‘Radhe’, ‘Wanted’, ‘Ek Baar Jo Maine Commitment Kar Di’, ‘Blue Bracelet’, ‘Big Boss’, ‘Being Human’, and a lot more: These are the kind of tropes which are in abundance in Salman Khan starrer Radhe – Your Most Wanted Bhai which actually lives up to the basic commitment made to the superstar’s fans – “I am here to make your Eid special and give you exactly what you expect from me. Nothing more, nothing less.”
No wonder, the story can be summed up in just one line – “Good cop will eliminate bad drug dealer”. Plain and simple. Nothing too complicated here, nothing too convoluted either. Salman Khan returns as Radhe (one can’t ignore the reference to Wanted, especially with Pradhudeva too back as the director) and this time around he takes help from small time gangsters as well as small children to help him out in his mission to hunt down Randeep Hooda and his gang.
It’s just that this ‘chor police ki daud’ stays on to be strictly linear in its treatment with no twists or turns whatsoever. Cop charges gangster, he escapes, he chases him again and he again escapes, and by the time it’s time for the climax, you know how it will all unfold. In the midst of it there is a cute girlfriend (Disha Patani), an item girl (Jacqueline Fernandez) and a tiny cop (Megha Akash) who rally around Salman Khan.
Of course, the love story is more naughty than romantic. She mistakes him for being an aspiring model, he plays along as well, and together they have a common connect Jackie Shroff. He brings on some smiles too, as he protects his sister while also feels threatened by the ‘would be Jiju’. While all of this creates some space for mandatory songs, it’s the title track ‘Radhe’ with a catchy sound of ‘Wanted’ which plays during some key action sequences that turns out to be the best of the lot. Give me that anytime.
What could have been avoided though was the sheer ease with which Randeep Hooda (truly menacing and enjoying the swag) escapes every time he is chased. Sometimes Salman is the only one after him, sometimes his force chases him, sometimes rival gangsters are after him, and at times even kids challenge him. Each time around, he harms them and runs away, hence depriving audiences of that one major confrontation scene between the protagonist and the antagonist which could have resulted in some heavy duty dialoguebaazi.
Yes, Salman does get to enjoy some clap trap dialogues though and rest assured, had the film releases in theatres it would have resulted in audiences – at least at the single screens – enjoy his antics. One can’t be too sure of the multiplex audience though, especially if one considers the climax action sequence involving a chopper that could have done better with well crafted VFX.
That said, for ZEE Studios, ZEE5 and ZEE Plex, the film has turned out to be a gold mine and they won’t mind the fact that it has been primarily a digital release for Radhe. Considering the fact that the film has garnered 4.2 million views on the opening day across various platforms and the second day (Eid) is expected to be huge as well, their experiment has paid off indeed.