Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
After streaming the 2023 movie “Shehzada” on fast-forward, I still felt a stab of pain in my heart about the time wasted watching it. Directed by Rohit Dhawan, “Shehzada” is a Hindi remake of the 2020 Telugu film “Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo,” which starred Allu Arjun. In the Hindi version, Kartik Aaryan portrays Bantu, a young middle-class boy who is unloved by his mean father Valmiki. Unbeknownst to anyone, Bantu was swapped as a baby in the crib and is actually the heir of a very wealthy family.
While I haven’t seen “Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo,” I can imagine Allu Arjun pulling off the action-comedy hero role with a lot of swagger. However, Kartik Aaryan wasn’t able to grab attention or be entertaining in this irritating remake. Kriti Sanon plays Samara, Bantu’s love interest, and while I really enjoyed watching Kriti and Kartik Aaryan in the 2019 romantic comedy “Luka Chuppi,” their chemistry just wasn’t watch-worthy in “Shehzada.” Ankur Rathee is mildly entertaining as the dumb man-child Raj Nanda who was replaced with Bantu as a baby and thus gets to live the life of a prince in the Nanda family.
Despite talented actors such as Paresh Rawal, Ronit Roy, Sachin Khedekar, and Manisha Koirala in the supporting cast, the movie is gratingly boring. Neither the comedy is funny enough, nor are the action scenes exciting. To make things worse, there are a bunch of forgettable songs strewn throughout the runtime, and the dialogues are simply terrible.
It’s a 1.5 on 5 from me.
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