MapsOfIndia.com/MyIndia.in Rating: 2.5/5⭐⭐
Helmed by Rohit Dhawan and produced by Allu Aravind, Bhushan Kumar and others, Shehzada stars Kartik Aaryan (Bantu), Kriti Sanon (Samara), Manisha Koirala (Yashoda ‘Yashu’ Nanda, Bantu’s biological mother), Paresh Rawal (Valmiki), Sunny Hinduja (Sarang), Shalini Kapoor (Aarti Jindal), Ronit Roy (Randeep Nanda, Bantu’s biological father), Ankur Rathee (Raj Nanda, Valmiki’s biological son), Rajpal Yadav (Inspector Satish Yadav), Sachin Khedekar (Aditya as Yashodha’s father). It was released on February 17 across the country.
Plot
The movie begins with a hospital scene where a nurse, Sulochana swaps the babies of Valmiki, Randeep, as directed by Valmiki, with whom Bantu has lived for over two decades. Randeep and Valmiki used to be clerks in Aditya Jindal’s family, and Randeep tied knots with Jindal’s daughter. Valmiki always pities him and wants his son (Raj) to live with Randeep’s family, with so much prosperity possessing wealth.
Bantu helps Randeep & Yashodha save their lives from Sarang, while he gets overlooked and receives no praise from Valmiki. Bantu falls in love with Samara, his boss and rejects him first during the interview; she also gets engaged to Raj. He doesn’t disclose his identity until then, but later Randeep learns when Aditya Jindal shares that he knows the truth from Nurse Sulochana and Bantu’s conversation.
Performances
Kartik has swag and good delivery of dialogues, while Kriti looks gorgeous and is fine in acting. Other characters perform suitably and match up to the scenes. With less screen time, Kriti acts as a hammer and tongs. Paresh and Ronit are, as usual, a delight to watch.
Analysis
The cinematography needed improvement when it came to the placement of scenes. The movie is not a mass entertainer, as it includes pointless humor. The action scenes seemed a formality with no zeal to make it feel. It is predictable and loses momentum with a bad screenplay in the second half. The Character Dheela 2.0 song is unnecessary, with no one or very few to watch it, as it is added at the end when the movie gets over.
Verdict
Since the movie reportedly got saved from a financial crisis when Kartik became a producer, he also tries to salvage a lacklustre directorial film, which is a botched execution. The question also arises on Kartik signing remake films like this being the adaptation of Allu Arjun starrer Telugu film “AlaVaikuntapuramulo”, and whether he should give a second thought to reconsider. Besides Kartik’s prominence in the industry, highly popularised songs are another factor that led moviegoers to watch it.
