Review Overview
Performances
Plot & Narration
Technical Aspects & Music
A bummer of sorts!
Saaho is a goner which doesn't live up to the worth of a movie ticket. At best, you may watch it if you want to see a time pass entertainer that you won't complain about.
Cast: Prabhas, Shraddha Kappoor, Arun Vijay, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Jackie Shroff, Vennela Kishore, Murli Sharma & others ; Written & Directed by Sujeeth ; Producers: Vamsi – Pramod for UV Creations ; DOP: Madhie ; Production Designer: Sabu Cyril ; Editor: Sreekar Prasad ; Background Music: Ghibran ; Visual Effects: RC Kamalakannan ; Dialogues: KGR Ashok (Tamil) ; Costume Design: Thota Vijay Bhaskar, Leepakshi Ellawadi ; Stunts: Kenny Bates, Peng Zhang, Dhilip Subbarayan, Stunt Silva, Stefan, Bob Brown, Ram – Lakshman ; DI: B2H ; Sound design: SYNC CINEMA ; Visual Development: Gopi Krishna, Ajay Supahiya ; Release Date: 30-08-2019 ; Run Time: 02:52:00
Saaho is easily the biggest disappointment of the year so far. The film is massive and ambitious with respect to its scale, but doesn’t quite live up to even half of the expectations it created with its promos. Despite the huge production values that it possesses, the film fails to impress with its illogical story and screenplay, boring commercial tricks and stunts that do not have the skills to excite you.
Saaho follows the events that take place in Waaji city, a place overtaken by gangsters. There are a lot of character artists who come together as gangsters and their right hands, with the drama ensuing as the head of the city passes away in a freak accident. Prabhas enters the scene as Ashok Chakravarthy, an undercover cop who takes up the case and plays around with it, only to reveal more details as the film progresses. The first half does have a couple of good moments, but the second half is packed with an awkward set of scenes coming one after the other, with an action showdown at the end that doesn’t hit the target.
This is what happens when the writer-director doesn’t know who his audience is. A film with a good potential is watered down by needless romance, fake swag and an overdose of twists. By the end of the film, one is still searching for the ‘screenplay film’ that Prabhas had mentioned during the interviews, as it has a lot of things converging at the same point, confusing the audiences.
Though Prabhas is impressive in a couple of scenes which need him to sport the swag, he looks very dull and disinterested in most parts of the film. Even in the action scenes, its easy to spot that he’s making use of the dupe. On the other hand, Shraddha Kapoor brings in a nice presence to the film, though her role could have been sketched out better. Out of the supporting actors who all have minor roles, Arun Vijay is the only one who stands out.
The cinematography is pretty good for a film of this scale but it gets marred by the poor VFX present in almost every scene, which makes it an eyesore. Ghibran’s BGM is one of the few plus points of the film, upping the ante at most occasions.
On the whole, Saaho is a goner which doesn’t live up to the worth of a movie ticket. At best, you may watch it if you want to see a time pass entertainer that you won’t complain about.