Radhe, directed by Prabhu Deva released on 13th May, and can be watched on Zee5 and ZeePlex, though for the sake of your sanity I request you not to.

It stars Salman Khan, Randeep Hooda, Disha Patani and Jackie Shroff. Khan plays the role of the titular character while Randeep Hooda is the antagonist. Patani (28) and Shroff (64) play each other's siblings. Yes, let that sink in...

The movie is set in Mumbai, which in Bollywood lingo means villain-magnet. We see more than half a dozen local mafias thrown in together just so that undercover cop Radhe can dispose them off in slow-motion and then repeat a cringy dialogue from one of his films at the end of the fight sequence while looking straight into the camera. Had this movie been released in theatres, this would be the moment where Khan’s fandom would have cheered and hooted with all their life.

But given the pandemic, the silent sobs of my last remaining brain cells compensated for it.

Randeep plays Rana, a drug-lord from Delhi. He is a psychopath who murders people left and right. There is no planning, no carefully conspired cat and mouse game between him and top-cop, Radhe. They randomly meet and fight with each other throughout the film and Radhe always fails to capture him. Why? Because the script demands the bad guy remains alive for an epic showdown in the end.

The theme of this movie is the plight of Mumbai police to save teens from the drug mafia. Radhe ends up involving the teens for a covert operation. And you don’t need to be a genius to figure out that kids and blood-hungry psychopaths don’t go well together.

It gets worse. Radhe along with kicks and slaps and has a new trick up his sleeve for reducing mob clashes. Getting them to hug and click selfies. His dialogues are mind numbing and his chemistry with the love-interest would only make sense if the story was set 50 years in the past where women were considered stupid and only brought on the scene as sex-objects or in need of rescuing.

50 years in the past, is exactly where the mind of the script-writer is.

Disha Patani’s character eats up everything Radhe is telling her. She adds nothing to the story. The roles of women featured are reduced to being sexually exploited and the only person I had some hopes from turns out to be a scaredy cat. 

Before we talk about action sequences I’d like a round of applause for the sound engineering team. When Rana hits Radhe’s arm with an iron wrench we hear the sound of metal clanking loudly. 8 times to be precise (Yes, I counted)! Unless Salman Khan's flesh is made of iron itself, or he is a cyborg in a dystopian world, I fail to understand what the foley artists were thinking. 

Anyway, move over Tony Stark, we have a new Iron Man in town.

In another fight sequence, Radhe’s eye is gouged by Rana. In the next cut. It is magically healed.

Given how devoid of logic this film was, I won't be surprised if in the next sequel Salman Khan really turns out to be a cyborg. I mean he fights an army of men in every scene and never even breaks a sweat.

Direction of the film is very fast paced. It has too many short scenes which could have been easily edited without changing the storyline but only contributed to increasing the length of an already long film.

I would like to recommend this movie as a torturing device for interrogation purposes.

Rating 0/5