Race is a 2008 Indian Hindi-language action crime drama film directed by Abbas–Mustan and written by Kiran Kotrial, Shiraz Ahmed, Anurag Prapanna and Jitendra Parmar. The film was produced by the banner Tips Industries. It is the first installment of the Race film series and stars Anil Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Bipasha Basu, Katrina Kaif and Sameera Reddy lead roles. The explores themes of sibling rivalry, homicide, betrayal and passion. The supporting cast of Race includes Dalip Tahil and Johnny Lever.
Race was filmed in Durban, Goa and Dubai. It premiered worldwide on March 21, 2008, receiving highly positive reviews from critics, with praise for its script, visualisation, climax, cast performances, cinematography and music. Race emerged a major box-office success, grossing a total of 103.45 crore worldwide on a budget of 46 crores, and was one of the year’s highest-grossing Bollywood films. It was dubbed into Tamil as Panthayam and Telugu as Race Telugu, and went on to spawn two sequels—Race 2 in 2013 and Race 3 in 2018, though the latter was a reboot.
A voice-over by Inspector Robert D’Costa “RD” (Anil Kapoor) introduces the four main characters. Ranvir “Ronny” Singh (Saif Ali Khan) is a successful and powerful businessman who runs Stallion Group, a big horse racing company in Durban. He inherited the job from his father. His younger brother Rajiv Singh (Akshaye Khanna) mooches off of Ronny and is an alcoholic. Ronny is dating an upcoming model Sonia (Bipasha Basu), while his personal assistant Sophia (Katrina Kaif) appears to be secretly in love with him. Ronny is also involved in an intense competition with a rival horse-owner Kabir Ahuja (Dalip Tahil). The film opens with a murder plot involving a car accident which Ronny narrowly survives. When Ronny loses money in a race because his jockey had been bribed by Kabir, Ronny plants a bomb in the jockey’s car and kills him, showing Ronny to be a ruthless businessman. Later, Ronny also destroys Kabir when the latter offers him money to buy his business, which is in debt.
