Race 2: Not as good as Race, but still enjoyable!

The highlight of the movie remains its outstanding music and Deepika's stellar performance!

With Race being a mammoth success, Race 2 brought on all sorts of expectations and hype with it.

However, did the film live up to all of this?

In contrast to Race - which was based on a conflict between two step brothers - the sequel is aimed at getting revenge. Ranveer Singh, (Saif Ali Khan) wants to ruin the money-minded Armaan Malik (John Abraham) because he killed Ranveer’s pregnant wife, Sonia (Bipasha Basu).

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, let me warn you of some spoilers ahead!

The story starts with Ranveer stealing 5 hotels from Vikram Thappar (Rajesh Khattar), a contractor who killed Sonia, and handing them over to Armaan with the intention of gaining his trust, and later, ruining him.

Thus, the plot unfolds with many interesting twists and turns ahead and keeps the audience rapt with expectation.

Let me add a word of appreciation for the cast here.

Deepika Padukone’s acting was spot on. She amazed people in Cocktail with her acting skills and it looks like she has done it again!

Saif Ali Khan, on the other hand, was better in Race. He did justice to his personality of a wealthy business tycoon in Race, but in the sequel, that spark was missing in his role as Ranveer Singh.

Having said as much, the casting of John Abraham instead of Akshay Khana was undeniably a sensible decision. Akshay Khana lacks the personality needed for the role and I believe he is highly under the influence of his elder brother, Ranvir. However, John Abraham has the appeal that was needed to play strong negative role; he has the perfect personality for the act and of course, one can’t deny that his good looks and muscular body are not a treat to watch!

However, we definitely missed Bips and the touch me-touch me girl, Katrina Kaif.

Yes, I know Katrina is a terrible actress, but the girl has charm and star power – something Race 2 could have used more of!

The highlight of the movie, however, remains its outstanding music which kept the audience glued to their seats till the very end of the last mash-up song.

Hats off to the music director and composer for bringing good music back to Bollywood after a long time!

Bey inteha is a slow romantic song, sung by our very own Atif Aslam; I couldn’t be prouder to be a Pakistani after listing to this beautiful track. No doubt, we have talent!

He also sang the title song - Allah Duhai hai - along with various artists.

The standout for me though was Lat lag gayi which is perhaps the most famous song of the movie and is undoubtedly on everyone’s playlist. The catchy beat and the blockbuster dance performance of Jacquelin are stellar and will be remembered for a long time.

The music is fresh and appealing and it definitely looks as though the directors spent a good deal of the budget on the songs.

Aside from the music, the dialogue too was very enjoyable.

A really famous dialogue of Race was when Saif confronted Katrina and said “and you, touch me touch me, kiss me kiss me….”. This time when he confronted Jacquelin, the dialogue was changed into “Aur tum, mujhey tou teri latt lag gayi…”.

This really cracked the audience up.

I have noticed that most of the movies which came out with sequels have been failures. Consider 1920 part 2 or Raaz 3; they inevitably disappointed their audience. Once the first part is so good, the expectations of the audience automatically increase as they hope for quite a lot more than what the sequel actually provides.

As for Race 2, it didn’t break this pattern.

The story was good enough, yes, but the action that glued one's eyes to the screen till the very end of Race was somehow missing. There were relatively a few similarities between both the movies and the suspense of the betrayal between the two parties was nearly the same. When I watched Race, the suspense left me open-mouthed and astonished, but whilst watching the sequel, I could easily guess what was to come next!

So to answer my own question, in comparison to Race, Race 2 scores less!

Overall, I would give Race 2 a 4 out of 5.

Though this is not as much as I would give to Race, but coming from a huge Race fan like me, I am satisfied with its sequel and would go and watch it again in the cinema.

Read more by Roshanay here or follow her on Twitter @RoshanaySheikh