CAST: Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon, Paresh Rawal, Manisha Koirala, Sunny Hinduja, Ronit Roy
DIRECTOR: Rohit Dhawan
After a quick prologue that plays out the backstory from 25 years ago, this movie slips into a dilapidated downfall into being an exercise in flaccid, uninspiring and deficient genuine humor.
For what it is worth, through the run time of over two and a half hours, the only redeeming factor is Kartik Aaryan, who keeps you glued for more of him.
Kartik brings everything to the role and you can perhaps feel his sincerity on screen through a mire of hopelessness otherwise.
A boy switched at birth by a gofer working for a wealthy tycoon. The hero, Bantu (Aaryan), ends up in the home of the servant when he rightfully should have been raised in the palace of the wealthy owner, his real dad. Armed with a degree from the Government College of Law, Amritsar, he is hired by a pretty lawyer (Kriti Sanon) as an assistant.
Shehzada is a family-entertainer movie that has all the necessary elements in proportions. It is the remake of Allu Arjun’s Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo. Shehzada has a distinctive retro feel to it, but the adaptation by Rohit Dhawan, while retaining all the tropes that come with the plot’s looney methods, throws a modern, millennial shroud in the blend.
The star cast of the film is quite impressive as well. Ronit Roy, Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon, Manisha Koirala, and Rajpal Yadav have added additional charisma to the movie.
The movie is quite predictable in its narrative about the rich being manipulative and devious and the poor carrying the burden so it takes Bantu an entire half of the film to figure out who he is.
When he does discover his birth reality, he does not jump at the door that opens up. He takes upon himself the responsibility of rectifying the grave wrong done unto him. He utilizes techniques and tactics that are known to those that have seen the Allu Arjun original. Those that have not might be inspired by Bantu’s antics targeted at guaranteeing that the ingratiating Valmiki (Paresh Rawal), the man accountable for the young man’s tribulations, receives his just treatment.
Aaryan is like a chameleon and moves from being a lover, an action hero, a mamma’s boy, an angry champion against those that have wronged him and a guardian of the family he has a birth bond with. The focus of Shehzada is completely on the actor.
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He does not let the opportunity slip through his fingers.
The Rohit Dhawan directorial is a light-hearted movie that leaves you in splits with the comic-timings. Apart from this, the film highlights the goodness of humanity over greed, which is a loss in the end. Kriti Sanon and Kartik Aaryan had beautiful chemistry, which played out well for the storyline. The action sequences in the movie were shot well with good cinematography. However, we did not like the film’s flow; it seemed disoriented.
Pritam’s music was one of the best elements of the movie. Seeing a family entertainer on screens was refreshing, which was a good watch. This movie is worth watching.
One thing is for sure, Kartik Aaryan can now carry a whole movie on his able shoulders. The actor has arrived.
You can watch Shehzada at a screen near you.
