Saaho Movie Review: Saaho... A movie that was riding on a tsunami wave of expectations. This was Prabhas' first movie in two years after the blockbuster success of his last film, Baahubali 2. The makers of Saaho have searched for every rooftop in the arena to go and shout how their film was made on a humongous budget, even beating the Baahubali series. Numbers like Rs 250 crore, 300 crores and even 400 crores were thrown around, as if we were discussing the fiscal deficit the Indian economy is facing. The trailers promised an action extravaganza with a challenge of taking Indian cinema beyond wherever Chandraayan 2 has gone. Not to mention, an eclectic supporting cast featuring who is who from Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi cinema including Bollywood actress Shraddha Kapoor. So yeah, Saaho was arriving like a Tsunami at the theatres. Saaho on August 30: Vijay Deverakonda Just Cannot Wait to Watch Prabhas’ Film! Read Tweet.

The thing with Tsunamis is that they tend to destroy everything in their way. Fans of Prabhas and the tradewallahs were expecting Saaho to destroy box office records. It might do that, who knows. But if you go purely by a movie-watching experience, then Saaho has this tendency to destroy every sense of logic in its attempt to make a twisty action spectacle. Move over Salman Khan and Race 3. You got some serious competition here.

So Saaho begins in this fictional city called Waaji, that feels like a cross between Dubai and 2019 Los Angeles from Blade Runner. Later in the film, a local cop, played by Evelyn Sharma (whose character description is exactly what that blonde cop from Dhoom 3 had) claims that Waaji has the best police department in the world. And yet the best police department couldn't figure out that the headquarters of a huge crime conglomerate is under their nose. The narrative gets its first twist, when the kingpin Roy (Jackie Shroff) is killed mysteriously in the first few minutes when he was in Mumbai.

With the king gone, the kingdom is in disarray and many want a stake at the throne, including Roy's heir Vishwank (Arun Vijay) and his bitter rival Devaraj (Chunky Pandey). Meanwhile back in Mumbai, a series of heists are happening, carried out by a shady conman. To investigate the case, the police department brings in an undercover cop Ashok Chakravarthy (Prabhas) and a Malayali officer Amrutha Nair (Shraddha Kapoor), the latter getting a Kerala theme music for her intro, in case you didn't get her geography right.

As expected, sparks fly between the two, more twists arrive on the way and the movie jumps from one country to another, with the makers either using real locales or some very obvious green screens. Box Office Prediction: Will Prabhas and Shraddha Kapoor Starrer Saaho Register the Biggest Opening of 2019 by Beating Avengers: Endgame? Find Out!

The first half of Saaho, directed by Sujeeth, spends way too much time in getting us to know the many characters of the film, even though only a couple has memorable arcs to speak of. It also delves too much into the romance between the two leads. Saaho wants us to believe, the romance has the sizzle, but ends up being a puzzle, owing to the half-baked manner how the whole love story is inserted in the narrative.

The makers may talk about taking cinema to the next level, but the treatment of female lead characters continues to languish in the basement. Shraddha Kapoor's character may be a hot-trot cop who can nearly beat the hero in a game of foosball. Note the connotation, 'nearly beat'. For how can a girl defeat the eponymous protagonist of a masala blockbuster, when all she has to do is look glamorous, melt like a puddle in the hero's piercing gaze and has very muddled reasons of why she even exists in the movie? Shraddha Kapoor's role in Saaho ticks all the boxes here, and as a reward for doing so, she even gets to be a part of a couple of action scenes, when she is not being the damsel in distress.

The second half is where most of the twists and thrills are congested. We have characters end up switching sides so much, that we really stop caring after a point. Saaho not just goes country-hopping, but also flits through various movies through from Ocean's 11, the Fast and the Furious, xXx and even Mad Max. At one point, a bare-bodied Prabhas jumps from a cliff without a parachute in Saaho's most atrociously shot CGI scene, and I wonder if the film has peaked here. Well, it was a harbinger of how bad things could go ahead from there.

Watch The Trailer of Saaho below:

The final 30 minutes of the film is where things go really explosive. Dozens of cars get destroyed in a car chase that would give Rohit Shetty a mini-orgasm, the hero gets to save the heroine mid-air in Saaho's most peak romantic moment and then he ends up bashing dreadnok goons amidst a desert storm. And as the fight ensues, Saaho throws in more twists because there has to be a purpose to this mayhem, right? A couple of them may shock you, but the director has presented them in a very convoluted manner that shows the lack of experience in both writing and handling.

Look, it isn't wrong to have absurdly written twists and over-the-top action sequences. Fast & Furious franchise is making billions of dollars right now, by throwing logic to the wind. However, what separates Saaho from franchises like F&F is the presentation. None of the action sequences in Saaho stands out or feels original, which wasn't the case with Prabhas' Baahubali series, whose fight scenes, even if OTT, were immensely memorable. For all the claims of a Rs 300 crore budget, Saaho's VFX is very average.

The saving graces here are the slick production values and cinematography which help in making the film a very stylish product, sans any kind of substance. The song picturisations are extremely impressive, though I cannot say the same about the placement or the score in itself.  Ghibran's background score is a rare plus for the film, amplifying the thrill element of Saaho to the max.

The Performances

It was not just on Saaho that the eyes of the nation were eagerly waiting for, but also on Prabhas. Hailed as this decade's pan-Indian superstar from South, Prabhas has a lot going for in the film, that was perched comfortably on his broad shoulders. Prabhas brings in the charisma and the swagger needed for the role, but his act lacks the flamboyance that we saw in Baahubali series. He plays his character in a very one-note manner, equipped with a lazy drawl for a voice, as if he is suffering from Salman Khan syndrome. A couple of his shirtless scenes does hint towards that direction.

Shraddha Kapoor is quite gorgeous to look at, but her decent performance (her lipsyncing isn't all bad) is hampered by a poorly written character. Saaho has some very popular names in the supporting cast - Jackie Shroff, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Chunky Pandey, Arun Vijay, Lal, Mandira Bedi, Mahesh Manjrekar, Murali Sharma, Tinnu Anand. Most of them are cast as villains, but only Chunky Pandey and Murali Sharma stand out. Chunky Pandey is quite revelatory as the baddie who hams to the hilt, while Murali Sharma lends in a fine act as the hero's associate. Comedian Venella Kishore disappears after the first half.

Yay!

- The Production Values

- A Couple of Thrilling Moments

- Cinematography

- BG Score

Nay!

- Average Writing and Direction

- Substandard VFX

- Convoluted Twists

- Shoddily Written Characters

Final Thoughts

Despite the farcical action scenes and twists, Saaho could have entertained you the way many of the masala films in Telugu do. Prabhas has a huge-fanbase, so the movie is expected to take a bumper opening at the box office. But a very dull presentation, shoddy editing and overly complicated narrative, addled by humongous expectations, play the spoilsport here. Forget bringing cinema to the next level, Saaho's biggest challenge is to stop our interest levels from dropping and it spectacularly fails at that.

Rating:2out of 5

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 30, 2019 12:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).