Shehzada review: Tries too hard to impress.

Shehzada

Director: Rohit Dhawan

Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon, Paresh Rawal, Manisha Koirala, Ronit Bose Roy.

Released in cinemas.

Shehzada is a cracker of a title for a movie. It is an official remake of the Telugu film Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo (2020). That means the original must have been a big hit. I haven’t watched it so there was nothing to compare the remake with.

Going by purely what’s seen on the screen, it is Kartik Aaryan’s launch vehicle in the action genre. The young star tries everything to the best of his ability but this leap of ambition doesn’t land smoothly. The stiffness in his performance shows. The overreliance on his feet for the hook steps in every song is impossible to ignore. His comic timing has improved. But he lacks the gaze and attitude to pull off action. The action set pieces are partly good but nothing to give you an adrenaline rush. Despite all of this, what works for Kartik is his likable boy-next-door personality.

Shehzada is a designed film. So, everything exists to serve the purpose of the character of Buntoo and the actor playing it i.e. Kartik. But the adapted screenplay lacks coherence. For example, the film begins with a bizarre sequence of a father (Paresh Rawal) exchanging his new-born son with the new-born grandson of his master (Sachin Khedekar), so that his son will live a prince’s (Shehzada’s) life. While watching that whole sequence, I got an idea of what to expect from the rest of the film. I also said to myself, “Only Paresh Rawal could pull off such a bizarre scene/role with total conviction.”

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The big reveal of Buntoo being the real heir of the Jindals (Khedekar and co.) takes bizarreness to a whole new level when the eye witness (Sharvari Lohokare) of the child swap that happened 25 years ago, is left unattended in a corridor of the hospital where Buntoo meets her.

Kriti Sanon as Samara is totally off throughout the film. There’s no chemistry between the lead pair which makes it even more difficult to invest in them in their meet-cute scenes or songs. I am not asking for layered characterization or arcs but one can at least hope for emotional engagement. But no such luck here. Manisha Koirala, Sachin Khedekar, and Ronit Bose Roy are limited to a few and forgettable scenes. Sunny Hinduja as the antagonist doesn’t have enough screen time or character weight to produce any drama. But the actor sincerely plays whatever is given to him.

As for the performances, everyone is over-the-top, which is fine in such a flick. I like silly comedies; slapstick too if it’s driven by emotion. Speaking of which, there were a few good scenes that made me chuckle. Rajpal Yadav’s cameo was good fun. Ankur Rathee plays the swapped Shehzada Raj – the Maa ka Ladla or Papa ka Para, if you may. The scene where Buntoo delivers his monologue to push Raj to claim his own identity is progressively hilarious.

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As mentioned above, this is a designed film. So, the songs are inserted forcefully. Sample this, the first time the real Shehzada enters his grand mansion, he wastes 3-4 minutes dancing to claim that he is a Shehzada (title track). If this was not enough, a remix of Salman Khan’s chartbuster Character Dheela from Ready (2010) is desperately added to the soundtrack. It was a no-brainer that it was a promotional video that would play with the end credits.

Director Rohit Dhawan’s (son of veteran David Dhawan) last film Dishoom (2016) was good fun. But he struggles to keep Shehzada on track. In an attempt of making a massy entertainer, the film tries to check boxes way too many and tries too hard to impress.