Siddhu (Vidyut Jammwal) from Mumbai loves doing stunts. He aspires to go to an extreme sports tournament which is held in Europe called Maidaan. His brother Nihal (Ankit Mohan), who attended the same tournament, got killed there but Siddhu doesn’t want to go there for revenge. In his mind, his brother, who was an extreme sports enthusiast, knew the risks associated with the tournament. It’s only when he learns the truth about his brother’s death that he totally cracks and starts hunting those who had wronged him.
If only the storyline of Crakk was this simple. No, they had to spoil it by throwing in some father-son conflict. So, apparently Dev (Arjun Rampal), who is the reigning champion and runs the tournament, has some daddy issues and wants to take over his father’s (Bijay Anand) empire. Then there’s also another very convoluted plot involving plutonium smuggling. Amy Jackson plays a Polish police inspector named Patricia, who doesn’t want any kind of terrorist activity in her country and suspects people behind Maidaan to be the sort of villains who wouldn’t bat an eye selling a dirty nuke to the highest bidder. So Patricia is looking for ways to trap him and involves our hero in it. Nora Fatehi plays an influencer named Alia who is smitten by Siddhu and helps him at a crucial time. Then, Siddhu Keeps seeing Nihal at the time of need and keeps seeking his dead brother’s advice.
The film suffers from slack writing. The plot doesn’t hold true at all. At times you’re wondering if the director has misplaced the script somewhere and is shooting ad hoc. The biggest question is why are all these extreme sports enthusiasts courting certain death? And, more importantly, why is the police not shutting down these death matches. They are blatantly being streamed alive and when the whole world knows about the location, why do the authorities not take any action. And why is there an audience about such stuff in the first place? Do the common people like seeing contestants killed on live streaming. Our society hasn’t lost its bearings by that much still.
Vidyut is cast as a Mumbai tapori. He speaks like someone from Teen Batti, or what our film writers feel is Teen Batti patios. That makes him sound like Jackie Shroff. So if the makers wanted someone like that, they should have taken Tiger Shroff. Arjun Rampal is shown to be all kinds of nasty but just doesn’t cut ice as a megalomaniac.
The only decent thing about the film are the action scenes. Whether it’s the opening sequences, where Siddhu shows off his skills as a lad who loves to do stunts on local trains, the death race sequence of the bicycle stunts, the action choreography is world class. But there’s too much gap between the set pieces. For an action film, the film’s pace is quite slack. Its sound design and background score needs to be worked on as well.
Vidyut Jammwal is a good martial artist and has performed his stunts well, like always. Though he falters in the emotional scenes, which are not his forte. Arjun Rampal’s awesome physique rivals that of Vidyut Jammwal but the poorly-written role doesn’t leave him much space to work on. Ankit Mohan impresses as the elder brother in his brief role.
Watch the film if you’re a hardcore action junkie. If you like films having a modicum of story and plot, then Crakk is not for you.
