Beginning with an honest confession, it’s really tough as well as painful to write about a mega film like SAAHO that offers you nothing great or positive, almost nothing at all except some hard worked actions sequences and some grand visuals.
Moreover it’s really hard to write about a reportedly 350 crore film, during which about 7-8 people sitting around me in the theater didn’t return to their seats post the intermission.
So this is not a regular review of a film, as after a few engaging introductory scenes of SAAHO, I personally couldn't be with the proceedings on the screen and found nothing in it to be reviewed in details stating the plusses and the minuses reaching a justified conclusion. Unexpectedly a quite poorly made project, its a film where no emphasis has been given to the writing and all the director has cared for is the looks, the grandeur, the fights, the chases, the exploding cars and the hero ignoring everything else.
To be fair, it has just one interesting twist coming before the intermission that gives you some hope, only be to be completely shattered in the second half and this much too in an awfully long duration of 170+ minutes challenging your logic, love for your icon and the passion for cinema all together.
In short, if necessary then SAAHO can only be seen, in case you don’t mind watching an entirely forced over the top styling, crowded characters, loud action, forgettable villains and an unconvincing hero at the cost of a hiked ticket-price exploiting the viewers as usual.
In fact SAAHO once again made me think that do these makers and exhibitors together strategically increase the price of a biggie, because they very well know it’s a weak project, not worthy of attracting customers in the later days?
In addition, the experience of watching SAAHO also forced to me to question that even after much awareness about the content based cinema widely getting supported on the online platforms……., wasn’t there anyone in the team informing about the pathetic kind of project being conceived at any stage of its making? It’s really hard to believe that even icons like Prabhas didn’t express anything about the amateurish script and scene progression completely relying on action and graphical representations…..and that too at a cost of whooping 350 crores?
To be honest, the most scaring fact about SAAHO is that the makers had the courage, understanding and vision to make this kind of feeble or unbearable project at a budget of 350 crores, when around 12-15 smaller content based films could be made in that amount (with fairly good cast), giving chance to the new talented filmmakers who would have given everything they have got fetching much better results.
No doubt they are expecting SAAHO to reach an astronomical figure in terms of the box office returns, but that expectation itself is again scary, clearly pointing towards the way audience is treated here as mere fools sitting in the theaters ready to accept anything and everything if led by their favourite star.
Anyway, sharing the most hurting minute of SAAHO here, it came when the film ended and two boys sitting in the next row stood up with one of them loudly expressing,
“Yeh South ki filmein saari aisee hi hoti hain!”
That one line frankly gave me so much pain, witnessing the gross ignorance about our own exceptional Indian Cinema being made in the regional languages, which is not able to reach the true movie lovers of our own country due to the willfully accepted flaws of regional discrimination, false notions and reluctance of watching films (other than Hindi) with English subtitles.
Unfortunately these kinds of poorly conceived projects, further fuel the wrong assumptions about our South Films, seriously misguiding the unaware and ignorant viewers.
So doing my duty, I did try to explain and guide the two movie lover friends about the worth watching Indian Cinema made in regional languages while walking out of the theater, but cannot say if I was able to convince them enough in just a couple of minutes.
However would certainly like to share the same important message with all my young (as well as mature) movie lovers reading this write-up in the following words.
“If you are forming any kind of assumptions about Indian films made in the South after watching the latest SAAHO, then would like to alarmingly remind,
that you are not only wrong, but seriously missing the opportunity of watching many of the finest movies made in the country due to your own state of unawareness and ignorance.
So please avoid having such false assumptions and do begin watching the must-watch gems made in our Indian Regional Languages with English subtitles at the earliest, as it will literally be a CRIME missing them all.”
And just forget about SAAHO as its not recommended, to be later seen if you must on Netflix soon.
Rating : 1.5 / 5
Note : Its really strange that the consumer market reduces the prices for their customers at the time of festivals and holiday weekends. But the multiplexes (along with the makers), increase the ticket price at the time of a biggie exploiting their viewers/customers taking them for granted (even in the normal days).
That is exactly the practice BTC has been opposing since many years. To be specific, (clearing the confusion of many), higher ticket prices at multiplexes - is one thing that can still be accepted as per the quality services offered. But increasing the prices every time a big film comes on festivals, holiday weekends and even in normal Fridays is sheer exploitation of the ticket buyers and nothing else.
So as per BTC tradition one star gets deducted from every such film’s ratings due to the timely increased prices taking the viewers for granted.
Net Ratings: 0.5 / 5
