REVIEW 725: SAAHO

Release date:	August 30, 2019
Director:	Sujeeth
Cast: Language:	Prabhas, Shraddha Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Mandira Bedi, Prakash Belawadi, Arun Vijay, Chunky Panday, Mahesh Manjrekar, Lal, Tinnu Anand, Jackie Shroff, Vennela Kishore, Murali Sharma Saaho was simultaneously shot in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. This is a review of the Hindi version.

Prabhas is a pretty boy and a giant of a man, the sort of hunk with a face so innocent that he looks like he does not realise quite how hot he is or the effect he has on our hormones as we watch him, a face also pleading not guilty to violence committed by his body against bad guys in films.

There are few things more attractive in this world than a person who is not overly aware of their beauty. This charming aspect of Prabhas’ personality is diluted though in a film obsessed with its leading man’s many positive physical attributes. And so we get Prabhas captured in a long shot as an imposing solitary figure leaning languidly against a car, Prabhas standing Batman-like atop a skyscraper looking out on the world, Prabhas shot from a low angle stretching his arms out as he is framed against snow-covered mountains, Prabhas’ monumental muscles on display as he bathes, Prabhas’ face in close up, Prabhas’ face in extreme close-up – any closer and the camera would have pierced him.

To be fair to cinematographer Madhie, this would have been the brief. Saaho is, after all, a film defined by visual over-statement. In leading lady Shraddha Kapoor’s introductory scene, we get an extreme extreme close-up of one of her eyes. And she too is treated more like a mannequin than a human being by the camera throughout.

This, in totality, is what writer-director Sujeeth’s Saaho is: an over-indulgent, over-stylised film in which looks have been prioritised over substance, swagger over script.

The plot, for what it is worth, is about internecine rivalry in a business empire that one man describes as the “world’s most powerful crime syndicate”. When the chief of the Roy Group (Jackie Shroff) is killed, the battle for his position is fought between a whole troop of characters played by Mandira Bedi, Arun Vijay, Chunky Panday, Mahesh Manjrekar, Lal and Tinnu Anand. As they scramble across the world in search of a black box that is the key to godknowswhat, a troop of others including the police are hot on their heels. Among those in pursuit are characters played by Prabhas, Shraddha Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Vennela Kishore, Murali Sharma and Prakash Belawadi.

Please don’t ask me who is who, who is aligned with who, or what specific purpose that black box was meant to serve. I lost interest somewhere in the first half when it became clear that this uninspired script packed with a multitude of uninteresting twists was just an excuse to flash highfalutin gadgets, SFX, stunts and Prabhas at us.

The writing recycles a zillion tropes from a zillion ‘mass entertainers’ of the sort that continue to find favour with male megastars across Indian film industries from Prabhas to Rajinikanth, Salman Khan to Mammootty and Vijay.

Among Saaho’s library of clichés is the heroine who is given a serious job and then trivialised by the hero, her real purpose in the project being to fall in love with him, be loved by him, look glamorous and feature in a couple of song ‘n’ dance routines. Shraddha Kapoor’s cop Amritha Nair even gets to fall on the floor on her back in a shootout while Prabhas’ Ashok falls on top of her, they gaze at each other, breathe heavily and simultaneously deal with the life-and-death situation around them. Gawd! Done to death in commercial cinema across the world! Can we retire it forever? Puhleeease?

More clichés, these ones peculiar to the Indian cinemascape. Amritha sheds her smart work attire to slip into a teeny weeny shimmery outfit for a nightclub song – she is undercover, of course. And then there is that long romantic number for which she wears flowy dresses and poses around in grand natural locations while he poses around with her. The only such number I remember liking in recent years is Gerua from the Hindi film Dilwale (2015) because, the formula notwithstanding, that song was to die for and the SRK-Kajol chemistry is worth dying and being resurrected for. The music of Saaho, on the other hand, is insipid. And Prabhas and Kapoor have zero sparks between them. They are, in fact, so cold together, that when they first declare their love for each other, I burst out laughing.

The two also share a kiss at one point that would put an iceberg to shame.

