Saaho is all glitz but tests our wits to understand the twists and turns of its incoherent script. It’s overhyped marketing definitely created a deeper abyss between our expectations and the product delivered!
Scripted by the director Sujeeth, the plot is based in 2060 and comprises of a don (Jacky Shroff) and lots of baddies (Tinu Anand, Chunkey Pandey, Mahesh Manjrekar, Mandira Bedi) in a futuristic city in fancy dens.
Somewhere someone gets killed, and some people are after a certain black box that will lead to a lot of gold. Somewhere else, there is a spate of robberies and police deputes an undercover cop (Prabhas) to crack the case. He is assisted by David, Goswami and Amritha (Murli Sharma, Vennela Kishore and Shraddha). In between trying to crack the case by his super intelligence, Prabhas gets time to woo the pretty lady with all those cheeky formulae and the audience with all his brawns and style.
There ‘s a robber (Neil Nitin Mukesh) who is playing hide and seek with the police and there’s a commissioner Shinde(Prakash Belavadi)who is at the helm of investigation.
While there’s a lot of mayhem created by this barrage of characters, we manage to decipher that there’s a fight for the hidden gold and the seat of the Don. The director tries his best to engage us with all possible antics and tricks up his sleeve.
There are fancy locations, futuristic flashy interiors, fancy cars, chases, stunts, WWF kinda baddies, star wars kinda weapons, one lined attempts at humour, glittery ensembles, glamorous looking songs, a touch of romance, a touch of menace and lots of Prabhas!
Whew !!! The list is long that adds up to quite a lot but I wish the end result of so much publicity, so much budget and so much effort could match up to the expectations.
What fails to work is the disjointed narrative. With too many characters and too many twists and turns( to add thrill), it becomes a task to put together and yet enjoy it.
The futuristic premise was a big challenge that they couldn’t live up to.
Plus the south cinema kind of over the top gimmicks in terms of humour and romance might not be able to strike a chord with many.
Background score by Ghibran was good but was overtly used to create x-factor even in tepid scenes just like those daily soaps on television. Dhan-dha-dan cannot be used to rouse something that we don’t feel!
Performance-wise, Prabhas couldn’t live up to the over-hyped expectations after Baahubali. Shraddha seemed more like a damsel in distress than a cop. Rest of the cast had barely much to do.
Neil Nitin Mukesh and Chunkey always manage to look menacing with ease. And Jacky is always superb in his style quotient.
Songs were a fair combination of groovy and trendy but nothing that great.
Stunts by international choreographers like Peng Zhang and Kenny Bates were good but nothing that wowed us. Who said the audience is easy to please.
Apart from lack of finesse in execution, its the Overhyped publicity and expectations from Prabhas after Bahubali that could be a nemesis for Saaho.
But overall, the movie is all efforts and lots of budgets evidently. It’s definitely worth a dekko once. But clip your expectations heartlessly. Also, use your inane ability to sew together disjointed haphazard scenes being thrown at you relentlessly to keep a track of the track.
Score 6 on 10