Radha Krishna Kumar’s
Radhe Shyam
, starring
Prabhas and
Pooja Hegde in the lead roles, hit screens amid high expectations today.
The film tells the story of Vikram Aditya (Prabhas), a world-renowned palmist who doesn’t believe he’s destined for love. Despite trying hard not to, he falls for Dr Prerna (Pooja Hegde), a beautiful medico. While he predicts a long and bright future for her, it seems like destiny has something else in store.
After a fantasy film like Baahubali and an action film like Saaho, Prabhas returns to
romance
, with this film marking his first pan-Indian film in the genre. Shot in Telugu and Hindi, the film is also dubbed into other South Indian languages. While the film’s team seemed confident about the film’s outcome before its release, reality is that Radhe Shyam is a film that had scope to be something much better.
Radhe Shyam is a
period
romance set in Europe in 1970s is driven by the grandeur when it comes to the visuals and production design from the first frame. The stunning locales of Europe in the vintage era keep you hooked for a while but the film’s flaws soon come to the forefront.
The film suffers from the lack of a tight screenplay in the first half of the film even if the director ensures that the romance between the lead pair stays on a high note. The scene where Vikramaditya meets Prerna looks good but lacks gravitas. It is unfair to expect high-octane action sequences in an intense love story so the film takes its own sweet time to get into the groove.
Prabhas pulls off his role well as the palmist fighting destiny. Pooja looks picture-perfect, especially when she’s filmed in picturesque locations. The last half an hour of the film makes one forget the dull moments and lazy editing, but is that enough?