Despite critically acclaimed roles in many movies, Vivek Oberoi has not had a single hit till date as the solo lead. An actor with such a resume should have put in more effort for a movie which is made on a budget of around Rs. 500 million. Unfortunately that’s not what we got to see in Prince and Vivek is not the only one to blame here.
Produced by Kumar Taurani (Race) and directed by newcomer Kookie Gulati, Prince tells the story of a hi-tech thief played by Oberoi who has lost his memory and is being hunted by crime syndicates and government authorities. Captured and misled by a web of deceptive characters Prince finally manages to get rid of the bad guys and get his memory back. Add a quest for a stolen artifact, car and bike chases, shootouts, fistfights, wire-fu and you have the perfect example of a huge budget went waste.
Prince borrows heavily from Hollywood flicks and you don’t have to be an avid follower of Hollywood action movies to find the similarities. Mission Impossible movies, the Bourne trilogy, Iron Man and the Matrix have been sources of inspiration. Not to mention our own Dhoom 2. No complaints on borrowing from the west. However shouldn’t they be reworked to some extent to cover up the plagiarism? The art department has pasted posters of Iron Man, Bat Man and Spider Man on the walls of Prince’s hideout. May be that’s to explain where the character gets his ideas from.
Acting is atrocious as none of the cast scores. Vivek Oberoi goes over the top whenever he gets the chance. Somebody must inform him that twitching his eyebrows and clenching his lips don’t count for acting. What has happened to Vivek anyway that he is so pathetic all of a sudden? The three hotties, as expected didn’t prove to be of much use at all. N andana Sen who looks as if she slept in a tattoo parlour tried hard to be the bad girl and Neeru Bajwa should stay within the borders of TV soaps. Neeru's dialogue delivery belongs either on TV or in the 70’s. The hyped-up import hottie, Aruna Shields is the perfect ceramic statue for your living room – expressionless and cold. The bad guy brigade walks around in trench coats, leather jackets, guns and shades. To top it off, the villain has a mechanical right arm which must have been borrowed from Sam Worthington in Terminator Salvation.
It’s not the story which ruins the soup. It’s the dialogues and the acting. Sample this, Aruna Shields is pleading “Come back Prince” with all her non-acting skills at an unconscious Vivek Oberoi and the whole theatre erupted with laughter. Now that’s disastrous. Neeru Bajwa’s lines were worse with its dramatic overload. Kookie Gulati’s inexperience as a movie director shows as the whole act doesn’t manage to grip you to your seats. It was more of an effort to stay back to watch the whole parade and as a liberal movie reviewer who prefers to rate action movies the way they should be, yours truly was looking for all the good reasons to like this one – but couldn’t find many.
Prince can’t be dismissed off outright as it has the technical advantage. Allan Amin’s stunt direction is quite good and does make the viewer drop his jaws in awe at times. Vivek is fantastic in the action sequences and considering that he did most of them without a stunt double, the actor does deserve a pat on the back. Cinematography and visual effects are the other bonuses. Though the CGI is a bit tacky in some scenes, it’s better than usual Bollywood fare. Vishnu Rao’s cinematography lends the movie that signature Hollywood look which indeed is one of the selling points of Prince. Production design department scores well for all the hi-tech gadgetry and the styling which filled up every frame. Music is the forte of Prince and Sachin Gupta’s tracks sung by Aatif Aslam have been on the top of the charts since the launch.
To the prospective viewer, our advice will be not to watch it if you are a fan of Vivek. You may seize to be one. But if you are someone who finds dialogues and acting to be fillers between those mammoth action set pieces, then you may enjoy this action overload.
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