Despite a sincere Kartik Aaryan, this Hindi remake of Allu Arjun’s Telugu hit, Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo fails to be a ‘seetimaar’ mass entertainer.
Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon, Paresh Rawal, Manisha Koirala, Ronit Roy, Sachin Khedekar, Ankur Rathee, Sunny Hinduja
Director: Rohit Dhawan
Writer: Original Story by Trivikram Srinivas, Screenplay- Rohit Dhawan
Towards the end, in one of the scenes in Shehzada, when the main antagonist confronts Bantu (Kartik Aaryan) and asks him about his relationship with the illustrious Jindal family, the latter brushes him off by saying, “Action ke beech kahaani mat puchh.” Director Rohit Dhawan takes this dialogue a bit too seriously with his Hindi adaptation of Allu Arjun’s Telugu hit, Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo.
What’s Yay: Kartik Aaryan
What’s Nay: Direction, Screenplay, Songs
Story
Set in Delhi, Shehzada begins on a dark rainy day in a hospital where Valmiki (Paresh Rawal), envious of his erstwhile colleague and now employer Randeep Nanda (Ronit Roy) replaces the latter’s supposed stillborn with his own baby. Deep down, he wishes his kid to lead a king’s life.
As years pass by, Valmiki dutifully watches over his own biological son Raj (played by Ankur Rathee). At the same time, out of his resentment towards Randeep, he never misses a single opportunity to shower taunts and insults at the real Jindal heir Bantu (Kartik Aaryan) who stays with him at his middle-class abode.
‘Life goes on and on and on’ for Bantu until one fine day when he discovers his true parentage in an unexpected way. However, instead of bringing out this truth into light, our hero takes it upon himself to repair his crumbling family when his grandfather Aditya Jindal (Sachin Khedekar reprising his role from the original film) hires him to sort out his family affairs. What follows next is Valmiki getting a taste of his own medicine in ‘Bantu’ style!
Direction
To begin with, if you dissect Shehzada’s source material, Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, you will realise that it rests on a very run-of-the-mill template (old-fashioned Telugu entertainers). It’s Allu Arjun’s breezy swag and Trivikram Srinivas’ deft direction and good writing which makes it a breezy watch.
There’s a certain easy playfulness exuded by the Telugu superstar on screen which has always been his USP (even in his mediocre films) and Trivikram had effectively captured that quality in Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo. Unfortunately, Rohit Dhawan fails to realise that Allu Arjun and Kartik Aaryan are two different actors with their own strengths and weaknesses.
Instead of tapping into Kartik’s strength and tweaking the narrative accordingly to add some freshness to the remake version, Rohit resorts to the age-old formula of ‘cut-copy-paste’ which takes away all the fun from the film.
He picks up the same template but doesn’t bother to cover the flaws in it. On the other hand, he even does away with a few ‘mass’ moments (for example, the famous boardroom scene) which had made Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo such a carefree watch in the first place. Also, Hussain Dalal’s one-liners lack a funny punch.
When it comes to remakes, Rohit needs to take a lesson or two from his filmmaker-father David Dhawan who made an illustrious career in the 90s by rehashing many South films in his own entertaining style.
On a positive note, the makers give the problematic ‘leg ogling’ part from the original film a miss and win a brownie point.
Performances
With his full-bodied mane, crowd-pleasing antics, slow-mo action shots and dramatic punches, Kartik Aaryan tries to present his version of the ‘Stylish Star’ in Shehzada. Sadly, despite all his efforts, it works only in parts and pieces; blame it on the tepid execution. The actor tries to be as sincere as he can to Allu Arjun’s rendition of Bantu and is effective in places. However, he lacks that smooth precision that is required here to hide the film’s frivolousness.
Kriti Sanon suffers from some superficial writing. Her character is that of a hotshot lawyer but it barely contributes to the plot. Instead, she is reduced to being an eye candy who mysteriously disappears from the film in the second half (except for her appearance in a song post interval). The makers don’t even wrap up her part in a proper way and that’s such a disservice to an actress of her calibre.
Paresh Rawal tries to salvage the film with his dependable acting chops. Even actors like Ronit Roy and Manisha Koirala hardly get any meat to sink their teeth into. Sachin Khedekar who reprises his role from the Telugu entertainer can easily sleepwalk through his part. Sunny Hinduja as the main antagonist is anything but menacing. Ankur Rathee pulls off a decent job.
Technical Aspects
Shehzada suffers from some tacky production value. The sprawling white Jindal mansion with white walls will almost blind your sight. Ritesh Soni’s editing is shoddy and a few scenes even feel incomplete. Sudeep Chatterjee and Sanjay F Gupta’s cinematography never fails to give us a glimpse of the aerodynamic charm of Kartik’s mane.
Music
One of the biggest strengths of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo was Thaman’s music and hummable songs like ‘Buttabomma’ and ‘Ramuloo Ramuloo’. Shehzada flops miserably in this department and even Pritam cannot save the day.
Verdict
In a nutshell, Shehzada has Kartik Aaryan doing most of the heavy-lifting and yet, the film turns out to be a ‘not-so-royal’ ride for the audience. A part of the lyrics of the title song goes like, “Main jo aa gaya, main ab na jaunga, main sabka bann jaunga.” Unfortunately, that dose of entertainment never arrives in the first place.
