Raabta - review by Bhavna Kant

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“Raabta is a romantic thriller with a reincarnation twist” – Bhavna Kant

Coming from Dinesh Vijan who has an impressive filmography as a producer ( Cocktail,Love Aaj Kal, Finding Fanny, Badlapur , Being Cyrus etc ), my expectations were high.This film is his directorial debut.

The plot is very typical with the contemporary part of the love story comprising of ” the boy meets girl and instant and intense connections felt “. Starting from flashes from past to complete memory of the earlier life, we see that the reincarnation part has an interesting medieval tribal look to it ( shades of Mirzyaa ). But alas either of the stories fail to strike any intense or instant connection whatsoever with the audience.

Shot in picturesque Budapest, the locations,the costumes,the sets are absolutely lovely. The lead pair looks very good and chic,styled in the usual Anaita Adajania style. The plot though a bit predictable, managed to hold on to some mystery and had some surprise elements. But alas,these sparks were only in brief flashes.

The music by Sachin Jigar is very average and forgettable except the track Raabta with a cameo by Deepika.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQS7i2z1CoA[/embedyt]

The lead stars Rajput, Kriti Sanon and Jim Sarbh tried their level best as far as the performances go. Whatever were the shortcomings seemed more of the director ‘s lacking than the performers’.
Raj Kumar Rao … I fail to understand his need to take up this 5 scenes role withstanding 5 hours of prosthetics each time. Any xyz could have spoken those lines.

Jim Sarbh (The Neerja terrorist) is as impressive here. Kriti looks beautiful and natural. But Rajput comes across as trying too hard. Of course his role required of him to be a Casanova of sorts who has an easy way with girls, but he seems too brash. I wonder if this is the definition of Casanova for the current generation !
I failed to see any chemistry or sparks flying. Maybe the younger crowd feels connected to this “tu-tadaak” in first meet and sleeping around in second meet kind of romance.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXjYfpqg8Z0[/embedyt]

Kriti’s character seems confused for sure when you see her confessing the same things to the protagonist and antagonist that they are her kind of guys.Her clarity in either of the births could have definitely avoided so much bloodshed among them and pain for the audience.
Honestly, at a certain point , the antagonist in the previous birth had my sympathies.

Verdict

Overall , the movie can be a one time watch depending upon your personal taste and tolerance. Its contemporary look and feel and the incarnation twist can be considered as the positive points. It fails to en-cash its potential but didn’t come across as too bad to me.

Score 6 on 10.