Raees Review – Mass Entertainer

Rating: 3.5/5

2017-01-25T14:30:04+05:30
Critic Rating: (3.5/5)

The much delayed Raees has finally hit the screens. Rahul Dholakia who’s made off beat films till now has teamed up with SRK and the output is a mixture of commercial heroism with some relaistic touches.

A still from raees
A still from raees

This is the movie about the journey of Raees (Shah Rukh Khan) a boy from a mohalla of Fatehpur who aspires to do dhandha. He initially works as a henchmen and slowly builds his own business and emerges as a competitor to his ex-boss. Raees along with his most trusted friend Saddiq (played by the extremely natural Zeeshan Ayub) establishes the empire gradually. The dhandha is of alochohol when prohibition has been put in force by the government. Inspector Majumdaar (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui) enters Fatehpur and put all his efforts to thwart him. However Raees strategies succeed over the inspector’s moves. However, when one is in such a dhandha, a high to low is bound to happen. The rest of the movie is about how Raees deals with the lows and blows.

The movie has all that 70s and 80s feel of Amitabh Bachans and other movies that appealed to masses. The director portrays Raees character not just as Baniye ki Dimaag, Miyaan bhai ki daring but also with the heart of a Maseeha. He is popular in his Mohallah and is looked upto by the young and old.
The movie ends on an emotional note trying to establish Raees is more of a character than the daring and the brains.

The screenplay is gripping except for a half an hour portion before the climax. The portions where Raees is in a crisis has been poorly handled. Rest of the film runs on adrenaline rush. Especially the scenes between SRK and Nawazuddin were pure magic. Its a treat to watch two acting powerhouses locking horns.

There are many scenes which have a tremendous mass appeal which trigger the masses to hoot and whistle.The first situation in which Raees thwarts the plans of Majumdaar is classic.

A drawback of the film is the simplified treatment of some critical situations. For example, how Raees gets a bail and becomes an MLA is superficial and superquick. There are a couple of tracks that are very mediocre and the publicity guys made sure they havent promoted them.

Raees is not that an intelligent film, but at the same time it is quite gripping to keep the viewer glued for most of the time.

Overall, Raees is a well packaged entertainer where you will root for the Miyan bhai.

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