Harking back to the days of the anti-hero of the pre-Shah Rukh Khan era, Raees is a gangster saga with a contemporary spin. It takes recourse to subtle sleights of new-age style to compensate for what it lacks in terms of thematic essence and narrative pace. It makes a fair fist of the palpably onerous task. Shah Rukh shrugs off his defining starry mannerisms, embraces physical attributes and accessories designed to convey an air of to-hell-with-the-world insouciance, and becomes an effective anchor for a film that hinges overly on his box office clout to carry it across the finishing line. Raees has passages that might feel a touch ponderous to those seeking tauter twists and turns, but overall the plot rings true all the way through.
A drama about a resolute IPS officer (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) on the trail of a wily 1980s Gujarat crime lord (Shah Rukh Khan) who rises from the ranks and defies the constraints clamped by the Prohibition Act to become the state's undisputed liquor king, Raees captures the period and spatial details with diligence and dexterity.
Add to that the fascinating duet struck up by Shah Rukh and Nawazuddin, both tempering their individual acting styles to seek a meeting ground, Raees becomes a treat to watch even when the film isn't exactly throbbing with energy.
Expectedly, the principal premise of the film is morally dodgy, what with the protagonist being a defiant law-breaker who willfully erases the line between right and wrong and swears by the primacy of his shady business.
A criminal with a heart of gold - that is a stock figure of gangland yarns. Here, too, Raees that protagonist, to keep his dhanda going, acquires a larger-than-life dimension as he navigates a minefield infested by self-serving politicians, perfidious mobsters and one cop who vows to demolish his illicit empire come what may.
