Race - last one out of the cinema hall is a monkey

Race is a movie of twosomes. A pair of fratricidal brothers, two dolled up, bloodthirsty women and a dull detective duo. This along with a bad side and a boring side. Abbas-Mustan's latest venture, which starts off in pole-position, with an interesting script only leaves quite the skid mark all in the wrong places.
What connects them all? Why their love for money of course, no Ram-Lakhan or Laila-Majnu scene happening here. All this set in the backdrop of a horse-racing empire, there are two horse races in the first 10 minutes and none after.
Saif is the older, assured elder, head honcho and Akshaye is the younger sot, tired of playing second fiddle all the time. The plot thickens with one hatches a plot to bump off the other for the insurance claims, but thins out since everybody bumps into each others buns ever so often, with several poorly timed songs with spine-busting choreography. All set in in Durban, South Africa.
As one hacks through cliched dialogues and philosophical and devilishly charming one-liners all heard before, one wonders why they would even need the money, Saif owns a prestigious stud farm and cheats to win horse races and blows away treacherous jockeys. Akshaye drinks beer for breakfast and they all have 007 gadgets at their disposal. Such is the opulence that the brothers change expensive cars more often than MLAs shift political loyalties.
Amidst this swirling family maelstrom are three damsels, each playing their own diabolical part to imperfection. Kaif is Saif's secretary with love in her eyes and burgeoning dialogue delivery skills, Bipasha Basu is the supermodel reincarnation of Nefertiti, with enough kohl in her eyes to rival the dead queen and Sameera, sigh, Sameera. All three seem draped in a spastic designer's tanturms.
Enter Mr. India himself as a detective in the second half after one sibling dies mysteriously. Kapoor sprouts a new look, dual earrings and several lines on his face, which mirth did not cause. Kapoor hounds the live brother suspecting foul play and eating fruit all the time. A characteristic quirk for laughter relief. Not the first time a quirk is used, but the first time fruit actually causes gas.
There are more twists in the plot than on a screw driver, but the execution at best is boring. There were times when the movie actually surprises you with a 180 degree shift, but that is offset with the above mentioned songs. The camera work is slick at times and some locales quite breath-taking, but no major effort needed there, South Africa is that way.
The car chase scenes are typical; hastened on computers, with mindless, illogical explosions. No sci-fi explanations given. The lesser mention of the songs the better.

Race is for crash test dummies.

Laudable: Katrina Kaif, only when she speaks English; three sentences.
Laughable: Saif-Bips love scene. They seem to keep licking sweat off each other in a barn.
Delectable: The cars...ohhh BMWs, Porsches, Aston Martins and a couple of horses as well.
Deplorable: Cheap comical relief, an overacting Anil Kapoor and Sameera as a "bimbo".

