Get your filmy 'battery' recharged because SRK has arrived in a swashbuckling avatar. His kohl-lined glinting eyes, stubbled face, and oodles of style and swagger offer the most likeable anti- hero of recent times. He is 'heroic' in his misdeeds, a rebel with a cause, a devil cum messiah, an outlaw who makes his own rules, only to break them at will.
Here is a guy who does the bad so well that the good guy (Nawazuddin as an honest cop) is mentally berated by the audience for hounding Raees and not letting him live in peace (ironical because SRK's activities are the antithesis of peace in its lowest common denominator).
Raees gives an ideal platform to SRK to showcase his histrionics in a larger than life role, deeply reminiscent of the 1980's action movies of Amitabh. A not so subtle homage to the superstar is there in a clip from his movie playing in the background. It recreates that milieu and tempo, where an underprivileged young boy seethes at anyone who calls him 'Battery' for wearing spectacles, and at one time uses it as a weapon in one of his encounters with a rival to drive the point home. It reminds you of AB when he epitomised the angry-young-man in all his gory and glory. There is the ubiquitous Mother with her gospel one-liner ("koi dhanda chota nahin hota" etc) which is the game changer. Then there is the mandatory best friend-confidante-lackey Sadiq and of course the pretty dame with shy smiles and 'tears with fears' filled eyes. Mahira Khan seems skittish and underprepared in her role and disappoints. A pity that she floundered at probably the first and last opportunity opposite the king of romance.
"Baniye ka dimaag and Miyan bhai ki daring" - the tagline is used famously throughout and justifiably so. The 'catch-me-if-you-can' games that Raees plays with his rivals, ranging from the initial benefactor turned hostile adversary Jairaj (Atul Kulkarni) to the backstabbing partner-in-crime Musa bhai( Narendra Jha), and finally his bete-noire, SP Majumdar (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) in a unidirectional role of a man determined to bring Raees to justice, are riveting to watch. Their scenes together are electrifying and the one-upmanship confrontations are engaging till the end.
SRK owns the character in a flourishing, no-holds-barred manner. Whether it is flying kites or bashing goons, doing the 'garba' or butchering the enemies in a meat shop, the guys does it all with aplomb! The affectations are worn like a second skin and there are no pretensions whatsoever of presenting a realistic cinema even though it's supposedly based on the life of a real-life bootlegger in Gujarat. Cinematic liberties are taken aplenty, none of them are jarring.
'Main aa raha hoon', SRK kept saying and the man does truly arrive, as the showstopper in this catwalk of filmdom lions.
All dirty and delicious!
