Trying to noticeably copy foreign hits have become an easy way out from the regular cliched potboilers of Mollywood, which revolve around feudal family fights and crass comedies. Kukku Surendran's `Race' is one such attempt in making a thriller, faithfully copying the average Hollywood flick 'Trapped' featuring Charles Theron and Stuart Townsend.
`Race' has Kunchakko Boban as Dr Ebbie, living an enviable life with his wife Niya(Mamtha) and only daughter played by Baby Anigha. Niranjan (Indrajith) according to his prelaid plans supported by his accomplice Eldho (Jagathy) and Shwetha (Gowry Munjal) snatches the girl child, while Ebby is away in Bangalore to attend a medical conference. While Niranjan apprises Niya about their frantic situation, Shwetha gets into Ebbie's hotel room at Bangalore to give him details about the exact state they are on. And through phones that ring in between Niya and Ebbie, they are asked to follow the rules, which are harshly simple. If the couple is ready to abide exactly by what they are asked to do, everything will be over in 24 hours and they will get their child back. Or else, they will loose their child if Niranjan is not able to contact the other two collaborators in every half an hour. The couple now is asked to accumulate the ransom in 24 hours to save their kid, only to find that Niranjan has raised it by another crore after few hours of drama. The perfection of Niranjan's plot is despoiled by many events that happens afterwards, including the life threatening asthmatic disease of the child, that is seldom taken care of while planning. The movie goes on with its bits of thrills and chills until it reaches its well awaited climax after plenty of twists.
Following the thrillers in recent times like `Cocktail' and `Metro' (In fact, this seems to be an younger brother of `Cocktail' in its order of happenings),'Race' too will impress the new generation audience with its slick making and performances. 'Indrajith once again impresses with his antagonist role while Kunchakko Boban and Mamtha are ok in their parts.Jagathy Sreekumar impresses in his role of a little eccentric man with peculiar behaviour of repeating every lines. Gowry Munjal seems a little bit out of space and just appear pretty all through with hardly displaying any needed emotions. The other highlights includes a great debut in camera by Pramod Varma and good BG scores by Gopi Sundar. The editing by Bipin Manoor and other technical aspects are also topnotch.
The downside in 'Race' is its scripting department. The dialogues in 'Race' are pretty ordinary, and the movie stagnates in the later part of the first half. The second half gains more interest than the former, with a lot of happenings, but also with its share of loose ends. No points in discussing them now, as it is sure to end up as spoilers.
The problem with the movie is that it is aiming the same audience who had lapped up `Cocktail' and `Traffic'. And with the expected comparisons with those two, 'Race' may fare a little lesser than the others. Anyhow, the movie is a passable fare, which sticks avidly with its intentions to give you suspenseful thrills.Prescribed for an one time watch for those who don't want to stick to the regular stuffs.
Comments