Review of Shehzada: Remake Kartika Aaryana Nails The Worst & Screws with the Best Parts of Allu Arjun's Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo
Karthik Aaryan's movie skips Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo's worst parts (story, screenplay) and fails to manage his best parts (music, major loot) - Shehzada Movie Review Out!
By Umesh Punwani
February 17, 2023
Shehzada Movie Review Rating:



Star Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Paresh Rawal, Kriti Sanon, Ronit Roy, Manisha Koirala, Sachin Khedekar, Ankur Rathee, Rajpal Yadav, Sunny Hinduja, Ali Asgar

Directed by Rohit Dhawan


Shehzada Movie Review!
Shehzada movie review is out! (Photo credit – Poster by Shehzada)



What's good: Kartik Aaryan's earnest attempt to fill Allu Arjun's big shoes

What's Bad: A lackluster attempt by the makers to fill Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo's mediocre shoes



Loo Break: During any song, any scene that doesn't involve Kartik Aaryan

To watch or not to watch?: Only if you haven't seen the original and that too on OTT on a Sunday you want to waste and do nothing

Language: Hindi

Available on: Premiere in theaters

Length: 145 minutes

User ratings:

After what is probably the weirdest 'baby swap' scene the Indian film industry has ever seen, we are introduced to 'Bachaa Badlu' Valmiki (Paresh Rawal) who has swapped his child with his multi-millionaire employer Jindalls (Ronit Roy) stating: the reason that if not him, his child will lead a luxurious lifestyle.


Bantu's (Kartik Aaryan) destiny is served on a silver spoon to Raj (Ankur Rathee) and one fine day the cat comes out of the bag and serves the chaos that follows. Will the Bantu 'middle class' go down to the Jindall house and ask for his hissy fit? Or will it become a 'hissa' of Jindall Pariwar? Any child of the 90s who grew up on Indian cinema knows the answer to the question.


Shehzada Movie Review
Shehzada Movie Review (Photo – Poster by Shehzada)
Shehzada Movie Review: Screenplay Analysis
Trivikram Srinivas' story remains as mediocre as it was in the original, saved only by the magic of stylish Allu Arjun and blockbuster music. The film begins as a Tik-Tok video and will remain peppered with songs that will also only trend on social media for as long as the attention span of today's reel-to-reel viewer. Rohit Dhawan's screenplay also maintains the same style as Trivikram Srinivas' film.

This one also loses the motif of a character being worshiped throughout, but somewhere it works as an anchor for Allu's Bantu to be much better with charisma. Even the fight sequences are built around somewhat same action choreography that shows the team's lack of research and development. Sanjay Leela Bhansai's favorite Sudeep Chatterjee holds the camera along with Sanjay F. Gupta only to unfortunately copy and paste angles from the original as well.

Shehzada: Star Performance Movie Review
Kartika Aaryan's USP is the sincerity he portrays through his acting since PKP and it is seen in Bantu as well. They try their best to serve what is on the plate and that is not a problem. The problem is with the content he serves from the plate. Kriti Sanon relies entirely on how beautiful she looks as she has nothing else to contribute to the story.

Paresh Rawal does a decent job of being the 'kamina baap' so you will adore him and kill him at the same time. Ronit Roy continues to explore different versions of the father in Bollywood, but this one is meh, not up to par. Watching Manisha Koirala back on the big screen is the only thing you ask from the makers, whatever she does apart from that is a bonus.

Sachin Khedekar as Nana does not speak much. Ankur Rathee does well to be the silly Shehzada of the story, but how silly is too silly? Rajpal Yadav, Sunny Hinduja and Ali Asgar do nothing special in their special appearances.


Shehzada Movie Review
Shehzada Movie Review (Photo – Poster by Shehzada)
Shehzada Movie Review: Direction, Music
I loved Rohit Dhawan's Desi Boyz but I haven't seen Dishoom and I didn't like this one. Apart from being partially blamed for remaking a mediocre story, Rohit adds nothing of value to differentiate it from the original.

Out of everyone in the cast and crew list, I never thought that Pritam would be the weakest link in the film. The music of the original was its strength and this weakens the overall impression of the story.

Shehzada: The Last Word Movie Review
All said and done, Shehzada has honed in on Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo's worst parts (story, screenplay) and failed to handle his best parts (music, major swag), making it a poor attempt at adapting a ho-hum story.