Raees Official Theatrical Trailer starring Shah Rukh Khan, Mahira Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui

13 Comments
  1. Author
    aryan 7 years ago

    Good trailer liked it Shah Rukh Khan dialogue delivery and expression stunning and Nawazuddin too.

  2. sputnik 7 years ago

    Had liked the teaser and was expecting a realistic movie on a gangster but this looks like a bad masala movie. It reminds heavily of Once upon a time in Mumbai. This can be called Once upon a time in Gujarat. The dialogues (Ammijaan/Maa Kehti thi and Aara rahoon) remind of Don 2.

    SRK is looking good but his acting seems to be very similar to Don 2 with all the swagger. Nawaz seems to be having a very good role and he could overshadow SRK. Mahira looks plain and seems to be overacting trying to be cute.

  3. sputnik 7 years ago

  4. Author
    aryan 7 years ago

    New Posters

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  5. saurabh sharma 7 years ago

    From the teaser, it looked like a realistic movie, but it looks like a mix of outim and dabang..(in the sense that a guy is beating all the guys).
    But after looking at other two teaser, i think the movie is following new Agneepath in its presentation. There is a certain realism in some scenes but overall its masala movie.. one can say outim is also like that, but i think outim has more style than Agneepath.

    Srk looks good but agree that he is following Don 2 pretty much [in the parts where he has become the mafia]. But from one of the teaser, the young parts feel fresh..

    Mohammed Zeeshan is playing sidekick but he is mostly seen not speaking anything.. I think he may betray srk in end.. [how it normally happens in hindi movies].

    I really liked mahira.. but this level of romance was not necessary in this movie. I suppose this is done to increase the audience for the movie to make it more masala..

    Nawaz is really looking great and his dialogue delivery is super.. Agreed that he can overshadow srk and its brave of srk that he has given good space to co-actor like nawaz where there is a great risk. He did the same in CE but i think he didn’t expect Deepika to shine so much.

    I really loved the overall masala background score from trailer which includes a remix of Laila song..

    Overall looking forward to it but not expecting anything different..

  6. saurabh sharma 7 years ago

    Raees dialogue promos.. Nawaz looks really confident and full of energy… He has the intensity of angry young man..

  7. saurabh sharma 7 years ago

    another one –

    • sputnik 7 years ago

      Don’t use the link button to post the youtube link. Just paste the youtube link and it will embed the video.

  8. Author
    aryan 7 years ago

    Dialogue promo

  9. saurabh sharma 7 years ago

    The interview where Srk says that earlier Raees was really a hard hitting movie but they added commercial elements to it.. I wonder if that helps or not..

    In a way it helps srk as he hasn’t given any blockbuster after CE but then if you can make a great movie like swades, why not do it..
    May be they are trying to do amir khan here

  10. saurabh sharma 7 years ago

    Raees trailer analysis… Guy has done a really good job

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhp0pbpHib8

  11. Saurabh 7 years ago

    Intial public reactions are good.. though most of the moviegoers on first dat will be fans..
    Intial critics review suggest that its average to good.

    Havent seen much of kabil public review but intial critics review suggest that its average to good movie..

    Since both are massy, i think both will work though its sad that they are clashing.

  12. sputnik 7 years ago

    Once Upon a Time in Ahmedabad


    A history of violence: Shah Rukh in a still from Raees.

    The lanes of Popatiyawad in Dariyapur, in the heart of Ahmedabad, remain noisy throughout the day. Pedestrians jostle for space and two and three wheelers weave their way in and out of the snarling traffic. Paan shops, auto garages, shops selling readymade merchandise and vegetable vendors line the streets, ensuring constant footfall. It’s only at night that there is some relief from the endless traffic. It’s also the only time of the day when mini trucks can commute easily along these lanes.It was in the dead of the night, in the ’80s and ’90s, that trucks would make their way into the deserted lanes surreptitiously, halting briefly outside a two-storied building opposite the house of Abdul Latif, offload cartons and glide out to make way for more. The scene replayed every night for years.

