Produced by-Hombale Films
Scripted and Directed by-Prasanth Neel
Cast-Prabhas, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Shruthi Hassan, Jagapathi Babu, Eswari Rao, Mime Gopi, SimhaShriya Reddy etc
Censor Rating- A
Running Time-175 Minutes
Rating-***1/2
Coming from the stable of Hombale Films with Prasanth Neel assuming responsibility for the script and direction, one can certainly expect that standardized template, the dark grey-color tone included, from the KGF series and the team doesn’t disappoint!
All the ingredients like mom-son sentiments, women being tortured by powerful men while the protagonist never ever crosses the line drawn by his mom while waiting in the wings to do so on her say so, so on and so forth…-perfectly in tact and the screenplay as on the previous occasions follows the lengthy route of taking its own time to establish the characters that get introduced one after the other! But the writer/director seems to have deferred from delivering due justice to Shruthi Hassan’s character which appears under written!
It is loud and clear that Prabhas strongly believes that action speaks much more that words and hence prefers to flex his muscles rather that mouth dialogue in a dramatic fashion.
For all he is worth, Prithviraj Sukumaran deserves better space in the script than being an aspiring heir to a throne adoring the head o his dad (Jagpathi Babu). More so, he is unable to achieve his ambitions on his own and is obligated to solicit succor from his childhood friend who is none other than Prabhas who had taken a oath while being young to protect his friend from danger of any kind, come what may!
The power struggle to capture the throne amidst a bunch of lieutenants like Simha, John Vijay etc cause confusion as there are too many sub plots and too many flash backs that appear too very nuanced!
The music (Ravi Basrur), cinematography (Bhuvan Gowda) are both major contributory factors for the film’s pace.
Violence in the action sequences may not find favor of those who shun it if in excess, as is the case here!
We need to wait for the sequel to know if that would work out better!