When we are introduced to Sanjana (Daisy Shah) in Remo D’Souza’s Race 3, we are told she is into martial arts and that she loves extreme sports. The visuals that accompany this voiceover give us the sad reality. We see her indoors, extracting every fun out of the sport.....in a skydiving simulator. Just how extreme is her love for extreme sports? In the Race franchise we know we are in for everyone double crossing, triple crossing each other but this manner of cheating the audience with blatant lie with a visual that confirms that lie is new.
And then you remember that there is the all-important player in Race 3 - Salman Khan. If a woman character in a Salman film - underwritten, undercooked and thoroughly dispensable - is going to get an introduction where she literally falls out of the skies, then what could they possibly think of for their main man? So then it comes, clearing my suspicions, the introduction of Sikander Singh (Salman Khan), wearing a wingsuit, simply flying across from one part of the city to another. We are used to watching our actors do superheroic stunts in mainstream potboilers - one of the reasons filmmakers are already at a disadvantage when they have to come up with an Indian superhero film - but Race 3 has no pretensions, it wants to clear the air. The hero can fly.
Sikander Singh can direct a wingsuit but Remo D’Souza can’t direct a film. He is a straight up example for one of Yoda’s most famous decrees. There is simply no try in the world of Remo D’Souza. Race 3 already looks like a film that could have been made from the floor of Race 1 and 2 edit rooms. Gather the rejected bits, string together, there is your film. The modus operandi is so tired by now that directors like D’Souza do not care.
He cannot even put together a single interesting set piece that has some stakes built around it. He is a choreographer who thinks a music video where everyone looks seriously constipated to convey that their lives are at stake or another dance floor video when a bank locker heist is happening, is actually filmmaking. The heist is probably where I lost it. Your film so far has got nothing to boast of and you finally get to redeem yourself by staging some half decent set piece involving a bank job. You get five minutes to build some tension, put in some imagination or worst case, get inspired from a heist scene in a foreign film that would act as a snooze alarm for everyone watching your work. Give Bobby Deol something more than the job of the joker.
Get Sanjana to show off some of those martial art talents. Get Saqib Saleem to act and drill into him that yelling is a poor attempt at showing that he has anger management issues. Oh, are you wondering where Sikander was during the heist? He planned it but his job was to chill at the nightclub nearby with Jessica (Jacqueline Fernandez). The plot moves to other inconsequential places after this heist but consider, for a moment, this heist went fine. It means Sikander didn’t have to do a thing. He was just chilling. Even considering what happens next, Sikander had zero contribution, which works well for Salman Khan. Because if there is a superstar in our midst for whom there is no do, no do not and no try, it is Salman Khan.
Has there ever been a superstar in India who has put zero to the tiniest effort for the longest time without anyone pulling him up, maintaining his star status? If yes, I don’t remember. He walks in looking at the camera, he does this weird thing where he puts his hands behind his head, and he shoots. He stands leaning on railings, cars and tables. He’d rather step on to snow-capped mountains wearing a vest than take the trouble of throwing a shirt and a jacket.
Even when he wants to ask Jessica out, he delegates it to his security. He uses a Swiss army knife to shave. He even gets the easiest dance steps because, let’s face it, who has the time to move or twist the body? The hundreds of crores are going to come anyway. And so they will no matter that Remo D’Souza isn’t a director and none of Saqib Saleem, Jacqueline Fernandez, Daisy Shah, Bobby Deol and Salman Khan is an actor. Poor Anil Kapoor. He is just doing these films to remind everyone that you can be 61 and still look like that. Nice guy.