By The Bollywood Onlooker

The story of a ‘crowd puller’ boy and a ‘phataka’ girl, both tags given to them by themselves. Just like every second love story, they meet, kiss, dance on the streets, fall in love and she breaks up with her years old boyfriend because this new guy has started knowing her better in 2 days. So what’s new here? Well this time, there’s a reason to this rather impractical pace of the ongoings, and that is a past connection. 

This connection is highlighted when out of nowhere, a helicopter comes into the frame, bringing our villain in the story. This guy bumps into the lead couple literally out of nowhere, and the narrative links the three of them in some random manner. Raabta’s clichéd story is its biggest problem. Heavily inspired from few bollywood films itself, there is nothing new to look forward to here. 

Dinesh Vijan doesn’t really impress in his debut directorial. While I did like his characters, especially Zak played by Jim Sarbh, they aren’t layered well enough and we can’t connect with them. Sushant’s character is very similar to Ranveer in Befikre, atleast in terms of their ‘playboyish’ attitude. Vijan fails to connect the two different stories. He adds random clues through dreams and mysterious characters here and there but the eventual link is still weak. 

Vijan’s attempt at parallel screenplay is nowhere close to the worlds usually created by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. While he gets inspired by the loose script of Mirzya, his direction is nowhere close to the elegance and aesthetic feel of the Rakeysh Mehra movie. The only relief in Raabta is the few comic moments, which help in atleast making the film bearable and not bore the audience to death. Also, the ending 10-15 minutes of the 1st half are beautifully directed, smartly using s revamped version of an old hindi song in the background, and throwing light on the grey parts of Jim Sarbh’s character. 

Sushant Singh Rajput, Kriti Sanon and Jim Sarbh are literally wasted in this mediocre affair. All the 3 put in honest efforts. Sushant has shown his potential in MS Dhoni before and this must have been a much easier role comparatively. We have seen him pull off a very similar character in PK too, but he definitely looks charming. Kriti Sanon is one of the most beautiful faces amongst the current crop in the industry, but she really needs to choose better subjects. Jim Sarbh is slowly proving himself, and he is the best part of this movie. Rajkummar Rao’s cameo is surprising. Taking so much efforts for such a small role shows how much he values his art. 

The music of Raabta is very mainstream. Ik Vaari is a catchy song that has become very popular too, but apart from that, there’s no other mesmerising number, which is generally expected from a Bollywood romantic drama. 

Final word – Raabta has seriously nothing new to offer. Watch if you’re a big Sushant fan but otherwise, save your money for better upcoming movies. 

Rating – 2/5