Radhe Shyam Review - A Box Full Of Surprises!

Ashwin Ram

Radhe Shyam is a period love story set in 1970s. Directed by one film old Radha Krishna Kumar. The film stars Prabhas and Pooja Hegde in the lead roles. Music is scored by Justin Prabhakaran, while the background score is done by Thaman. Camera is held by Manoj Paramahamsa.

Premise

Prabhas is a palmist and he strongly believes he cannot have a serious romantic relationship with anyone, as he doesn’t have love lines in his palm. In this situation, he meets Pooja Hegde and desires 'flirtationship' with her. Eventually, they both fall in love but Prabhas’ believes in his fate stops him from accepting his real interest over her. The war between love and destiny forms the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction

The writing of the film is unexpectedly topical. Each and every scene has at least one refreshing moment that connects very well and moves the story forward. Because of this, the flow of the film holds steady without boring us much. The progression takes time to reach the peak point of the conflict, but some clap-worthy coincidental elements help to construct the structure naturally. The film carries an interesting play with its core, which is palm science. Importantly, the director manages to make the viewers trust in the astrology concept which makes the characters and their situations in the movie more relatable. Appreciable directorial skills as certain shot compositions were aesthetic and there is a level of maturity in handling this challenging flick. The film engages decently in its first half with some well-penned conceptual ideas, there was a drawback that only the moments impress but not as whole scenes, there arrived the terrific interval sequence with heavy emotion. Alongside, the touching break-point scene gave hope to the second half. And, the latter is better as the knots started to untie in a likeable fashion. Also, thankfully the second half didn’t end up having just quality moments but some neatly presented scenes. The emotional packaging is done well too, in addition to the drama happening between the lead pair, a character appearing just for two scenes takes away claps and leaves the eyes with tears. The period timeline setting suits the base idea, but on the downside it wasn’t really necessary for the film to be as grand as they’ve intended it to be. A simplified vision would have hardly made any impact on the output as the takeaway is not its grandeur. In fact, the major pre-climax ship sequence thought on a large scale is the weakest portion of the film. They could’ve really done something easier to convey what they tried in that particular situation. However, the climax got back on track and offered to put on a happy smile.

Performances

Pooja Hegde is truly the show-stealer. She improvises as her character flows and has delivered a wonderful performance. Her expressions are so cute in the romantic portions and she also scores big in the crucial emotional places. Sathyaraj as a visually disabled palm expert fits his role of the hero’s Guru correctly. Certain unknown artists have better importance and they make a solid mark in the film. But unfortunately, the known faces who’ve played supporting roles aren’t of great use to the subject, Sachin Khedekar and Jayaram to an extent, but the others have been out rightly wasted. Jagapathi Babu’s cameo is irrelevant to the main content. Saving the worst for the last, casting Prabhas in this flick is a complete misfire and honestly the only biggest disadvantage of the film. He was tailor-made for Baahubali. But his body language, clean-shave look made his presence odd.

Technicalities

The subject has rightly served Justin Prabhakaran’s hunger. He’s known for delivering sweet melodies and all his three songs are lovely and sets the pleasant mood perfectly. Thaman has been providing some sensational background scores of late for masala flicks and he proves himself to be worthy by giving soulful music to this romantic flick. The elevations were several notches higher through his work. Manoj Paramahamsa’s cinematography is top-notch, the visual presentation of the film is absolutely beautiful. Felt like he has improvised the director’s vision with his unique creativity and style. Usually, these big ventures have a huge runtime close to three hours but thankfully this film runs for 140 minutes and provides the engagement. Apparently, 10 minutes of the movie was trimmed after the initial censorship. I wish the two Jagapathi Babu’s scenes were chopped-off too. Not that his portions were bad, but they weren’t needed for the script. Keeping aside the necessity factor, hats-off to the production design team for trying to give an epic product. VFX is a mixed bag, a few places were convincing but some were terrible. The pre-climax ship sequence was a letdown majorly due to the CG work.

Verdict

Radhe Shyam is much more than just a visually rich romantic flick. Superlative writing at regular intervals keeps the curiosity alive and kicking for almost the entire film. Despite Prabhas being a spoilsport, the drama and emotions connect well.

Rating - 3/ 5