Movie Review: Prassthanam

Producer- Sanjay Dutt

Director- Deva Katta

Star Cast- Sanjay Dutt, Manisha Koirala, Ali Fazal, Satyajeet Dubey, Chahat Khanna, Anuup Soni, Jackie Shroff, Chunky Pandey and Amyra Dastur

Genre- Political

Rating- **

Contrived and Melodramatic!

Jyothi Venkatesh

Deva Katta directs the Hindi adaptation of his 2010 Telugu film Prasthanam about political ambition and corruption leading to downfall and tragedy in a family. The predictable drama unfolds around the family of Sanjay Dutt who plays Baldev Pratap Singh, a man with political ambitions, which gets fast-tracked when he is handed over charge of a rural power centre. He cements his hold when he marries a dying leader’s widowed daughter-in-law Saroj (Manisha Koirala) and adopts her two children. The birth of their third child, her son with Baldev, creates a rift between the stepchildren. Jackie Shroff is Baldev’s loyal and tested driver Badshah

The biggest problem with the film is that it looks jaded and dated especially since it has nothing new to convey by way of novelty and treads the same old formula stuff.

While Sanjay Duitt makes you see sparks of Sunil Dutt, his late father in some scenes, Manisha Koirala has been wasted in a role which does not give her any leeway to display her potential as an actress. Ali Fazal steals then scenes in the film whereas Satyajeet Dubey goes overboard as the evil step brother. Whether it is Amyra Dastur as Ali Fazal’s romantic interest or Chahat Khanna as Sanjay Dutt’s daughter, both barely manage to register themselves and have been wasted. Chuinky Panday fails to deliver in a half baked role while the less said about Jackie Shroff the better.

The dialogues by Farhad Samji are very filmy and predictable and unfortunately don’t always fit into the moment. The screenplay just about manages to hold your interest in parts due to its fast paced developments, but suffers from the usual pitfalls like unwanted songs and just far too many conflicts, most of which are not logical , plausible or what’s more believable.

To sum up, one wonders why on earth Deva Katta decided to remake his own old movie released almost a decade ago when he could have easily set out to make a fresh take on his outdated plot which reeks of melodrama and is convoluted to the core with predictable twists and turns

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