Race 2

Pretty girls to swanky sets, this heist film is definitely easy on the eyes

The ratio of money to sex in this film is about 2:1. There are casinos, swank hotels, palatial apartments, exotic resorts, cars and planes to drool over. The production values are classy. Several times over we are treated to suitcases stuffed with billions of euros. The women, Elena (Deepika Padukone) and Omisha (Jacqueline Fernandez), are stunning. Yet, such is the emphasis on design in the film, the considerable and combined sex appeal of the ladies eventually becomes a part of the architecture.

Flesh and passion are turned into numbers and the women merge so well into the furniture that when Elena is writhing in a cinch with Ranvir (Saif Ali Khan) we are completely focused on the expensive porcelain lying around and hope they won’t break any. When Omisha is sitting on the lap of Armaan Malik (John Abraham), practically doing a lap dance to convince him of her bonafides, we remain anxious about the seat covers.

Still, Race 2 is easy on the eyes and the plotting is tight enough and well-paced enough to hold you for the duration. All the characters, men and women, are crooks and the only thing that distinguishes one from the other is the degree of their criminality. Since morality is not an issue, there is no hero and the only subject you are left to emotionally invest in is something left over from the original Race, the murder of Sonia (Bipasha Basu). Ranvir has found out who did it.

Comedy is present in the form of fruity Robert D’Costa (Anil Kapoor) and his Cherry (Ameesha Patel). The profane is present in a plan to make off with the ‘The Shroud of Turin’. Not even Hollywood, we are told by a character in the film, has come up with such an outrageous heist. Google that. In Pink Panther 2 (2009), the shroud is stolen. Ah, but they don’t actually show the robbery in that movie.

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