Race 2


Race 2 is a 2013 Indian action thriller film directed by Abbas Burmawalla, Mustan Burmawalla and produced under the Tips Industries banner. It is the sequel to the 2008 film, Race and the second installment of Race film series. The film has an ensemble cast starring Saif Ali Khan, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone, Jacqueline Fernandez, Ameesha Patel and Anil Kapoor in the lead roles while Aditya Pancholi and Rajesh Khattar are featured in supporting roles and Bipasha Basu is featured in a special appearance. Khan, Kapoor and Basu reprised their roles from the previous film.
Made on a budget of, Race 2 was released on 25 January 2013 and opened to mixed reviews from critics and positive response at the box office, earning worldwide. According to Box Office India, it was declared a hit.

Plot

The story continues from the previous film.
A robbery takes place and European printing plates are stolen. Ranvir Singh goes to a casino owner, Vikram Thapar, claiming to have been behind the robbery. He offers Thapar €1.5 billion in counterfeit currency in exchange for €500 million real banknotes. Thapar agrees and borrows the €500 million from ex street-fighter and billionaire gangster Armaan Malik. It is then revealed that Ranvir never stole the printing plates, and was conning Thapar. Now, unable to return Armaan's money, Thapar is forced to give Armaan control of five casinos that he owns in Istanbul, Turkey.
The con is a plan that Ranvir made a week earlier with Armaan, who he met through Robert "RD" D'Costa and his dim-witted assistant Cherry. Ranvir gives Armaan ownership of Thapar's casinos in exchange for a 10% commission. The two become friends and business partners.
Ranvir meets Armaan's half-sister Aleena and develops a romantic affair with her. Aleena is revealed to be Armaan's 50% shareholder and constant partner in crime.
A glamorous and stylish lady, Omisha is introduced as Armaan's girlfriend. Ranvir sees a picture of his deceased wife Sonia in Omisha's wallet and he begins to woo her in order to gain her confidence. His real plan is to bankrupt Armaan because Armaan and Thapar were responsible for Sonia's death. Omisha tells him that she is Sonia's sister.
Ranvir plans to steal the Shroud of Turin and sell it to Armaan. After that, he will steal both the shroud and Armaan's billions of dollars. However, RD, who is afraid of Armaan, betrays Ranvir and tells Armaan the truth. Armaan asks Godfather Anza to give 15 billion euros as an investment. However, Armaan has to win a fight with fighter Typhoon. Aleena reveals Armaan was the one who planted a bomb in her car to kill her, and decides to help Ranvir. Ranvir steals the shroud while Armaan wins his fight with Typhoon.
During the celebration, Aleena poisons Ranvir's glass. As he slowly dies, Armaan reveals that thanks to RD, he knew his plan and Aleena was never on Ranvir's side. Omisha is also on Armaan's side and is not Sonia's sister. After Ranvir dies, Armaan and Omisha retrieve the shroud and leave in their private jet. There, Armaan points his gun at Aleena, revealing that he'd been planning to kill her to take her share of the money. Suddenly, Ranvir crashes through the wall; Aleena never poisoned his drink. Aleena tells Armaan that she is on Ranvir's side, knowing Armaan was trying to kill her. Ranvir reveals that RD never betrayed him; he himself told RD to inform Armaan of the real plan to make Armaan think he was ahead of Ranvir.
Ranvir and Armaan have a lengthy fight in the plane. Armaan tells Ranvir that he killed Sonia because she fled with his money. He shoots the pilot and all the parachutes, escaping with Omisha and leaving Ranvir and Aleena to die in the resulting plane crash. However, the two manage to escape using Armaan's car, which floats on four attached parachutes.
Armaan and Omisha hand over the shroud to Godfather Anza. On inspection, it is revealed to be fake. When Anza asks for his Bearer Bonds, they are also fake. Armaan is forced to hand over his properties, including cars, casinos and yachts, in place of the money, while Omisha dumps him for Anza. Bankrupt, Armaan vows vengeance on Ranvir, who had planned this from the beginning.
In the end, Ranvir visits Sonia's grave and gives RD his share. When RD asks about the real shroud, he reveals that he never stole it and it is still in the Church. Aleena had switched the real Bearer Bonds when he and Armaan were fighting on the plane. RD says that he does not want to risk his life again and makes Ranvir promise to never meet him again. Ranvir warns RD that promises are made to be broken.

Cast

After the success of Race, Ramesh Taurani registered Race 2 as a title and Abbas-Mustan said that they would go ahead with a sequel "if we get a script in place which is even better than the original." The screenplay was written by Shiraz Ahmed who also wrote Race. Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor were the first to sign on in November 2009 and were reported to be the only returning cast members from the first film. In June 2010, John Abraham was signed on to play the antagonist and Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra were approached to co-star opposite Khan and Abraham respectively. However, Kapoor turned down the role as she didn't want her pairing with Khan to get repetitive; Chopra opted out due to scheduling conflicts. It was also rumoured that Asin had been shortlisted to star alongside Khan; however Padukone was cast. In December 2010, Sonakshi Sinha was cast as a replacement for Kapoor. Chitrangda Singh was approached for a role opposite Anil Kapoor in May 2011 but eventually dropped out for unspecified reasons. Ameesha Patel and Mallika Sherawat were considered for that same role, but it ultimately went to Patel.
The film's shooting was set to begin on 5 October 2011 but was postponed to accommodate Deepika Padukone's dates causing scheduling conflicts with Sonakshi Sinha. Sinha's dates conflicted with her filming schedule for Dabangg 2, forcing her to drop out. In October 2011, Jacqueline Fernandez who had opted out of Krrish 3 and Raaz 3 was cast as a replacement for Sinha. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that Bipasha Basu would be reprising her role as Sonia in a cameo appearance and continuing to be Khan's love interest. Despite rumours suggesting that Basu would be sharing screen space with ex-boyfriend John Abraham for the first time after their break-up, Abraham denied this. Reports have said that after this statement was said Abraham then told Saif that he didn't want to work with Basu in the first place. Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, the largest of Sunni clerics in India, urged PM Manmohan Singh to stop their publication and display of Race 2 posters that featured verses from the Quran.

