Rahul Desai
As an extreme-sports actioner alone, Crakk might have stood a chance. Here’s a guy who wants to win a dangerous contest that killed his brother four years ago – three stages, an Rs. 80-crore payday, and a possible showdown with the boss-daddy of Maidaan
Such films are the cinematic equivalent of a sweet, Hollywood-obsessed daredevil kid who keeps falling on Sports Day, so they get “well tried” pats instead of medals. Crakk is that kid too.
Crakk is needlessly convoluted, long and self-sabotaging. The dubbing of Jammwal, Jackson and Fatehi is so awry that it looks like they’re lip-syncing songs rather than dialogue. It doesn’t help that Sidhu has more chemistry with his brother’s ghost than he does with Alia.
A Vidyut Jammwal actioner is my favourite kind of bad film. Over the years, I’ve grown strangely attached to this specific brand of badness. How do I explain it? It’s not sinister bad or dishonest bad; it’s mostly adolescent bad and don’t-know-any-better bad.
That’s not to say Jammwal isn’t a freakishly elastic action star. He’s very good at performing stunts – the physical sincerity is no laughing matter. The problem occurs between the action, when his characters must converse and feel and emote within a story.
The story’s creative license seems to be languishing in an expired passport. I’m not going to end by writing something predictable and mean like “Surviving Crakk is the real extreme sport”. Because it’s not.