RADHE (2021)

Critic No. 212

Director: Prabhu Deva

Produced by: Zee Studios, Salman Khan Films, Sohail Khan Productions, Reel Life Production Private Limited

Casts: Salman Khan, Disha Patani, Randeep Hooda, Jackie Shroff

Language: Hindi

Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller

Music: Score - Sanchit Balhara, Ankit Balhara; Songs - Sajid–Wajid, Devi Sri Prasad, Himesh Reshammiya

SYNOPSIS: 

As Mumbai’s youth are falling prey to rampant drug abuse, suspended cop Radhe (Salman Khan) is recalled for a clean-up mission. But Radhe is up against a dangerous new outlaw Rana (Randeep Hooda), who will stop at nothing to rule the city.

 

REVIEW:

Set in Mumbai, ‘Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai’ is a Salman Khan actioner that picks up from the Bollywood superstar’s previous venture, Wanted (2009). Built as a spiritual sequel to Wanted, Radhe is an encounter specialist with 97 encounters and 23 transfers to his credit, in the last 10 years. Now, as the city is in the grip of a dreaded drug mafia, it’s time for Radhe to make a comeback to put an end to the atrocity. But between beating up the bad guys, Radhe also finds time to shake his legs and heart with his boss’ sister Diya (Disha Patani).

Yes, the film looks and feels as old as a hill with template action blocks and songs that are inserted without any coherence. With loads of punch dialogues, theme score-driven build-ups, and hero glorifying moments, the film travels with no emotional spine attached to it. None of the scenes look fresh and Salman Khan literally looks like a laughing stock donning a stiff, thin character that executes over the top, gravity-defying stunts. The story is all over the place and the romantic scenes as expected, are forced along the way.

Even though the villain is set up quite strongly, the entire dynamics of Bollywood cinema where the 'hero never sweats’ formula puts you off and you know that nothing can touch or shake Radhe. As a police film, there isn’t any cat and mouse game between the protagonist and antagonist to make the proceeding more interesting. That said, Randeep looks menacing as the ruthless villain and has come out as the most impactful performer in the film in midst of the ‘sleepwalk acting’ by others. 

As mentioned early, Salman Khan looks expressionless and stiff at most parts. Senior actor Jackie Shroff is wasted as a characterless buffoon in the film while Disha Patani is treated as another objectified property in the film. It is also quite puzzling to see Tamil actors like Megha Akash and Bharath being used as sheer calefares. 

Among the songs, ‘Seeti Maar’ and ‘Dil De Diya’ are quite catchy and have been grandly staged and shot. The only relief is that the film has just 3 songs in between and it runs below 2 hours. Therefore, the damaging product feels crisper. Despite the effort in the technical stand, the film just does click with us as it fails to emotionally buy over the audience at any point. In a time where many innovative films are making waves and pushing the Indian cinema as a whole to the global stage, mainstream commercial cinema like Radhe continues to try its luck with the diminishing target audience who still believes in products that undervalue their intelligence.

VERDICT:

Radhe is another painful addition to the crumbling Bollywood mainstream cinema that is constantly focusing on glitz and glamour rather than telling a proper story.

 

CELLULOID METER- 2/5: