RATING: 2.5/5
STORY PREMISE
On one side, we see a city of Wazi where a high profile underworld business mafia is congregated. The mafia is headed by Roy(Jackie Shroff). When Roy goes to India to meet his son he is killed in a pre-planned accident. In place of Roy his son, Arun Vijay, ascends the thrown. Arun Vijay ascending the throne is opposed by the mafia gang. Once Arun Vijay ably handles the situation, his next target is to look out for the killer of his father.
On the other side, there are a series of high-tech robberies happen, master minded by one person. Amidst this chaos enters a capable undercover cop Ashok Chakravarthy(Prabhas) to handle the robbery case. He forms a team of his own which includes Amritha Nair(Shraddha Kapoor) as well. The team gets down to work to track down this high-tech thief. How the team of Prabhas is going to achieve that? And how Prabhas, who is a just a cop is pitted against this huge scenario of international mafia? What actually is the intention of Prabhas? Where is he heading, needs to be seen on the big screen.
SCREENPLAY & DIRECTION
The sheer scale of the movie as shown in the teaser and trailer is so impressive that I wondered there is nothing that could go wrong with in this movie. And to amplify that expectation - there is Prabhas, huge budget, more than 2 years of hard work and top class cast and crew - a sure shot blockbuster was written all over it. Yet the movie proves it wrong. And the main culprit here is the amateurish screenplay and direction. There is this missing conviction on the director’s part, in properly realizing the characters and many key confrontational scenes. For example - Prabhas and Shraddha’s romantic episodes, instead of making you root for their personal troubles they seem to distract us from the core story and play as a hindrance to the narrative. We won’t empathize with the lead characters at all instead they are constantly ridiculed for their shallow bonding. The director/writer Sujeeth ignores to develop the core elements of story like character and narrative, and instead tries make it look cool by stylizing the scenes shuffling various bits and pieces of information in a non-linear way, which just confuses and distracts us, rather than allowing us to follow the narrative.
PERFORMANCE
Earnest performances from the ensemble top class artists is sadly dampened on occasions due to poorly written screenplay and bad direction. Prabhas did a fine job shouldering this mammoth subject. Shraddha is at her usual best. And the performances of all the lead supporting cast is good.
OTHER DEPARTMENTS
Though the action part looks incoherent because of the incoherent narrative, it is this action part that plays as the real muscle of this high budgeted movie with several jaw-dropping moments. The action episodes are of high standards; and who else can justify such huge action sequences better than the full-bodied performer, like Prabhas. And yet, we somehow crave for more action from him as the slick action sequences come in and go in a jiffy. Cinematography is top class. An excellent and praiseworthy work from, the highly talented Madhie. His work did absolute justice to the budget incurred. And the background score plays its part very well in some key stylish moments. It succeeds in giving that adrenaline rush expected from an action movie. Editing is good on its own but seemed helpless in saving some of the romantic scenes. The production design is excellent - be it the locations or props. The costume design is very good and stylish, especially for Prabhas.
OVERALL IMPACT
The film released amidst hugely mounted expectations (mainly because of Prabhas’s earlier Baahubali series and Saaho’s teaser and trailer cuts). But the underdeveloped subject with shallow emotional content hardly lives up to the expectations. The only saving grace for you is that the visuals and the action part are of highest standards for an Indian Cinema.
RATING: 2.5/5
CAST: Prabhas, Shraddha Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Vennela Kishore, Murli Sharma, Arun Vijay, Mandira Bedi, Prakash Belavadi, Mahesh Manjrekar, Supreet, Tinnu Anand, Jacqueline Fernandez, Evelyn Sharma
DIRECTOR & WRITER: Sujeeth
PRODUCERS: V. Vamsi Krishna Reddy, Vikram Reddy, Pramod Uppalapati
PRODUCTION BANNER: UV Creations
MUSIC: Ghibran
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Madhie
EDITING: A Sreekar Prasad
ART: Sabu Cyril
COSTUMES: Thota Vijay Bhaskar, Ellawadi Leepakshi, Rocky S
Thanks for the visit.
Maheshnandu