    Gujarat has been a dry state since its inception and bootlegging was a thriving anti-social activity. Latif began his career as a gambler-turned-bootlegger, but unlike his contemporaries in the trade, he would go on to have a thriving career in organised crime, gaining notoriety as a mobster who was also the only known pointsman in Gujarat of the elusive gangster Dawood Ibrahim. The Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Raees, set largely in Ahmedabad, and scheduled for a January 25 release, is said to have unmistakable parallels with the life of Latif, though the filmmaker and actor have refuted it.


    Abdul Latif at the peak of his power.

    The house in Popatiyawad, known as Latif’s “club”, even today, has a basement, now used as a godown. Till Latif was alive, it was said to be the “remand room” where his rivals were tortured. It was said, “Latif ka chhokra log kisi bhi bahari admi ko pehchan leta tha (Latif’s boys would recognise any outsider). Ik parinda bhi chhup nahi paata tha (Even a bird could not hide).” “We would not know what kind of people they were or who came to collect liquor. Danger lurked till he lived and we wouldn’t dare to step out for even a glimpse,” says a neighbour in Popatiyawad, on conditions of anonymity.” Latif’s men would be deployed at every nook and corner of the street to keep vigil for the police. With trucks dumping hundreds of cartons of liquor outside his house, there would be queues of bootleggers to get their “maal” for retail trade. Latif was the wholesaler who controlled the major network of bootlegged liquor across the state. The people who would line up for the cartons at his house would sell it to the small bootleggers who would eventually supply them to end users,” says Habib Shaikh, a journalist who lives opposite Latif’s house. “Liquor khule-aam milta. Table pe sajaya hota tha (Liquor was easily available and placed on tables),” says Mehboob Baig, alias Mehboob Senior, a former Latif associate, now a real estate dealer.

    Apart from the drone of trucks and clanking of bottle cartons, neighbours recall hearing the choicest of Bambaiyya abuses hurled at faceless people standing in the dark alleys from chinks in the windows and doors. “He was a short-tempered man who loved to play Solitaire and smoke cigarettes, particularly Four Square. He would play Solitaire for hours by himself. He used to drive a Fiat. He was, in many ways, a simpleton, who felt awkward in unfamiliar, public places. When he wanted to leave Gujarat and go to Dubai in 1992, he asked if I could arrange the tickets; he appeared to be clueless. He was always dependent on others,” says another former aide, who has also turned into a real estate broker.

    Latif, who also went by the names Abdul Aziz, Md Iliyas, Md Hanif and Rehman, was also an immensely charismatic man, loved and feared in equal measure. “The reason behind his success was the fear he inspired among his enemies and the image of a messiah he had among the poor and the destitute. He needed the support of local residents in order to run his illicit liquor business, so he spent a lot on them,” says a long time associate of Latif. In the ’80s, when there were frequent communal riots on the streets of Ahmedabad, he rallied behind Muslim victims, retaliating to attacks on them. He became a bit of a local Robin Hood, helping the needy and the distressed with food, shelter and clothes. “Muslims, already on the margins, would suffer a lot. Their businesses reeled under the frequent curfews. There is not an ounce of doubt that Latif helped them profusely,” says Aziz Gandhi, a local social worker in his 60s.


    The bungalow where Latif was killed in a police encounter in 1997.

    But, if he was a hero to the poorer members of his community, Latif did not find much favour with the educated and elite Muslims, or even the Tableeghis, who dominated Dariyapur. “Dariyapur is dominated by Tableeghis and his activities had irked these staunchly religious people. The poor, who were there in large numbers, did support him, but not the educated and elite Muslims or the religious ones,” says a neighbour of Latif.

    Among those who opposed him was his father, Abdul Wahab, a devout Tableeghi who preached at the local mosque and ran a small tobacco business. Latif, born in October, 1951, was one of his eight children. He studied upto senior secondary school, till he was forced to drop out because of financial constraints. He began working with his father. In 1971, he got married to one Akila Banu.

