noyon Jyoti Parasara giving the movie 3 out of 5 but saying, "Overall, this is a complete Abbas-Mastan thriller. The story comes up with a new thrill every half an hour. And when that's in a two and half hour movie, we would say it almost overflows with kahani mein twists. But did we hear the old idiom – Too much is not always too good? Race almost gets too much for you with multiple climaxes."

Controversy

Taiwanese singer Lee-Hom Wang and his record label Sony BMG Music Entertainment Ltd. are suing Tips Films, the distibutors of Race, $320,000 in damages, for plagiarising his song Deep in the Bamboo Grove"(Zhu Lin Shen Chu)" into "Zara Zara touch me" from the film. [http://www.ndtvmusic.com/story.asp?id=ENTEN20080060353/ Race song in plagiarism row, NDTV Music]

Also, though it has not been formally claimed, the song "Pheli Nazar Mein" is clearly plagiarized from a Korean song, "Sarang Hae Yo". Such song plagiarism controversies are very common with the music composer, Pritam Chakraborty.

References

External links

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* [http://www.race.tips.in/ Official website]