Salman Khan’s Prem Ratan Dhan Payo movie has hit the theaters on Thursday (12.11.2015) and as with all things Salman, expectations about quality of content and the actor himself are sky high even as reviewers struggle to make sense and provide a justifiable window into the film without giving away the entire plot. Here is a quick movie review.
PRDP is a film about family, love and friendship that wants to make all the right noises but does not seem to be aware that the language for that kind of communication is no longer what it was when HAHK’s Prem spread love and laughter over two decades ago.
Prem Dilwala (Salman Khan) makes a living narrating the Ramleela in Ayodhya. His troupe consists of Kanhaiya (Deepak Dobriyal), who plays Sita in the Ramleela. Prem is in awe of Rajkumari Maithili (Sonam Kapoor), who runs the Uphaar Foundation, an NGO which helps calamity-affected people. Prem donates all his earnings from the show to this foundation, and expresses his desire to meet Maithili. When he is told that she is to travel to Pritampur for the coronation of Prince Vijay Singh (Salman, again), Maithili’s fiance, Prem decides to go and hand over his donations to Uphaar to the lady.
Meanwhile, in Pritampur, Vijay lives with his loyal Diwan Sa’ab (Anupam Kher) and half-brother Ajay (Neil Nitin Mukesh). His half-sisters Chandrika (Swara Bhaskar) and Radhika (Aashika Bhatia) haven’t spoken to him in years. There’s an attack on Vijay’s life, and the prince is left incapacitated. What ensues is a case of mistaken identities, family battles and so on.
As both Prem and Vijay, Salman Khan does a commendable job. Salman Khan is quite likeable in PRDP. In fact, his comic timing has gotten better in recent times. Add to it the many honey-coated dialogues that make the proceedings funny. For example, Sonam says, “Ram jaisa kahenge Seeta waisa hi karegi.” As if they have already accepted themselves as divines. It’s a different matter that some religious people might get offended with Seeta breathing passionately. They keep delivering dialogues in slow motion. The pattern they follow is ‘dialogue – crescendo rises – dialogue – song.
The director has tried his best to keep the ethics of Indian culture right at the center of his screenplay. The movie is a sureshot family entertainer, without any uncomfortable scenes. However, it does take a while to digest that such a perfect family and ethics can co-exist in today’s time.
- Genre – Romance, Drama
- Star Cast – Salman Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Armaan Kohli, Anupam Kher, Deepak Dobriyal, Swara Bhaskar
- Director – Sooraj Barjatya
- Rating – 2/5 (Two star)