    The maze of lanes in Popatiyawad have undergone many changes since the time Wahab and his family inhabited it. It was a low-income neighbourhood, with a high rate of unemployment. Now, multi-storied buildings dominate the landscape and it’s not unlikely to come across residents who don’t know their neighbours. Back then, there was still a sense of community among its people. Houses shared walls and one could hop from one house to the next with ease, or disappear into the labyrinth from under one’s nose. It would help Latif escape from the police many times in the years to come.

    By the time Latif joined his father’s business, he already harboured a burning ambition to rise beyond his station. He was friends with the unemployed youths in his locality. Together, they would gamble and Latif would assist them in bootlegging, the most lucrative way to mint money in the state in the mid-’70s. This eventually became a flashpoint with his father. “After Latif turned to bootlegging, his father expelled him from the family, refusing to accept any of his money as it came from liquor sale,” says Mehboob Senior. His family then moved to Madh no mohallo, Lalbaba no tilo, Charvad, Dariyapur. The family members refused to meet for the story.


    Gaznafar Khan, who was jailed for helping Latif after the 1993 Mumbai blasts.

    According to Senior, Latif soon became familiar with bootleggers such as Hanif Doodhwala, Saiyed Bapu, Pilu Marwadi and Abbas Andha among others, who were involved in serious crimes such as murder and extortion. Then, he came in contact with one Manzoor Ali, who ran a gambling and liquor den at Idgah in Kalupur. “Latif was employed by Ali for a monthly stipend of Rs 30. This was around 1977-78, when he started peddling thelis (pouch) of country-made liquor and soon graduated to English daaru (India made foreign liquor or IMFL),” says Senior. “Latif invested heavily in liquor breweries in Udaipur and other parts of Rajasthan, enhancing his income manifold,” says a former associate. Senior adds, “He partnered with big liquor suppliers from Rajasthan and started taking on his rivals. In those days, one truckload of IMFL would yield a profit of Rs 1.5 lakh. On any given day, at least 10 truckloads of liquor used to arrive at Latif’s door. His monthly income started running in crores.”

    A police officer, who requested not to be named, says, “Latif was minting money like anything in those days. He would give hafta as well as expensive gifts to the local policemen. There were instances when he gifted new Bajaj scooters and Bullet motorcycles to policemen, ranging from constables to inspectors. He turned the Kalupur police station into a plum posting.”


    Latif, after his arrest in 1995.

    But that was far from the extent of Latif’s ambition. As his nexus with the local police and their superior officers grew stronger, Latif decided to get into politics. His growing muscle and money power had, by now, grabbed politicians’ eyeballs and he was known to fund political parties. In 1986-87, Latif contested from five municipal seats — Dariyapur, Jamalpur, Kalupur, Raikhad and Shahpur — and won all of them. His men had reportedly contested six other seats and won them too. Interestingly, he was in jail at the time, booked under the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities (PASA) act, and had to approach the Supreme Court to seek bail — his presence was mandatory in the Ahmedabad municipal corporation general board to avoid nullification of the elections. Latif hired prominent advocates, including noted criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani, to defend him in the Supreme Court. The picture of Latif in handcuffs flashing the victory sign is frozen in the timeline of Ahmedabad’s politics.

    But like in his business, in politics too, Latif could brook no opposition. According to Supreme Court records, the then Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rauf Waliullah was murdered in broad daylight in the Paldi area by Latif’s men in 1992 for “preparing a dossier on Latif-police-politicians nexus.”

    “Daring toh tha usme, lekin dusro ke zor pe tha. Sharif Khan Pathan, Rasool Khan jaise log they uske paas jo sharpshooter they, knifer thay. In logo ki vajah se Latif ka naam ho gaya and woh form me rahne laga (He was daring, but it was mainly because of people such as Sharif Khan Pathan and Rasool Khan, who were sharpshooters and knifers. He made a name because of these people),” says retired assistant commissioner of police IC Raj. Raj was instrumental in Latif’s arrest in 1995 and had interrogated him for months when he was posted in the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad. He admits that “initially, Latif was patronised by the local police who used to tip him off when any action against him was to be taken. It’s unfortunate, but it’s a fact.”

