The Background:
After doing back to back heavy duty high budget and VFX fares, Rebel Star Prabhas wanted to do something fun that will bring back his vintage energy from the Bujjigadu days. Prabhas zeroed in on Maruthi, who is known for his quirky comedy fares. The combination came up with The Raja Saab, a horror fantasy comedy.
As is with Prabhas’ involvement, the ‘local’ horror comedy became ‘Pan-India’ and the movie is now touted to be India’s Biggest Horror Fantasy. Did this upgrade work in the team’s favor? Did Maruthi succeed in his first star vehicle? Here’s looking at the good, bad and ugly aspects of The Raja Saab.
The Story First:
The biggest problem with The Raja Saab is visible at the onset as we think about its story. It is hard to categorise it in simple terms. At its basic level, it is about a grandson called Raja Saab, yes you read that right, who has to unite his estranged grandmother with his grandfather. The catch here being he does not know where his grandfather is? In fact he has no idea whether his grandfather is dead or alive.
From this simple line, The Raja Saab’s story takes multiple turns, involving multiple threads. It ends up in an old haunted mansion, which is controlled by a ghost. Things don’t end here, though and there is a lot more on the platter. We would like to end it here, though.
The Good:
As promised Rebel Star Prabhas does look energetic, compared to his previous few outings. The attempt is visible further via the dialogue delivery and the fun and so on.
Maruthi is known for sharp one-liners based punches and gags, even if there is double entendre involved. We get a few moments that show glimpses of his prime form.
The climax block, where there is a clear effort to produce something massive befitting the presence of a star like Prabhas.
The problem with The Raja Saab is these individual elements don’t come together to form a cohesive narrative.
The Bad:
The story feels patchy, episodic and artificial. At no point does the proceedings feel like progressing organically as a whole as a story forward.
What we have is a string of events stitched together with no rhyme or sense of the pacing and run time. The interval, for example, doesn’t feel like an interval at all. It comes abruptly as a lot of time has passed already at that point. Its the same with the ending, it doesn’t look like the story has concluded.
It has happened that way due to the bloated narrative that’s expanded unnecessary with a lot of fillers. Either the commercial track was part of the original idea or there was only the basic story track which later has been stuffed with the commercial trappings – a combination of these two expands the narrative in such a way that neither gets the justice, and both suffer in the process.
The characters come and go only to keep the proceedings moving forward without any impact. It’s as if they are designed in hindsight for new directions the story has taken.
The idea behind the pre-climax and climax is fine, but, again the same problem surfaces for it as well. It feels like a late addition. Also, the utter lack of clarity and chaotic nature of the proceedings doesn’t help the larger the life presentation of the content. The few subpar VFX gets exaggerated due to the poor execution of the actual content.
A couple of melodies sound nice from Thaman in his trademark style, but the on screen picturisation leaves a lot to be desired. The background score is irritating. The visual effects too are a mixed bag, with only a few shots having the grand big screen appeal, even though the idea with the rest too is nice.
The Ugly:
It has to be said, but Prabhas and director Maruthi should get the blame equally. Prabhas for the low efforts and Maruthi trying to manage with similar efforts from his end.
The missing lip sync with dialogues, at times, the many dupe shops, face swapping and so on shows the hero’s lack of interest. The poor writing and messy and chaotic screenplay highlights Maruthi’s faults. The end result is a long and boring horror show.
The Takeaway:
The overall energy Prabhas shows must make a few fans happy. Other than that, there isn’t much to take away from The Raja Saab.
Screentime:
At close to three hours run time, there is plenty of time to browse the mobile.
Bottomline: Horror Show, For Audience
Rating: 2/5
