Pranaam Movie Review: Ajay Singh (Rajeev Khandelwal) wants to be an IAS officer. His poor, ailing father wants him to be that. So does his loyal girlfriend Manjri (Sameksha Singh), an IAS aspirant herself, but is rather happy basking in her guy's glow. And his loyal band of friends too, who doesn't seem to have a life beyond anything about Ajay. His professor Tej Pratap Singh (Vikram Gokhale), when not dropping couplets from Ramayana and Mahabharat, keeps blessing him saying he will become big in life. Unfortunately, Fate doesn't share the same enthu as this melodramatic bunch and Ajay gets caught in an unexpected crime that sends him on a downward spiral, away from all his dreams. Yeah, Life is such a bitch! Movies This Week: Jabariya Jodi, Pranaam, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark – Which One Will You Watch on August 9?.

What can you about Pranaam, directed by Sanjiv Jaiswal, which doesn't even get its tagline right? For the uninitiated, the movie's tagline reads 'An IAS Officer Turned Gangster'. Is there any point in explaining to the makers that there is a difference between an IAS candidate and an officer? I would have, but then that is the least of my concerns about this wannabe Gardish. Again, for the uninitiated, check Jackie Shroff's filmography. The thing is Gardish was made back in the '90s. But Pranaam not only borrows its premise but also kind of making that we have left back in that decade.

The movie is just about two hours, but wastes about an hour to get to its sparsely interesting conundrum. We see Ajay's hard, under-privileged life which meddles with every soap opera trope. We see his sanskaari romance with Manjri, where one moment, he chides her for having dreams about him, but in the next scene, canoodles her in the rain. Make up your mind, dude, don't behave like the screenplay of your movie.

Then there are the caricatured villains, whose purpose is to just be 'bad guys' - Maaro aur Maro!!! Pranaam gets some of my interest when Atul Kulkarni's character arrives mid-way, giving the film its turning point. It is the calibre of this actor that he makes even bad scenes look so decent and making silly dialogues feel like they are written by Anurag Kashyap. And it is the calibre of this movie that it makes him end up as another irritating facet, stuck with an irksome catchphrase about his father. Dude seems to be a father of Joker from The Dark Knight. The only time I actually LOLed at the movie was when his senior officer, voicing the annoyance of every one of us in the theatre, tells him to STFU!

Pranaam Trailer:

I also never get why his character, perhaps the most malicious person in the film, is so hellbent on getting Ajay trapped in a paper leak scandal, despite having never met him before. I also don't understand why Pranaam, after wasting way too much time in the first half, suddenly rushes into sending Ajay into the world of crime that we can't even figure out the passage of time between events. I am also figuring out IAS's new speed-induction programme that assigns Manjri her first IAS positing in the matter of mere days, and also the surprised look of the face Ajay's father, who works as a peon at the Collector's office, on seeing her there. Despite the fact that he has been sitting under her name-board all this while. I also wonder how many movies will be made that showcases the complete lack of law and order in Uttar Pradesh, until Yogi Adityanath decides enough is enough. Also, can somebody tell the makers that you needn't fill every single moment with every piece of musical instrument?

The Performances

Rajeev Khandelwal is decent, but he looks tired and even a little aged for his character, especially when his friends and girlfriend look quite young in comparison. Sameksha Shetty is pretty and not a bad actress but she is more or less, restricted, to throw wistful glances towards the hero. Abhimanyu Singh as one of the villains who loves to sing a bit too much is vaguely interesting. Atul Kulkarni is the only actor who seems to be having fun with his role, till the movie stops him from doing so.

Yay!

- Atul Kulkarni, somewhat

Nay! 

- Whoever is handling Rajeev Khandelwal's Career

Final Thoughts

Pranaam is yet another example of Rajeev Khandelwal screwing up his movie career, after a very promising start with Aamir and Shaitan. In Modiji's words, Pranaam makes you say, 'Chalo, Do Gahante Ko Vanakkam!'

Rating:1out of 5

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 08, 2019 07:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).