    Sharif Khan Pathan and Rasool Khan Pathan alias Parti were members of Mumbai-based gangster Karim Lala’s dreaded Pathan gang. Sharif was originally from Pakistan and his parents had settled in Rajasthan. His dossier of crimes included dealing in drugs, extortion and smuggling among other things. His name would also later figure in BJP leader Haren Pandya’s murder. Sharif still eludes the police. Latif came in touch with them through Alamzeb, Lala’s nephew and sworn enemy of Dawood Ibrahim. When Dawood was lodged at Sabarmati Jail, he narrowly escaped an attempt on his life by Alamzeb. Members of Latif’s gang say that this incident left a deep impression on Latif. He decided to become “a gangster or a ‘bhai’”. He started hitting out at rival bootleggers and threatened them to stop operating on their own. “Latif’s liquor trade spread across the state and many were killed,” says another former aide of Latif’s.

    By the early ’90s, Latif and Dawood would meet each other again in Dubai. This time, a maulvi would administer an oath to them on the Holy Quran to remain friends and work together. It was Dawood who advised Latif to leave bootlegging for smuggling.

    Ahmedabad, too, was going through rapid changes. In 1990, Chimanbhai Patel became the chief minister of a coalition government. “There used to be sloganeering in those days during elections —“Latif ki sarkar chahiye ya Hindu ki sarkar chahiye.” The BJP was on the rise while the Congress was losing ground. There were times when Patel’s government was negotiating Latif’s surrender but he dodged them. I witnessed these developments closely. Latif also ruined my political career,” said Gaznafar Khan, alias Gajju Khan, who was once the general secretary of Youth Congress and close to Latif. Khan was jailed for allegedly keeping AK-47 rifles and spent five years behind bars.

    After the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, Dawood had smuggled in a huge cache of arms, including AK-47s, automatic revolvers, hand grenades and other lethal weapons from Pakistan through the coastal town of Porbandar. Some of these weapons were used in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts, while some were diverted to Ahmedabad to Latif’s den. A large cache of these weapons were later recovered from Jharania, in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain, the home turf of another gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Then came the gruesome murder of a rival bootlegger, Hansraj Trivedi, and eight of his men at Radhika Gymkhana in Odhav. That was the first time, apparently, that a Kalashnikov was used in the state. In 1992, Latif was booked as a “terrorist” under the Terrorist and Anti Disruptive Activities Act.

    It was no longer safe for Latif to remain in India and he fled to Pakistan via Dubai the same year, joining Dawood there. But, after three years, he returned to India in 1995, living in hiding in Delhi. “He was a bhai in Ahmedabad. People used to salute him all the time. He got bored in Pakistan because he was just like everybody there. That’s why he returned,” says Senior.

    By then, the BJP had come to power in Gujarat and Latif’s arrest had become an electoral issue. In November 1995, following months of surveillance, Latif was nabbed by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad from a PCO booth in old Delhi. He was lodged in Sabarmati Jail for two years, but through that period, his men kept his clout alive — several big builders and businessmen were kidnapped for ransom. Sagir Ahmed, a builder in Juhapura, was murdered.

    On November 29, 1997, Latif was taken out of jail for interrogation. On the way back, he was shot dead. Police records claim he had sought permission to answer nature’s call and attempted to escape, leaving them no option but to shoot. Latif was 46 then.

    After Raees was announced, Latif’s son, Mushtaq Sheikh, filed a litigation in a city civil court seeking a stay on the release of the film. He later submitted that he will move ahead with the litigation after watching the film. Despite repeated attempts he refused to meet or talk about his father.

    Senior, Gandhi and a group of youngsters who live in Latif’s neighbourhood are convinced that the film is based on Latif. “The movie has scenes from Prem Darwaja and other localities in Dariyapur. There was no other don who was larger than life in the whole of Gujarat,” they say.

    https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/life-style/raees-movie-shah-rukh-khan-don-abdul-latif-once-upon-a-time-in-ahmedabad-4473046/

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