Raja Shivaji

Riteish Deshmukh plays the Maratha emperor with dedication, if not quite kingliness. Only Vidya Balan and Sanjay Dutt emerge as somewhat fleshed-out characters. Most of the cast members deliver performances as uninspiring and studious as the film itself.

Overall, Raja Shivaji is a film that commands respect more than it commands engagement. The intent is noble, the scale undeniable. But for all it's visual grandeur, it doesn’t translate into a consistent, gripping cinematic experience. It soars in parts, especially towards the end. But as a whole, it remains a spectacle that you admire more than you feel.

The film makes no attempt to sully its black-and-white universe with any moral complexities: Marathas good, Mughals, and others of their ilk — Nizamshahi and Adilshahi — terrible, and there endeth the story. The child marriage, shown between a young Shivaji and a younger Sai, is turned into a cutesy strand; the constant switching of loyalties between the Hindu rulers of the time is glossed over, and the idea of ‘swaraj’, which came much later, becomes Shivaji’s rallying cry, as it did in the 2025 ‘Chhava’. But once you know what the film is going for, all you are interested in is whether it will hold your attention for its duration. To that end, Deshmukh spends 3.15 hours filling his canvas with the undulating landscapes of Ahmednagar, Bijapur, Pune and other Deccan areas, overrun by the several warring principalities.