This movie, as the observant amongst you readers will have noticed, was (surprise!) Race.
Usually, after watching a movie, a good friend and I scrounge through its IMDB and Wikipedia entries to see if we can dig up nuggets about said movie. And if it happens to be a very new one, we look up the reviews online, to see if it conforms with our opinion of the movie.
Our opinion of this movie: BLARGH!
One of the crappiest Hindi movies to have ever seen the light of day, it is rendered worse by the fact that so many otherwise decent actors agreed to work in this craptacular waste of time. Even our joblessness felt cheated!
HOWEVER!
What totally, completely, utterly rocked our sensibilities (even beyond the McKinsey Life Insurance shown in the film!) was the existence of a shocking number of positive reviews this movie was receiving! So I decided to pick through six random reviews, just to bring to light the awesomeness in the perception gaps between different people.
1. 'Race' - An okay entertainer
Starts off well by saying subtlety and restraint aren't exactly the hallmarks of Abbas-Mustaan (how the heck do you spell that second guy's name?!), but then actually lauds Akshaye Khanna on his performance! To be fair though, he wasn't bad, but certainly not praiseworthy. Acting cannot be graded relatively!
They do mention that Sameera Reddy sounds dumb quite convincingly. What they fail to mention is their opinion on whether this is by design or not :-D
2. “RACE” - One of the 10 Best Thrillers
The most shocking review of them all! Its title alone makes one cringe. The entire body of the review is so stuffed with hyperbole, one is actually left wondering if it isn't really poking fun at the movie. The one thing they do get right is a square-peg-in-round-hole reference to Sameera Reddy.
3. Indiainfo Movie Reviews
Another review calling this movie a sure-fire "Best" for 2008 - with the 3rd month in the year not over yet! Worse yet, it goes on to heap praise on the writing and (urk!) the dialogues! The dialogues, incidentally, was unanimously voted as the corniest, most predictable tripe to ever be dished out on-screen, after our screening.
4. Economic Times Review
Finally, sanity prevails! Finally, a review that gives this movie its rightful place in Bollyworld! Finally, somebody gathers up the cojones to look past "dumb", and call Sameera Reddy (in the movie) silly, naive, stupid and irritating!
Only one gripe though: it pans the movie in totality, and then labels it 'not bad'. BZZZT!! Wrong!
5. Rediff: Too many twists spoil this Race
My most favourite review of the lot. Praises Kapoor's "Sanjay Dutt-Musafir" knock-off look, but captures the movie best in two words: vague mess.
Says it isn't objectionably bad, but that's okay, there's not much that needs objecting to.
6. My own review
This one's simple and short: what is wrong with this movie?
Answer:
Not bad? Bah. Avoid at all costs!
