Saaho movie review: A colossal disappointment
Saaho, the highly anticipated Bollywood debut of Prabhas, was released today. The movie is riding on a lot of hype and is one of the most expensive Indian movies ever made. The movie has been released in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malyalam languages. The article is review of the movie.
When 'Baahubali: The Conclusion' was released in the year 2017, it not only broke numerous records, but it also brought the regional cinema to the fore. Prabhas, the Telugu star who played the titular role became a national sensation overnight. So when Saaho was announced as his debut movie some time later, no one was surprised. The movie was in making for more than two years and the anticipation had built up quite a lot. There was a general belief that the movie will get the cash registers ringing in the theatres across India. However, the end result has been nothing short of a disaster. Saaho is a colossal INR 350 crore disappointment. Plot
Perhaps the most difficult part as a reviewer for me is to write an understandable plot for the audience to get what the movie is all about. This is because there is no single coherent plot and additional sub-plot keeps on adding as the movie progresses. Basically it is about a fictional city called Waaji city which is ruled by gangsters. The inspiration for the city is perhaps Gotham from Batman movies. Roy (played by Jackie Shroff) is a powerful mobster from the city who suddenly dies in an accident. His death results in a battle for not only supremacy in Waaji city but also for his legacy. It is revealed that there is a chest in the city filled with wealth but whose key is in a safe box in Mumbai. Prabhas is a part of the investigating team who goes after the box and eventually gangsters. Review
The biggest folly of Saaho is that there is no proper plot or a screenplay. It is as if the action sequences were filmed before and thereafter a story was written to incorporate the characters and justify their actions. The same mistakes had plagued Thugs of Hindostan last year. Handling a big budget is not a child's play and so Sujeeth was not the right choice to direct this movie. The successful big-budget action movie from Hollywood have few things in common – a decent plot, a crackling screenplay, and some solid characters. The action complements the aforementioned things. It is not the other way round. For instance, Hobbs and Shaw released last month had some ridiculous action sequences, but the movie really worked due to the chemistry between the lead players and an engaging screenplay. In Saaho the screenplay is all over the place. It would have been still tolerable if the movie could have entertained. Unfortunately, the movie is largely devoid of any good humorous moments as well. And whenever it feels like that there will be some respite, a song comes out of nowhere. The music, as we already know now, is insipid.
The action was the selling point of the movie but as I mentioned above, without any context, the scenes lack purpose and thrill. The bike chase is nice and the climax has some decent punches. But overall the action sequences lack originality. The VFX are tacky in many places. There are a lot of explosions and incessant sound but nothing worth remembering. You need to go and watch the John Wick series to understand how the action sequences can be aesthetically shot to make them memorable. And if you thought that at least acting could be a saving grace in Saaho, you will be further disappointed.
Prabhas looks lost so many times in the movie that it is hard to believe that he is working in one of the costliest movie ever made in India. It seems as if he had known during production itself that the movie won't work in the long run. His Hindi diction is not good at all and is in stark contrast to how Dhanush had worked so beautifully on his accent in Raanjhanaa. Only during action sequences, he comes into his own but that is a little consolation for Prabhas fans. Shraddha Kapoor's character is one of the worst female cops I have ever seen. She has also done little on the acting front. The supporting cast is huge but none of the actors including Jackie, Chunkey Pandey, Neil Nitin Mukesh or Mandira Bedi leave any mark. It is not their fault though. The writing has not given them any scope.
Saaho was expected to be the next Baahubali. Alas! It turned out to be the next Thugs of Hindostan. I will rate it 1 and half stars on the scale of 5. Watch it only if you are a diehard fan of Prabhas.
It is sad to note that the media hype created by Saaho did not come to the expectations of the audiences when the movie was finally released. This is a setback to the producers and the team associated with it in one way or other. When such a big-budget movie flops at the box office, then it spells a financial disaster for the financiers and producers of the movie and they cannot understand the reason why the movie failed commercially. Movie-making business is a high-risk area and only some movies which have a particular combination of direction, acting, cinematography, dialogue delivery, speed etc is present, are successful in the market. It is the most difficult task for a director to find out and execute that exact combination in the right proportion and in the film industry directors are struggling to achieve that in their film but only a few really achieve that and that also in a few films made by them.
One interesting thing is that when a particular film is commercially successful, many producers try to mimic that combination in their project but that generally does not yield any encouraging or commercially successfully result. It is always an intriguing thing to figure out as what is that recipe which produces a successful movie. I remember one Hollywood movie 'Avatar' which was released in 2009 and was a science fiction movie with the usual stuff but its presentation, locales, cinematography and other elements made it an outright hit on the box office and it earned a whopping $2.8 billion. So some movies click commercially and some do not. That is the risk in this industry.