Shehzada

The film is directed by Rohit Dhawan, who is also behind the adapted screenplay. He has made entertaining films in the past, like Dishoom. However, here he just fails to handle the subject. He probably wanted to make his film crisper, and in an attempt to do so, he missed out on focusing on the entertainment. The first part is stretched and the film picks up pace in the second half. However, the narrative lacks the elements to give the film coherence or to get the audiences involved in it. The audience will always feel detached from what is going on the screen.

This doesn’t mean that Kriti Sanon has more to do than Pooja Hegde in the Telugu production. Both movies are star vehicles, in which every other character exists to make the hero look good, better and the best. If Telugu films bolster such projects with strong scripts, Shehzada is carried solely by Aaryan’s chutzpah.

It should be a crime to make certain films in the 21st century. And a film where a boy (would you call Kartik Aaryan a man, think hard) turns out good simply because his genetics are originally of a rich family, even if he had been swapped at birth into a clerk’s abode, as opposed to his counterpart who never really rises above his poor clerk family genes despite living in privilege, should surely qualify. Particularly when the clerk who is instrumental in this baby swap is called, only and only, Valmiki. He does this out of all kinds of wrong reasons, and has almost no redeeming feature. Do they not know how wrong this is on all levels, or they just don’t care? The rich Jindals in contrast, who have lost their Shehzada unknowingly to Valmiki, are nice enough people — even if they do treat old retainer Valmiki pretty shittily.

If one were to look for the silver lining (the performances aside), the film is everything a mass entertainer is - if you're completely willing to leave logic at home. But how much does that really count for? Personally? Not much.