Baadshah Review

Behind the Movie Baadshah: Director Srinu Vytla and his winning team of ‘Dookudu’ joined with Junior NTR and Kajal Agarwal made this Bandla Ganesh produced project very prestigious in Tollywood. Amidst huge expectations, movie has hit the screens with high Fan-fare. Let us see, how far Tarak stood up to the title?

In the Movie Baadshah: Story begins with Mahesh Babu’s voice-over explaining about terrorist activities and attacks in India disturbing the harmony of our country. Into the actual story, Baadshah aka Rama Rao (Jr NTR) is set on a task to make Janaki (Kajal Agarwal), daughter of Police Commissioner Pilli Jaya Krishna Simha (Naazar) fall in love. She is a good humanitarian and is in Milan of Italy and Rama Rao enters into her life. There runs a sweet romantic track while the men of International Mafia Don Saadhu Bhai (Kelly Dorjee) frequently attack Baadshah. Who is Baadshah? What is his connection with International Crime Operations of Saadhu Bhai, Crazy Robert (Ashish Vidyardhi) and Violent Victor (Pradeep Rawat)? Why is Baadshah motivated by his dad (Mukesh Rishi), running Royal Casino in Macau to take on Saadhu Bhai? This forms one part of flashback.

Into the next scenes, Rama Rao lands in India to disturb the matrimonial deal set between Janaki and Police Officer Aadi (Navdeep) with the help of Pilli Padmanabha Simha (Brahmanandam) and other family members. Why is Baadshah doing this? How is Aadi and his father (Jayaprakash Reddy) connected to Saadhu Bhai? Why have they selected Hyderabad as their spot for Terror Bomb Blasts? What is the actual identity of Baadshah and how is he related to Police Department? What is his actual flashback with Mum (Suhasini) and close friend Siddhu (Siddharth)? All these form the rest.

Values of the Movie Baadshah: Director Srinu Vytla’s forte of running entertaining comedy using the side characters like Brahmi and MS is the key asset here too. Apart from major storyline, if MS Narayana as Director Revenge Nageshwar Rao (satire on RGV) takes care of first half, invoking the ‘Inception’ concept on Brahmi runs the second half. Screenplay was clumsy and confusing with story narration surely to tease our brains. As story span is vast with too many characters (Mafia on one side and Nasser family on the other side) involved, Srinu should have taken proper care both in editing and execution. I Andrew, Jayanan Vincent, RD Rajasekhar and KV Guhan’s camera work was chic and jazzy. MR Varma’s editing could have been lot better for audience to understand the actual concept. Music by SS Thaman rocked for ‘Sairo Sairo, Diamond Girl, Baadshah and Banthi Poola Janaki’ songs which were also canned lavishly. Coming to writing part…Srinu, Gopi Mohan and Kona Venkat have done tremendous job in penning hilarious punches…may it be on ‘Banthi Philosophy’ of Kajal and ‘Inception’ on Brahmi. In fact, dialogues formed the main strength for all the rollicking portions in film. While CG effects were poor in quality, production values of Bandla Ganesh Babu were top notch.

Performance wise Jr NTR never looked stylish as what we see here. His perfection in timing of comedy punches or performing awesome dance moves or emotional brilliance (with Suhasini, Siddharth) or imitating legendary NTR…Tarak was just flawless. Coming to Kajal, she was slightly fat but entertained in first half with lengthy speeches of ‘Banthi’ Philosophy. Then come in…MS Narayana and Brahmanandam…who became literal life-lines for movie in first and second halves. While Kelly Dorjee, Pradeep Rawat, Jayaprakash Reddy’s villainy was regular, Ashish Vidyarthi was something new with Violin. Navdeep, Mukesh Rishi are just okay. Nasser shined in scenes with Brahmi and Surekha. Into comedy Vennela Kishore, Thaagubothu Ramesh, Master Bharath had nothing to perform. Among the remaining bunch, Sayaji Shinde, Tanikella Bharani, Chandra Mohan, Supreet, Ajay, Pragathi, Sudha, Aditya Menon etc has nothing great to mention. Cameos of Suhasini and Siddharth were meaningful and stood as driving force to entire story. Meenakshi Diskhit was hot in title song.

Out of the Movie Baadshah: When it is brand Srinu Vytla’s formula film, obviously comparisons come to the fore. Relatively, ‘Baadshah’ is a weak film than ‘Dookudu.’ There is a huge gap in building the emotional connect as narration depended more on comedy and stylish presentation rather than elevating the actual sensibilities in story. Truly speaking, NTR’s character for a while becomes passive in first half with MS, Kajal, Kishore dominating the screen. Srinu Vytla might have just tried to repeat the Father-Son affection element of ‘Dookudu’ but could not do the justice. There are no worthwhile scenes (may be comedy or heroism) which will leave us haunting. Reason is bumbling, disoriented screenplay with hasty, fast paced narration. Apparently, run-time of 160 minutes is also exhaustive. Some episodes in Sangeet and Action portions can be easily trimmed off.

Coming to Nandamuri Fans, this could be a treat to watch NTR in a dashing look with fashionable costumes, new hair style. His characterization is not as powerful and allusive as his earlier flicks yet could keep on entertaining. In literal sense, Srinu could have concentrated a bit more on using NTR’s screen presence abilities. Even for audience who just love the pattern of Srinu Vytla’s entertainment quotient, you may find it very customary with missing of key emotion demonstrating ingredients. If you are pleasured with patchy comic drama and go round merry for mere presence of NTR, ‘Baadshah’ is worth a one-time watch. 

Commercially, movie has every chance of creating new opening records because of summer season and vacant space in market with no big tickets to release till the arrival of ‘Shadow.’ So, for next two weeks…‘Baadshah’ will be the solo emperor to rule BO. Long stand like ‘Dookudu’ or ‘Gabbar Singh’ is highly doubtful.

Cinejosh Verdict of the Movie Baadshah: A Regular Vytla Film Falling Short of Predictions.

Cinejosh Rating: 3/5

                                                                                                 Reviewed by Srivaas