Filming

The first Indian schedule began on 5 November 2011 in Mumbai for 15 days, wrapping up on 20 November. Meanwhile, Sanjay Dutt was in talks to join the cast, but he dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. The second schedule commenced on 23 January 2012 in Mumbai. Padukone dropped out within six days because the film was always being rescheduled.
Race 2's producer Ramesh Taurani released a statement to the media deeming Padukone's behaviour as "unethical, unprofessional and unacceptable". Also, it was reported that Asin was offered the role to replace Padukone, although it has been rumoured that she declined the offer, thus avoiding any controversies regarding her and Kapoor. However, Padukone and Taurani agreed on a settlement after much negotiation and the filming continued as planned. Fernandez, Abraham and Padukone joined the cast in May at Istanbul for the third schedule. On 7 October 2012, shooting was completed. The Mardan Palace in Turkey was the setting for many scenes where it was shown as the home of Padukone and Abraham's characters.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of Race 2 which is composed by Pritam, features nine tracks, with four remix versions an unplugged version and a mashup of all the tracks. It was released on 11 January 2013. The film score is composed by Salim-Sulaiman and Sunny M.R.
The songs "Lat Lag Gayee", "Be Intehaan" and "Party on My Mind" became extremely popular and were declared as chartbusters.

Track listing

Reception

The soundtrack received positive critical reception. IBN Live gave it 4/5 stars saying, "Race 2's soundtrack is racy to the core. In a nutshell, the album is bound to be a hit. Let's just hope the movie is as good as the soundtrack is!" Shresht Poddar, of Score magazine, gave the album 3/5 stars saying, "Personally, as a standalone album with no biases, it is enjoyable but it could have done with better lyrics. The tracks are foot-tapping and they would appeal to the masses. But if you compare it to Race, the album undoubtedly falls flat."

Release

Race 2 was released in 3200 screens in India; it is the third biggest release ever for a Hindi film after Ek Tha Tiger and Dabangg 2. Race 2 was released in more than 50 countries, including US, UK, Gulf, Australia, Pakistan as well as non-traditional markets like Maldives, East Timor, Myanmar, Morocco and Vietnam. The film had a simultaneous release in Morocco in four to five screens, including theatres in Casablanca and Marrakech. Race 2 is subtitled in Arabic, Thai, Bahasa, Malay, Vietnamese, and Dutch.

Critical reception

Madhureeta Mukherjee of Times of India rated the film 3 out of 5, while commenting "Heists, hot-babes, roulette, raging cars, gizmos and gags – Director duo, Abbas-Mustan have thrown in everything with pompous grandeur, save for a riveting plot that shocks or stuns." Rubina A Khan of The First Post gave it 3 out of 5 stars, adding, "Race 2 delivers what it promises – good looking ensemble cast, exotic locations, cars, bomb squads, revenge, lust and love, a couple of good music tracks and, most importantly, a plot which unravels at a thrilling pace." Shivesh Kumar of IndiaWeekly awarded the movie 3 out of 5 stars.
Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave 2.5 out of 5 stars and said "The writing isn't watertight, the film lacks a hit score, the climax is far from effective and overall, Race 2 pales in comparison to Race." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN awarded it a score of 2.5 out of 5 while commenting "The film has no intellectual pretensions; its only ambition is to offer a good time. In that, it mostly succeeds." Anupama Chopra of Hindustantimes gave 2 out of 5, reviewing, "Race 2 is essentially a big-budget cartoon in which coolness is all. The director duo Abbas-Mustan have no pretensions about what they are making – full-on masala with a dash of revenge, a slice of heist and characters who are either strutting their chiseled bodies in slow motion or betraying each other." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave it a score of 1.5 out of 5 and feels "This is a wreck of a movie strictly for action junkies who might be looking for a feverish two-and-a-half-hour ride that is far more giddy than heady."

Box office

India

Race 2 had what Box Office India called a "solid opening" at multiplexes and single screens with occupancy of around 60%–70%. The film had a very good opening day, netting. It showed good growth in its second day, collecting approximately nett and became the fourth biggest Saturday collections ever. Race 2 did well on its first weekend by collecting around nett by collecting around on Sunday.Race 2 dropped on Monday as it collected around nett.
Despite dropping collections after the weekend, the film managed to do well and netted around in its first week. Race 2 did pretty well on its second Friday collecting around nett. The film had a decent second weekend and collected around with first Sunday collections going to around 60 million nett plus. It collected around nett in 10 days. It did well in its second week collecting around nett. The two-week total was around nett. It further added in its third week. The movie as per Box Office India stands at over 1 billion in India.

Overseas

Race 2 had a good opening in overseas with approximately the opening weekend. Race 2 grossed approximately $5.5 million overseas in ten days. After grossing $6 million in 17 days overseas, the film was declared a hit by Box Office India. Race 2 recorded similar figures in overseas markets like its prequel. Moreover, it recorded the highest ever collection in Pakistan for any Bollywood film with an amount of $775,000 beating Don 2 which netted $675,000. Its final business in the overseas market is around $6.5 million.

Reboot

After making two successful films, makers planned the third Installment of this series, but as a reboot. Salman Khan, Bobby Deol, Saqib Saleem, Daisy Shah are new additions to the third installment while Anil Kapoor and Jacqueline Fernandez return from the previous film.