Movie Review – Raabta by Suhel Johar

 

Raabta Is Listless And Disappointing.

Wikipedia lists over 144 films based on the concept of reincarnation and therefore the principle premise of Maddock Films’ Raabta is not something that is any longer a surprise. In fact, the film is an assortment of several reincarnation films of the past, and even shamelessly borrows from the extremely popular series – Game Of Thrones, so much that it uses its names too. Raabta marks an unsuccessful directorial debut of Dinesh Vijan, who has in the past produced several films including Love Aaj Kal, Cocktail, Finding Fanny, Agent Vinod, Go Goa Gone, Badlapur and Hindi Medium.

In 2017, one doubts if there would be anyone who believes in the previous life and reincarnation to reunite with your lost love? The whole idea sounds so silly to even make a film with this tried and done with formula. Unarguably, Dinesh Vijan with Raabta has come up with the cheesiest and most clichéd love story that doubles up as a yawn fest. With a runtime of 154-minutes, you might end up scratching your head.

 

Shiv (Sushant Singh Rajput) and Saira (Kriti Sanon) are drawn to each other like long lost lovers, mostly because they are. Their love dates back centuries, and the reason why they drifted apart, has drifted back into their lives. She calls herself a fire cracker.

He introduces himself as a lady killer. Few Hindi films are as upfront and unapologetic about narcissism, and Raabta gives us a pair of fit young leads falling all over each other, giddy on their own vanity.

Enter, the villain, Zakir Merchant (Jim Sarbh), the obvious kabaab mein haddi. As expected, he is crazy about Saira and wants her badly.

Such films also need an indispensable friend of the hero (For that we have Varun Sharma playing Chakra here) for occasional comic relief and good-natured flower sellers to make us believe in the beauty of mankind.

Saira starts feeling a connection with both of these guys. Some past seems flashing in her mind and the story dates back to 800 years ago. The whole flashback is in tribal setup, brown hues and a tribal war between two groups. There again, the principal characters are the same and the lady is in a relationship with one drifts to the other. The angry jilted lover avenges the act by killing the lovers. After an oceanic burial and centuries later, the threesome are in Budapest to ensure the love story has a better ending. The film comes back to the present and culminates the never ending love story. That it ends is what makes it better.

The entire first half is dedicated to the wooing, loving and romancing in picturesque Europe. This part of the film shows Rajput in his elements and he is just about endearing and pleasant and keeps things going. This part of the love story is very unimportant and lacks the means to justify the central character not being able to make up her mind between the two men in her life.

Immediately after interval, the film switches from a romantic saga to the deadly Game of Thrones which is hard to digest. The makeup and the costumes so belong to it. The flashback is nowhere related to anything that can be described as Indian, but some European early ages, but projected as Indian. The costumes and production department seemed to be forced to make it look cool.

The script falters and simply looses punch. There is a huge gap between the two time scales. The reincarnation connect is visibly feeble and thus robs the tale of its credibility. Also another huge letdown is the performances. Even the talented Rajput, who oozes charm in the first half, is lost and unconvincing in the later part as the tribal chieftain.

Raabta has many poorly written episodes and most of them look fake. Things change within fraction of seconds and logic is thrown to the winds. The most common advice writers get is: "Show, don't tell." It means that a storyteller is expected to paint a picture as opposed to describing things mechanically. Raabta spends a lot of time telling you things, and not nearly enough in making them seem believable.

The part of rebirth is so confusing that the director and the author are not able to understand what they are trying to say. The film's writers could not present anything new and the story lacking a proper base is very weak. Dialogues also become weird as the film progresses.

The film no doubt is technically rich. Rich locales, good amount spent in promotions, and so on. However the very content is unoriginal that nothing can actually save the film. The film is a sound proof that mere money, formulae and star power can never save a film.

Dinesh Vijan as a director seems to lack a clear vision and his efforts as a director is a hotchpotch of ideas. Hope for his next outing as director he chooses a better script. Garima and Siddharth as the writers (credited with story, screenplay and dialogue) of the film are the chief villains of the film. Music by Pritam Chakraborty and Jigar Saraiya  is good and so is cinematography by Martin Preiss.  Huzefa Lokhandwala and A. Sreekar Prasad  as the film's editors do a poor job.

Sushant Singh Rajput is one of the finest actors undoubtedly however he seems to get hyper active in most  of  the  scenes and end up over acting his part. Kriti Sanon looks pretty but she needs to improve a lot with her expressions. Jim Sarbh is ineffective, his character has not been well written. Rajkumnar Rao (in a cameo as an old man of 324 years with some ridiculous make up) and Varun Sharma have been wasted completely. Deepika Padukone’s dance act works. All the other actors do as asked.

On the whole, Raabta cannot connect with the audience and as a result ends up as pretty mundane and unwatchable.