As bland as their pairing is the acting of the entire cast. Mandira Bedi is the only one who gets to break from the rest when she overacts till kingdom come on discovering the film’s final big reveal.

The problem is not that that secret in the end can be seen coming from a mile. The problem is that it is, by then, just impossible to care.

Prabhas is one of Telugu cinema’s biggest stars. He is known nationwide for playing the title character in Baahubali: The Beginning and Baahubali: The Conclusion, the Tollywood ventures (released in several languages) that rank among India’s top 5 all-time greatest box-office hits. Saaho is his pitch to make a post-Baahubali all-India splash again. The film was shot simultaneously in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. Malayalam and Kannada dubbed versions have also been released. Whatever the Baahubali films’ flaws may have been, the first one was pathbreaking in its use of technology in the Indian scenario and neither of the two can be accused of being run-of-the-mill. With the world now at his feet, I cannot imagine why Prabhas signed up for a film as generic and dull as Saaho.

The only film more boring than this that I have seen this year is the Malayalam disaster Mikhael starring Nivin Pauly. Saaho and Mikhael make last year’s Hindi film Race 3 look shiny and innovative in comparison.

In the unending hours between the beginning and the end of Saaho, across locations in India and abroad, villains say stupid things in low voices, Prabhas’ character does things that we are told are impressive, there are fights and chases, bodies are battered, men in winged armoured suits fly through the air, mobikes zip down expressways and cars explode. A lot of it is very high tech and clearly very expensive. At the end of the day though, what we get is not a film but a little boy showing off his toys to his playmates.

Rating (out of five stars): *

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	171 minutes

A version of this review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/saaho-movie-review-prabhas-picks-a-generic-masala-mix-to-make-a-post-baahubali-all-india-splash-yawn-7254931.html

Visuals courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/SaahoTheMovie/

REVIEW 488: BAAHUBALI – THE CONCLUSION

Release date:	April 28, 2017
Director:	S.S. Rajamouli
Cast: Language:	Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Ramya Krishna, Sathyaraj, Nassar, a few seconds of Tamannaah Bhatia Telugu

(Note: This is a review of the Hindi dubbed version of the Telugu film Baahubali: The Conclusion.)

Fans of the Baahubali franchise have been discussing the hashtag #WKKB on the social media for a while now. If you have not guessed yet, that stands for “Why Kattappa Killed Baahubali”, a reference to the teaser in the closing scene of Baahubali: The Beginning in 2015. You will not find spoilers on the #WKKB front in this review. Hold on to your seats though for the answer to a far more pressing question: #DRTOHS.

In the first film, the tribal boy Shivudu (Prabhas) discovered that he is, in fact, Mahendra Baahubali, son of the late great Amarendra Baahubali (also Prabhas) who was robbed of the throne of Mahishmati kingdom by the machinations of his cruel cousin Bhallaladeva (Rana Daggubati) and uncle Bijjaladeva (Nassar). In Baahubali: The Conclusion, Mahendra hears the story of why and how that happened before setting off to avenge the deaths of his father and foster grandmother Sivagami (Ramya Krishna) and to free his mother Devasena (Anushka Shetty) from imprisonment in Mahishmati.

As with the opening film, this one too is an Amar Chitra Katha-style blend of mythological references and palace intrigue laid out on a vast canvas of visual grandeur. The proportion of the ingredients has been changed though, with myth and socially regressive themes being scaled down, family politics being scaled up, and the decibel levels being raised by several notches.

The novelty of seeing an Indian film so laden with heavy special effects at such a scale from start to finish has worn off in the two years since Baahubali 1 was released, and it is hard now to forgive this one for Mahishmati’s plastic façade and those painfully obvious CGI beasts. Somehow, nothing here seems to match up to that waterfall in Part 1. Still, when the going is good, director S.S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Conclusion is pleasing to the eye, in particular with its costumes, lavish interiors and innovative stunts.

A film of this nature obviously requires a suspension of disbelief in that last department. And frankly, if we are willing to swallow the invincibility of the likes of Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis and the various Bonds down the decades, then there is no reason why we should not buy that scene in which Amarendra mounts an elephant by walking up its trunk with the animal’s assistance and – my favourite of the lot – that war-time gimmick involving palm trees, shields and Newtonian physics towards the end.

