Saaho movie review Telugu: Prabhas tries hard in a film that is too silly to realise its ambitions

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Film: Saaho
Director: Sujeeth
Cast: Prabhas, Shraddha Kapoor, Arun Vijay, Neil Nithin Mukesh, Chunky Pandey, Jackie Shroff, Lal, Murali Sharma and Mandira Bedi
Rating: 2/5

Prabhas’s Saaho is so ambitious in its scale that it almost fools you into believing it’s a great film. Unfortunately, it doesn’t even come close to being great and just manages to emerge as a decent watch, provided you’re not tired by its stretched run-time. The film ends up as one of those big budget attempts that’s highly ambitious and silly at the same time. While Prabhas tries to hold it together in whatever way possible, Saaho is mostly underwhelming if not for the grandeur and couple of solid action stretches.

Saaho, just like Pawan Kalyan’s Agnyaathavaasi, borrows its basic plot from French thriller Largo Winch. The plot is centred on an adopted son who has to prove his legitimacy to take over his father’s empire after he’s brutally murdered. The twist revolves around the identity of the adopted son. But Saaho is packed with so many twists that it spoils the broth by the time the original identity of the son (no brownie point for guessing) is revealed, and if you’re smart, you can easily see the twist coming halfway into the film. The twists are so conveniently written that it dilutes the shock value it brings along with it. As more twists are unraveled, Saaho ends up becoming a tiring watch; one where all the money spent on lavish visuals and action is only letdown by sloppy writing.

The film features some great acting talents. From Jackie Shroff to Mandira Bedi and Chunky Pandey, it is hard to get a more powerful cast. Sadly, none of these actors get to play a character that’s even remotely exciting. Chunky Pandey speaks in short stories. Every time he’s on screen, we hear a short story that has no purpose at all. If only more time was spent on writing than making these characters look suave on screen, we’d have had better performances. Neil Nithin Mukesh is clueless in a role that gets overshadowed by Prabhas and even by Shraddha Kapoor at times. Arun Vijay looked like he was kidnapped from the sets of Mani Ratnam’s Chekka Chivantha Vaanam, playing a similar character and even sounding like it when he strains in a crucial scene. Shraddha is decent and puts on a show in the action sequences.

Prabhas tries to shoulder Saaho single-handedly, and he manages to keep it afloat as much as possible. But there are some portions – especially in the first half – that are so flat that even he can’t save the film. The trailer of Saaho promised a high-octane, power-packed action film but all that’s packed into one bloated segment towards the end. As much as the last 15 odd minutes features some breathtaking action, Saaho doesn’t leave you with a high. In fact, it leaves you with the thought that it could’ve cut down on a lot of flab which include couple of songs.

Saaho, in short, ends up as a film that never quite makes the intended impact in spite showing promise.