Namaste London...Goodbye sanity

Take one hot looking woman (Katrina Kaif), whose expressions rival even the long dead Egyptian king Tutankhamen, dress her up in the latest haute couture and then write a script that screams "promoting India tourism" (With Punjabi gaon ka chokra Akshay Kumar, who is all praise for India Mother as brand ambassador) and you have Namaste London. Of course for the sake of the same script and the combined sanity of all those who have been drooling about Kaif, the script also has to be borrowed from at least 17 previous girl-boy-another boy scripts that have flopped, (just remembered, the flopped is redundant) and 30 per cent of the movie is shot in English, but has Hindi subtitles.
Set in London and then briefly Punjab, the story weakly follows the travails of the poor confused BBCD (think ABCD) Bimbo, who flits from guy to guy for no apparent reason and wants to stay with her parents as long as they behave like she does not exist. Only later will it dawn that most of the guys she sees are men her father has conspired to get her married to. The opening scene with whatsisname Deshmukh witnesses Kaif in a Punjabi colourful, yet acidic salwaar kameez who guzzles vodka shots by the half-dozen measure, and randomly likes reciting her true-life erotica to strangers. But wait. She's not like this (India mother - big brother), she's doing this only because she wants to get married to a Briton and not an Indian, bad luck Kamal Hassan.
"I've been brought up here (London). School, friends etc are all British, I sing God Save The Queen with my hand on my heart," she says. Her expressions and body language had me saying God Save My Sanity with my head in my hands and feet scraping restlessly on the floor. SO Briton she wants? The Briton she gets in the form of a character who's a combination of a Charles Shultz's fertile imagination and a three-time divorcee and her boss in the movie, who is richer than Prince Charles. Yes her boss's name is (get this) Charlie Brown. Want to drown? There's more the first time Kaif dates her Brown Boss, the duo are out for a spin in his latest Ferrgini or Jagroyce and they have a delightfully charming conversation about Jazz music.
Looking through the corner of his eyes, Snoopy's master: "I love Jazz music." Shot to show Kaif's legs, which immediately move to her face, Kaif (coyly): "I love men who like Jazz." Or something equally ludicrous. More leg scraping and teeth gritting follows. Oh Kaif's name in the movie is Jasmeet or Jazz. Coincidence?
Kaif is warned by her India Mother type colleague, whose role in the entire movie, while showing deep cleavage and classically tanned shaved legs, is to warn her friends who stray from the righteous veda path. And when her friends realise the truth about India and even Pakistan. She claps happily putting the energiser bunny to shame, while showing all 32 teeth colgate and close-up have already started fighting for. But who listens to advice anyway, especially if you have an ethnicity cum cultural confused pea-sized brain. After several arranged marriage boys flops, aging, rotund yet constantly bemused Rishi Kapoor, who plays Kaif's father decides to give her a taste of India. Meaning, major tourist spots shown in their splendour, while the family flies in a helicopter or tilt rotor aircraft. Did I mention, Kaif's family are also stinking rich?
Now come some of the more bearable scenes in the movie with that little bit of humour, a la three boys she sees for the marriage before Kumar comes along. The first seems to think he's Rabbi's incarnate, the second is some unfathomable intellectual who wants to graph the compatibility between Kaif and him, while the third lives in a make-believe Kabhi Saans bhi Bahu Thi world. I love anyone who pokes fun at those shows.
Enter Akshay Kumar. Trumpets, ram horns and two stones. He who wears pink and rides a bullet, he who can milk a cow and fixa car engine, he who speaks English but pretends to be an idiot and he whose hair changes colour throughout the movie from black-brown, to brown, to broen-auburn to auburn. Wow hail to thee Pharaoh Kumar. I will zip along for the sake of whomever, Akshay Kumar in a pink outfit helps the family falls in love with Kaif. Kumar's father - Kaif's father - old friends. Challo marriage is set. Ding ding ding ding ding, walking around fire put garland. Lo Kaif and Kumar are married.
Scenes cut from the final release. Kapoor who is constantly seen enjoying milk products in Punjab suffers a heart attack and is rescued after Kumar given him CPR and other things.
Mummy, daddy, and the newly weds go back to London, where Kaif smirks and tells them the law of London will not recognize the marriage with Kumar. She really wants Charlie Brown; probably fell in love with him when she read about his baseball exploits, or his sarcastic beagle.
Now the roles are reversed, hurrah for women's lib, cause the guy has been gypped by the gal. Watch out future Romeos. But India Mother is in his blood and he tells a wracked Kapoor. "You're here there's nothing I fear, but my heart will go on." The movie is a disaster or titanic proportions I realise.
Time jump again. Brown challenges Kumar and gang to rugby match. Englanders vs sub-continent people. The sub-cons have a flag of India and Pakistan painted on their cheeks (who needs you Manmohan and Pervez) and some othere Punjabi mundas remarkable similar to the off-spinning Bhajji.
Kumar has watched many movies and likes Forrest Gump, for he is a man possessed on the rugby pitch. Just give him the ball and he runs like something anti-India mother is following him. Score after score, team sub-con win. A few scenes later, Kumar overhears a Brit talking about India being a land of snake charmers and BPOs. I laughed so much I swallowed my tongue. The comes Akshay to the rescue, and spews facts and statistics about India which made the entire audience erupt with roars of approval. How many newspapers, magazines, languages, etc etc etc. India mother can be seen giving goo'boy Kumar an Éclair chocolate for his stirring speech. Kaif claps and all but still wants Brown, must like his tan I suppose. But umar persists with never-fail dialogues like, "I will call you 4565564 years from now and ask you about if you're happy, if you're not we'll get together again." One original dialogue stands out like a 3 cm radius pimple on a nose, "I fell in love with you the first time I saw you." Tears stream down my cheeks as the soles of my shoes have eroded and bubble gum sticks to my feet.
Later on, after time jumps, because my brain has become mush I missed about 12 songs and Kumar is her best-man at her wedding with Brown. Skip to Runaway Bride and Kaif says no at the altar and chases Kumar all the way to Punjab, where they go for long rides on his bullet.