Crakk - Jeetegaa Toh Jiyegaa Review

Crakk is the exact kind of movie that is enjoyed by twisted writers like yours truly, because they allow artistic expression without any of that annoying, pervasive human trait called guilt. There are quite a few well-intentioned movies out there that, despite their shortcomings, make reviewers sympathetic to the efforts of such filmmakers. Crakk is not one of those.

Director Aditya Datt, whose previous film Commando 3 also featured lead actor Vidyut Jammwal, manages to achieve precious little in the film's two and a half hour running time. The best thing we can say about it is that the premise of the movie is interesting. If Datt had gone all in on a gritty, serious, fight-to-the-finish kind of movie, we could have gotten a highly stylised action flick in the style of Mad Max. Sure enough, the best part of the movie is where it seems to take inspiration from both Mad Max and Squid Games and combine it into a race for survival - and for a hot minute it manages to get us to hope. Until said hope is promptly quashed in the next few minutes, and we are back to the same old masala movie routine.

Crakk is the story of two brothers vying for spots in the world's most well-guarded secret competition, Maidaan, an extreme sports tournament which invites contestants to participate in a series of deadly races to win crores of rupees along with another secret prize. Younger brother Siddharth "Siddhu" Dixit (Vidyut Jammwal) is out to prove himself against show veteran and host Dev (Arjun Rampal) where his older brother Nihal Dixit (Ankit Mohan) failed.

Crakk is a textbook example of biting off more than you can chew. It tries to be an action thriller, a drama, a romance, a comedy - and it tries to shoehorn in a bizarre class-divide/rags-to-riches plot line while at it. It ends up being a drama where the audience has no emotional investment in the characters, a rushed romance that also lacks chemistry between the lead pair, and the cringiest "humourous" (I am literally doing air quotes in the middle of writing this) dialogue I have had to endure in a long, long time.

What makes it worse is that half the cringe could be avoided by just completely editing out one single minor character, Junaida (Jamie Lever), who is the stereotypical nerd/tomboy/hacker/banterer. Every line Lever utters makes your want to sink into your seat further - the depths of hell are reached when she introduces contestants from different countries with dialogue like, "Expert in vodka, he's from Russia" or "Wallah Habibi, he's from Egypt" or "Chilli Chicken, Ni Hao" (when describing a Chinese woman). My movie-viewing partner said she could feel second-hand embarrassment at that line, and I concur.

Vidyut Jammwal can flex and strut, and is at the heart of the movie's best moments, the first race sequences and the sprawling action set pieces. He, however, finds it hard to emote, and is bereft of any semblance of comic timing - thereby also finding himself at the centre of all the insipid romantic or dramatic moments. Arjun Rampal still has it, and he gives the shoddily written Dev an honest go, but his act feels like that of the captain of a sinking ship as he sinks with the screenplay.

Both the female leads have been written like they were afterthoughts, and their performances go with that. Nora Fatehi has no chemistry with Vidyut Jammwal, nor does her influencer character Alia have any influence on the actual movie. Amy Jackson tries hard to live upto the "cool cop who speaks thirteen languages including Hindi" schtick, but ends up being the textbook "white person speaking Hindi in an accent" à la Alice Patten (Sue McKinley) in Rang De Basanti or Paul Blackthorne (Captain Andrew Russell) in Lagaan.

The supporting cast are as unimpressive as the main cast - they can certainly pull off the stunts required of them, but that is about it. We also have a sneaking suspicion that all the white guys who played contestants representing various countries are all East European, and not American or Australian or British as the movie claims.

Vidyut Jammwal has a bunch of things going for him - an athletic physique, the impressive ability to perform his own stunts, and a fanbase that loves him due to him being an "outsider who succeeded in Bollywood sans nepotism". It's high time he chooses less inane scripts (Junglee, anyone?) and get his act together, pun intended, because the movie business runs just like Crakk's tagline - jeetegaa toh jiyegaa.