Every once in a while, you question what you are doing with your life. That’s exactly what I was doing while sitting in a cosy theatre watching Shehzada. A remake of the hit Telugu movie Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, Shehzada stars Kartik Aaryan and Kriti Sanon in the lead alongside Ronit Roy, Paresh Rawal, Manisha Koirala, Ankur Rathee, and others.

A tale as old as time

The movie begins 25 years in the past when Valmiki’s (Paresh Rawal) wife and his boss Randeep’s (Ronit Roy) wife deliver their babies at the same hospital. When Yashu’s (Manisha Koirala) son stops breathing, the nurse, in a fit of fear, with the help of Valmiki, switches Yashu’s baby with Valmiki’s son. But when they find out Yashu’s baby is still alive, Valmiki decides to continue the ruse due to his jealousy of Randeep and to give his son an affluent life.

Bantu (Kartik Aaryan) is unaware of the truth of his birth and believes his father hates him, no matter what he does. Despite the odds, Bantu grows up as a smart and confident man who soon falls in love with Samara (Kriti Sanon). Like most hero-driven Bollywood movies, the main purpose of the female protagonist here is only to make the hero look good. Samara is a hot-shot lawyer, but we never see her practising law. Forget a courtroom, we don’t even see her dealing with any clients when the hero is not present. Kriti Sanon’s only role in the movie is to look glam and make Bantu look good.

Shehzada wears too many hats

There is no single focal plot in Shehzada. It tries to juggle too many subplots and fails spectacularly. There’s a villain in Valmiki, who has no redeeming point and doesn’t even pay for all his crimes. There is another villain in Sarang, a drug smuggler who wants to use the Jindal Industries to carry out his dirty work. There’s also a family drama and a love story and all of them together become a tasteless, overcooked khichdi that no one wants to eat.

Bantu is a caricature of a character, loud, good-hearted, and brave, and Kartik Aaryan fits the role perfectly. He also, quite extravagantly, adds cringe to the entire movie. But that is not solely his fault. Because when the dialogues are awkward and the story has an existential crisis, no matter how good or bad the actors are, it will all fall flat.

The slow-motion action sequences don’t exactly work, especially when Bantu is running in slow motion from one side of the table to the other. In a good vs bad fight with the villains, the action sequences are great, but when every other regular movement is also done in slow motion, it’s just funny. Shehzada gets slightly better in the second half and the only redeeming factors in this otherwise blasphemous three-hour cringefest are Manisha Koirala and Ronit Roy.

Shehzada is now in theatres, but it’s better to stay home and save yourself the headache.

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