In The Raja Saab, Zarina Wahab plays Gangamma, a character suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Hence, her grandson Raju (Prabhas) asks her not to put pressure on her brain, not to think. Too much thinking, he warns, could lead to a brain stroke. Don't, however, make the mistake of reading this moment as mere exposition. It is a request—or rather, a statement—from writer-director Maruthi: please leave your brain outside the theatre before heading in for the screening. But fret not; if you forget to shut down your intellect before watching the film, The Raja Saab will gently put it into hibernation with its inanity.
There are bad movies that numb your senses, and there are bad movies that make your eyes water. Movies like The Raja Saab almost steal your will to live. Walking out of my screening, I found no joy in the glitter of the mall, the New Year decorations, or the faces that passed me with excitement in their eyes. My Rapido driver greeted me with a smile, but I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to return it. The Raja Saab broke me from the inside.
How does one even begin discussing a movie like this? I have no interest in getting into its story, because that would be futile. It would also imply that The Raja Saab has—gulps—a story. Is this supposed to be a treat for Prabhas fans? Don't they deserve better than this?
Take the hero's entry scene. A creepy man inappropriately touches a woman, and Raju steps in to declare that women should be respected in our society. What a paragon of good manners. A Prabhas fan might whistle loudly, while others might congratulate the star for spreading such noble messages, such lofty ideologies. Maruthi even goes one step further, giving Malavika Mohanan a mass-hero-style action scene. But the thing about performative gestures is that their shallowness, their insincerity, eventually gets exposed. The veil of female empowerment is lifted during the very same fight, when Raju—who moments earlier thrashed a goon for misbehaving with a woman—tells Bhairavi that she should have stepped aside the moment he made his entry. Raju would thrive on Twitter, where the most convincing performance is rewarded with engagement and likes.
Watching Prabhas in The Raja Saab, one wishes he had also performed well in terms of acting. Post-Baahubali, the actor has not delivered a single memorable scene, gesture, or line. Every performance gives the impression that he is sleepwalking through his films. Then again, the fault may lie with the directors, who treat him less like an actor and more like a heavy slab of meat (I am curious about what Sandeep Reddy Vanga will do with him in Spirit).
Apart from being a (terrible) horror comedy, The Raja Saab is also a (terrible) fantasy. This grants Maruthi the license to go completely bonkers with both the script and the visual effects—if only that were a compliment. The CGI is second-rate: a barrage of images unleashed without imagination, wonder, or choreography. The plot, meanwhile, piles on layers of dreams, minds, and brain cells so ostentatiously complicated that it would give Christopher Nolan a brain stroke and make Inception question its own place in cinematic history.
If The Raja Saab reveals anything at all, it is the film's intention behind using actresses as eye candy. Without such distractions, audiences would more clearly notice the loopholes, the absence of logic, and likely walk out long before the end credits. In that sense, it is names like Malavika Mohanan, Nidhhi Agerwal, and Riddhi Kumar—or rather, how the film uses them—that keep viewers glued to their seats (at least the men perpetually busy crowning national crushes; they exist in the majority). That these three are reduced to pretty love interests fighting for the male lead's attention only further exposes the hollowness of that hero entry. In an otherwise dull and ugly film, Mohanan, Agerwal, and Kumar stand as evidence of beauty—far more appealing than the expensive yet cheap-looking CGI.
Movies like The Raja Saab are nothing but ego massages for their male leads. They assure them that they are still young enough to fight an army of enemies, that women will do anything to be their girlfriends or wives. It is the ultimate male fantasy—or rather, a wet dream that many men love to watch play out on screen. This is why films like these still get made; sometimes, they even become big hits.
Final Score- [1/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times