Kaabil Vs. Raees

Two big movies, just at the beginning of the year 2017- Shah Rukh Khan starrer Raees and Hrittick Roshan starrer Kaabil. They are both taking the industry, box office and audiences in their blows. But releasing on a weekly day, 25^th Jan, 2017 and colliding against each other at the halls with Kaabil on 2700 screens and Raees on 3500 screens they are facing a serious competition despite the huge personal fan-followers of each of the stars due to the reason that both have a huge followership. More likely than not, people are facing a challenge themselves to choose which movie to watch instantly and which can be stalled for now. Also the fact of the halls being a houseful or a very inconsiderably planned exam schedule or a hectic routine at office may cause you to miss out on the story. Never mind here’s all that you may need to know to join the gossip about the films.

Let’s start with Kaabil and then go to Raees with the stories and their criticisms.

Kaabil

Directed by- Sanjay Gupta                                                                                                    Produced by- Rakesh Roshan

Written by- Sanjay Masoom, Vijay Kumar Mishra                                                      Music by- Rajesh Roshan

Production Company- Flimkraft Productions Pvt. Ltd.                                              Budget- 35 crore

Story

Hrittick Roshan, as Rohan and Yami Gautam as Supriya, both are visually impaired independent working people who meet each other, fall in love and get married. The couple was one night enjoying themselves in a restaurant while a local goon Amit Shellar (Rohit Roy) and his friend Wasim (Sahidur Rahman) behave inappropriately with the couple, being intoxicated. This lead to a heated argument between Rohan and them. next morning after Rohan leaves for work, Amit and Wasim sneek into his house and gang rape Supriya. When Rohan calls the police to report he is adviced by them to get Supriya medically examined within  next 24 hours to prove the assault but they get kidnapped by Shellar’s people on their way to hospital and are held captive for next 36 hours. Then they are criticized by the police and doctors when they finally reach them. Supriya tries to move on but Rohan’s becoming silent and not being able to dismiss what happened, breaks Supriya further.

 One day Rohan returns early from work to apologise to Supriya for he had failed to support her as much as he should have had but finds her hanging down the fan. Meanwhile MMAdhavrao Shellar (Ronit Roy) visits Rohan and admits his brother has raped Supriya twice and threatens him to remail silent on the matter. Rohan finds Supriya’s brail suicide note where she confessed that the second assault led to her suicide. Rohan visits the police station and implies that he will avenge his wife’s death anyway. He then plans out the avenge and use his voice modulating skills to bring Wasim to an isolated club. When he arrives, Rohan switches the lights off making the place too dark for Wasim to see anything. Rohan kills Wasim by hanging him and leaves Amit’s handkerchief to misguide the police. Similarly he calls Amit to a warehouse full of drums of oil and kills him by tying him down in leaking oil to be burned alive. Rohan gets arrested but flees with the help of his friend Zaffar (Suresh Menon) and finally kills Madhavrao Shellar by throwing him down the construction building where they meet. Police due to lack of evidences couldn’t do anything against Rohan.

 And Rohan, having taken the revenge sets Supriya’s ashes free to the sea and bids her farewell.

Criticisms

The story plot has a remarkable similarity with a 2014 Korean film Broken(Grief in his heart, vengeance on his mind) where a widower man sets for revenge after his 15 year old daughter is gang raped by two men and murdered. Also, there’s a Netflix Marvel series Daredevil where a lawyer Matt Mudrock , visually impaired from his childhood but has highly developed senses to render his blindness not much effective and taking this advantage, turns into a vigilante in the night of New York city. For the later it was even being said for a while that Netflix will sue Hrittick Roshan. (chill, nothing as such happened though.) and also director Sanjay Gupta has rubbished the later claims as ‘Hrittick is not playing any superheroes here’.

The story appears to be also similar with Salman Khan’s shelved film Buland where the hero goes on a vendetta spree after his girlfriend is raped and murdered.

However Kaabil resembling other films comes as no surprise as Director Sanjay Gupta’s films have a famous history of having a striking resemblance with other previously released movies let it be Kaante or Zinda, etc.

The film has been also criticised to be a success only due to Hrittick’s outstanding acting capability. And it is said to be a platform to vaunt the same only.

Personal Note: Hrittick has really rocked it by his acting skills and makes the film worth a watch. No doubt that it is being called the best performance of his career. Yami’s appearance is infalliable as mostly it is. The songs are melodious. The expenses on the sets is evident. 

Raees

Directed by- Rahul Dholakia                                                                               Produced by- Ritesh Sidhwani, Gauri Khan, Farhan Akhtar

Written by-Rahul Dholakia, HArit Mehta, Ashish Vashi, Niraj Shukla               Music by- Ram Sampath

Production company- Red chillies entertainment, Excel Entertainment          Budget- 85 crore

Story

The film begins with Master Subham Chitamani as Raees who is a student in a school and so poor that can’t afford to buy spects and ends up stealing one from Mahatma Gndhi’s statute. He also helps in illegal supply of desi daaroo. All the while he Is accompanied by his friend Saadiq  whose adult role is played by Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub. Impressed by his wits , Jairaj undertakes him for his deals on videsi daaroo.  Shah Rukh Khan plays the role of adult Raees, who is enraged if anybody calls him “battery” and follows a principle of not harming anybody in his business as taught by his mother. He raises his own empire of dealing on daroo with his friend Saadiq and due to his humility and good nature becomes a favourite of everybody around him in his locality.

He meets Aasiya, played by Mahira Khan, falls in love and marries her.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui, IPS Jaideep Ambalal Majmudar is a very efficient police officer who never goes against the law even if under illegal pressures who vows to take Raees down and also imprisons him after persistent efforts , Raees finding his political friends abandoning him , decides to fight in the elections and eventually wins and also becomes father of a baby boy. But happy times are short lived and a moment of crisis shows up in which to safeguard the people of his locality (muholla) he helps in transporting illegal gold and in turn himself gets cheated as instead of gold he unaware transports RDX bombs that cause death of a huge population raising to communal riots. When Raees comes to know about what has happened he kills the people who were actually behind the riot and handovers himself to IPS Majmudar who was already plaaning to get assassinate him even without legal orders.

Personal Note- Although a little raw but contains a sweet-bitterness of its own and has a moral to learn from. To put it simpler, has a solid story that worths a watch along with each actor doing their parts well enough.

Criticisms

The film was said to be based on Abdul Latif’s life but this claim has been dismissed by the filmmakers very clearly.

Shia community had raised issues against the film due to use of their religious symbols in it.

The film stars Pakistani actress Mahira Khan and that faced a huge criticism even during its shooting. The film has faced a huge political criticisms due to the same reason, although Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (NMS) had to finally raise the ban as Indian Army refused to accept political inclination on sacrifices made.

 Filming and Box Office 

The entire film of Kaabil is shooted from March to July, 2016 in a total of 77 days whereas Raees took a whole amount of time to be shooted from April 2015 to February 2016. Both the films have received mixed ratings(from 2to5) and reviews(from being called anti-national to patriotic).

Raees collected @20.42 crore on its first day whereas Kaabil could only grab nearly half, some 10.42 crore. Till date Raees is a clear hit with  a collection of 116 crore and Kaabil has considerably caught upto it with a collection of 85.30 crore.

Now choose and enjoy whichever movie you think will be better for you. Also, don’t hesitate to join the gossip at the college corridor or the next seat in the bus. J

Bye till next Thursday. J