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April 9, 2010

Prince Reviews (Rediff)


Prince, the last word in absurdity

- Preeti Arora 1/5


Bollywood has had a Shahenshah, then later a Baadshah. We haven't had a Maharaja for the simple reason that most people would believe it's a corporate documentary for Air India [ Images ].

And now this week's latest offering Prince starring Vivek Oberoi [ Images ]. There is always a blueprint to such films. The entire film revolves around the lead actor and all the other characters exist simply as props on whom the hero merely hangs his coat. Unfortunately for the poor audience, there is little to distinguish between Vivek Oberoi and a wooden peg.

Prince (Vivek Oberoi) wakes up one fine morning with complete amnesia and a wound on his arm. He has no idea who he is, where he's come from and which way he's headed. But even in this groggy injured state his survival instincts are unhampered; he doesn't hesitate to spring out of bed and get into a fistfight.

As Prince sets out to recover his memory he realises there are many people chasing him. Each one gives him a different version of his life. Was he always evil? Or is it a guise? Is there anybody whom he can trust? One thing is certain; his days seem to be numbered.

The director has started out with the intention of serving old wine in a new bottle. It's worked before and if done in a clever, adept manner there is no reason why this formula should not succeed again. Dhoom and Dhoom 2 [ Images ] are classic examples which come to mind. But Prince is old wine dished out in an antiquated haphazard manner. Resulting in three hours of sheer torture.

Even as Prince can't trust his colleagues, he stumbles upon his girlfriend Maya. Then she disappears into thin air. As he sets out to find her yet another Maya appears. The second one also claims to be his girlfriend. And then another. By which point the viewer has lost all interest in Mayas or Prince or the plot. All one prays for is that the film should end soon.

Memories never get wiped out by accident, they are erased intentionally. They can then be stored on a disc. As simple as transferring data from one hard drive to another! So Prince's memory is out there, somewhere in this whole wide world and Prince is looking for it. Memories are erased and hard drives are implanted in the cerebellum sitting in corporate offices. And no it's not a sci-fi film. It's a run-of the mill masala movie.

The script is written by Shiraz Ahmed the same person who wrote Race. Was it the director's insistence or did he believe the audience was totally gullible. The action director is Allan Amin who is considered to be one of the best. But the fight scenes are repetitive. Something one has seen in some film or the other over the last decade.

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3 comments:

ApexHeights said...

Harsh review there! There is a lot disparity among the reviews so far. Taran Adarsh from indiafm seemed to have given thumbs up.


Prince Review by Taran Adarsh

Pardesi said...

Taran and IndiaFM did a Vivek Oberoi meet and greet and online chat session and they hyped Tuarani's interviews, so maybe he is just helping film along. This was always going to be a Race kind of deal, I had hoped, for Vivek's sake, it would be better than that silly film.

Pardesi said...

REVIEW - Paisa Vasool action thriller

The film begins with a huge diamond heist by master thief Prince (Vivek) and his associates followed by few more such high profile robberies. Three months are shown passed by and Prince wakes up with a gun shot wound on his hand and amnesia as well. His butler PK (Mayur Puri) reveals to him that he works as the right hand man for an underworld don in South Africa named Sarang and that he has a girl friend, Maya. But then things start getting complicated as he is also being hunted by a special Indian intelligence agency I-Grip headed by one Colonel Khanna (Dalip Tahil), by Indian CBI officer Khan (Sanjay Kapoor) and also by Sarang who desperately wants the coin that is in Prince’s possession. The coin carries the power to threaten the future of the Human Race. What leaves Prince further puzzled are the three gals (Aruna Shields, Nandana Sen and Neeru Bajwa) he encounters time to time, all claiming to be Maya, his girlfriend. What follows as Prince decides to unravel the mystery with a death threat at every turn forms the rest of the plot.

If you are willing to suspend your belief then Prince is a complete paisa vasool action thriller for you. Slickly shot, this debut directorial venture of Kookie Gulati has been made on par with many popular International action thrillers. Some may find many twists of the plot implausible especially the one involving brain mapping and memory being erased and regained back again using computer softwares. But if one can enjoy movies like Face Off then Prince deserves better. The first half is racy and keeps you guessing what will happen next as a new twist and turn unfolds at regular intervals. The second half gets more action heavy and carries a good twist in the pre-climax. The film however lacks good one-liners. Amongst the best action (Allan Amin) high points of the film are the chase sequences on the Durban highway and Aruna Shields’ gun totting entry and then finally the climax. Music by debutante Sachin Gupta is already a chartbuster with the two numbers Tere Liye and O Mere Khuda on the top of the charts.

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