Shehzada Review - A Passable Remake Of Mediocre Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo

Kartik Aaryan enters the action zone for the first time in his career with Rohit Dhawan's Shehzada. Amidst the negative atmosphere around South remakes, Shehzada comes from Trivikram Srinivas' Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, which is nothing but an outdated, mediocre family action drama. It was Allu Arjun's swag and heroic image that saved the film from critics' bashing, and then it emerged as a box office superhit. It works in the South, especially in the Telugu, Kannada, and Tamil industries, as Malayalam cinema has been working on high-quality content for the last three decades. The audience of Allu Arjun expected him in such an avatar, and so, with enough action scenes and whistle-worthy dialogues, AVPL turned out to be a watchable affair. Shehzada couldn't be that because it's not a Tollywood movie. The audience of Bollywood is completely different, and they have better taste in movies too, at least in the last few years, so all I can say is that Shehzada became a victim of circumstances.Bantu (Kartik Aaryan) is born to a millionaire industrialist, Randeep (Ronit Roy), and Yashu Nanda (Manisha Koirala). But a bitter-minded worker of theirs, Valmiki (Paresh Rawal), swipes his son with Bantu, who is named Raj (Ankur Rathee). 25 years later, Bantu learns the truth and decides to get back in his real house, called "Swarg," much against his foster father's wishes. Bantu falls in love with his boss, Samara (Kriti Sanon), who happens to be Raj's fiancée. As expected, there is a business rivalry against Nandas for being too honest and true, and with a blink of an eye, you know Bantu is going to fix it for them, along with their inner family issues.Shehzada is a below-average Xerox copy of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, which itself wasn't a good script. These family drama cliches are old enough to pass nowadays because they have been around since my grandfather's time. There is so much boredom and repetitiveness in watching those conflicts that you never feel interested in the narrative. Shehzada copies mediocrities without checking them and, moreover, cuts some of those segments that are enjoyed by the mindless masses. For instance, AVPL has more focus on Pooja Hegde's legs than her acting, but here you see neither of them being used well with Kriti's character. The roundtable conference scene where Allu Arjun dances crazily to the superhit songs of multiple superstars is trimmed here. I would have loved to see Kartik dancing to SRK, Salman Khan, or Amitabh Bachchan songs in that senseless but hysterical segment. Shehzada cuts AVPL short, which was needed as it was a terribly long film, but at the wrong scenes. You don't even realise when the romance between Kartik and Kriti starts and ends because it is not visible. The screenplay is scattered into pieces, and that's the biggest mistake in Shehzada.

Shehzada is a mass-driven family-action drama that doesn't provide enough space for the actors to show their acting skills. The genre is all about enjoying the moments, romance, comedy, and swag. Kartik Aaryan is the new student in the class. He looks good in some scenes, but he's irritating sometimes. Having seen his mind-blowing monologues in the PKP franchise and then his acting skills in Dhamaka and Freddy, I know his calibre, and this role isn't anywhere close to that. Kriti Sanon appears in sexy looks and glamorous songs, and that's all you get to see from her. Like she said, "Don't expect Shehzada to be Mimi," I know how smart she was to make this statement before Shehzada's release. Paresh Rawal is a top-tier actor who plays the loathsome character of Murali Sharma. He was a perfect choice, I assumed, but that was before watching the film. Manisha Koirala is wasted, Ronit Roy is decent, and so is Sachin Khedekar. Ankur Rathee and Sunny Hinduja are somewhat bearable; let's blame the original writers for the poor roles.Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo had super hit music with numbers like Butta Bamma and Raamuloo, scoring charts everywhere. Is Shehzada even half of that? No. That's a big miss. These typical entertainers with no brainstorming need music to work big time, and Shehzada fails big time there. A humble request to T-Series: PLEASE stop remaking good old songs for the sake of humanity and your own standards. The cinematography and editing are both poor. Rohit Dhawan is yet to deliver a hit film, and I guess Shehzada will make it three in a row for him. The kind of scripts he got could be blamed in the first place, but somewhere he is equally responsible as a director. Shehzada has an irritating, loud background score with those 80s "Aaa Aaa Aaa.." sort of tunes that leave your ears in pain. Who's responsible for that? Mostly the director (more than the editor and composer for finalising it). Shehzada seems like an incomplete film. The fight sequence between Kartik and Sunny in the climax is left without any proper conclusion. You'll notice many such mistakes in the direction and somehow lose all interest in the film. In short, Shehzada can be termed a Prince-Sized Disappointment.