Those stunts, M.M. Kreem’s background score and the use of his songs to up the tempo of the narrative are what keep Baahubali: The Conclusion watchable even when the ridiculous over-acting becomes hard to take and the lack of freshness in the storyline sinks in. Daggubati and Shetty – both gorgeous, both equally charismatic – keep themselves relatively in check, which is admirable considering that over-statement seems to be the demand of Rajamouli’s storytelling in this cinematic diptych (“relatively” being a key word here). Prabhas’ pretty face somewhat compensates for all that self-indulgent posing about he does, most notably while Devasena sings a song about Lord Krishna in a scene that unwittingly betrays her man’s Oedipus complex.

The rest of the cast is laughable, with each rivalling the other for the year’s Worst Acting Awards. There is the usually wonderful Nassar who hams here to such an extent that he makes Sohrab Modi seem under-stated in comparison. The extras in every single scene – soldiers, courtiers and subjects – seem to be competing with the memorably howlarious bit-part players of the black-and-white era. And Subba Raju playing Devasena’s beau Kumara Varma is so bad, he should be declared a threat to society.

The queen of the film’s hamsters though (if such a word does not exist in the acting lexicon, then it should) is Krishna whose eyes remain fixed in a bulbous stare through the nearly three hours of this film’s running time.

For all its seeming innocuousness, Baahubali: The Beginning was a horribly narrow-minded film that rolled out a range of stereotypes couched in its good-looking frames. The black-denotes-evil cliché was exacerbated by its white-is-glamorous conviction. Disability coincidentally found its way only on to evil people. And Sivagami’s power paled into insignificance in the face of Shivudu’s sexual violation and ultimate subjugation of the warrior Avanthika played by Tamannaah Bhatia.

In that respect, Baahubali: The Conclusion is a step up. Devasena remains strong and active from start to finish, and is at no point reduced to being Shivudu or Amarendra’s sidekick. She is a partner, not a prop. Still, the marginalisation of Avanthika in this film is almost tragic. In Part 1 she was a feisty woman whose mission was taken over by Shivudu once he ‘makes’ her fall in love with him and discover her inner femininity. In Part 2, she is an absolute nobody with nothing to say and just a few seconds of screen time in mass scenes. In that context, giving Bhatia fourth billing in the closing credits (after the two leading men and Shetty, but before Krishna) comes across as condescension, not an acknowledgement of her star status.

There is so much else that is troubling in Rajamouli’s worldview: for one, the undisputed right of the Kshatriya to rule. If there is a question here, it is only: which Kshatriya – the good guy or the bad guy? And either way, it has to be one of the guys. All the spectacle in the world, the Durga-esque positioning of Sivagami and Devasena, and the emphasis on Mahendra/Amarendra’s virtues cannot camouflage Baahubali’s disturbing romanticisation of social status-quoism.

This then is the conclusion of this review: Baahubali: The Conclusion is a cocktail of fun stunts, attractive stars, grand settings, terrible acting, conflicted attitudes and closeted conservatism. (Aside: The Hindi dubbing is impressive. A bow here to the choice of voices and to Manoj Muntashir, dialogue writer and lyricist for this version.)

As is always the case, each viewer’s response to the film depends on her/his priorities. My priority, I admit, is not #WKKB but #DRTOHS: does Rana take off his shirt (in the film, as he has for the posters)? Answer: yes he does. For good measure, so does Prabhas. Both men rip off their upperwear in an extended scene of hand-to-hand combat, to reveal perfectly sculpted, stunningly muscular torsos in what has now become commercial Indian cinema’s most-used formula across all states. In the way it is told, #WKKB is not as dramatic a revelation as expected. #DRTOHS, on the other hand, is absolute paisa vasool.

  

Rating (out of five stars): **1/4

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	167 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bahubali-2-hindi-movie-review-baahubali-2-rating-cocktail-of-visuals-terrible-acting-closeted-conservatism-3411488.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baahubali_2:_The_Conclusion