Review: RAABTA

Raabta means Connection. It's like using Dial Up Modem Connection today. Incoherent and Terrible.

1 star

Mini Review:

If you want to see a brainless, pointless romance with pretenses of rebirth, set in a foreign country then this film would be it. Utterly devoid of chemistry, the lead pair talks inanities until you fall asleep, and when woken by the tale of their past life, you end up laughing at the fakeness of warriors and princess story that is dumber than Hrithik Roshan’s Mohenjodaro.

Main Review:

This Raabta is Bad Connection. The Lead Pair Flirts as if they were hormonal 13 year olds.

(The kids in ads for Byjus study phone app are smarter than than the two lovers of this film.)

Fairy Tales for grown ups should have at least a modicum of sense. But Raabta has been written by cretins who wrote dialog like ‘I understand Economics is important, but there is such a thing called Chemistry’ because the heroine looks like she’s getting married to a rich guy leaving the boyfriend.

A big hoo-ha was made about the film being shot in Budapest, but the story could have been set in Jhumritalaiyya and it wouldn’t have made a difference. The film is terrible. Shiv is a banker (Sushant Singh Rajput, annoying in his Shah Rukh hangover) who flirts with every other ‘gori’ girl, sees an Indian chocolatier Saira/Saiba (Kriti Sanon, pretty, but exhausting in her naivete) and dumps the girl and begins to flirt with her, following her home. He insists there is a connect. She feels it too. They sleep with each other. But there is a boyfriend who shows up, and the banker now behaves so badly at a restaurant to break the girl and her boyfriend, you want to throw things at all of them.

Can The Neerja Hijacker please Save us from Dying of Boredom?

Fortunately the villain (Jim Sarbh from Neerja) shows up who and you hope something is going to happen. But he too has been given priceless dialog like: Is gaadi mein tumhari duvidha ke liye bhi jagah hai (there’s room in this car for your confusion also). Of course the girl is so stupid, she gets drunk with the chap she has just met - the villain - and says drop me home. He gets her drunk and takes her home, his home. But not before saying, ‘Kill him.’

She falls into water (don’t ask how) and instead of drowning (which would have saved the film) she dreams of her past life. Of course everyone wears jhingalala hurr (Hindi film aboriginal)  costumes and tattoos, men look like they’ve never had baths and they have long hair. Of course she is a warrior princess and is hunting fish (the sequence would have been a great fantasy thing had they not put a disclaimer: CG Fish at the bottom of the screen). Their forest kingdom some rubbishy name like Pathar (stone!) is attacked by some new tribe. And to cue, female warrior offers to fight the enemy. Hero in this life is a snarly, tough tattooed chap, who takes up the challenge and what follows is like a third world copy of Mowgli running from Bagheera sequence.

With Every Faaltu Dialog You Hope Mohenjodaro's Crocodile Would Emerge And Eat Them Up

Since a lot of the movie is under water, near water, you find yourself sending the croc in Mohenjodaro messages that it appear and gobble the three characters. Never mind what happens in the film, there are some really horrendous dialog that will have you facepalm: Ladkiyaan hero se nahi, heeron se pyaar karti hain (Girls don’t like dudes but diamonds), Ladkiyon ko Bangla achha lagta hai, Kangla nahi (Girls like Bungalows not lads with low income). The movie borrows its name from a very popular song from Agent Vinod and the song itself is used. A very drunk looking Deepika Padukone shakes bored legs in a surprise item number. But even that cannot save the film.

‘Raabta’ means ‘connection’. Alas, there is no connect whatsoever between the three protagonists, in this life or previous and the audience. Let movies like Bahubali and Magadheera deal with reincarnation, Bollywood should know that they are terrible at fantasy. Mohenjodaro and Mirzya should have been hard lessons...