When a film stars someone as massive as Prabhas, expectations shoot through the roof. Add a genre mix of fantasy, horror, comedy, and a promise of a royal story — you naturally expect a rollercoaster ride. But The Raja Saab, directed by Maruthi Dasari, feels more like a broken merry-go-round that keeps spinning in circles without going anywhere meaningful.
🎬 Plot Summary: A Royal Mess
The story follows a young royal heir who embraces his kingly legacy while trying to break old traditions with his rebellious nature. Sounds promising, right?
But the plot quickly turns into a chaotic mess. The fantasy elements feel borrowed, the supernatural horror is laughably weak, and the comedy doesn’t even try. Somewhere in between, the film wants to talk about love, power, betrayal, and magic — but ends up saying nothing at all. There’s even a grandmother subplot that’s bizarre enough to leave you confused rather than emotional.
It’s like watching someone try to cook five dishes at once and burn them all.
🎭 Performances: A Star Cast Wasted
⭐ Prabhas as Raja Saab
Prabhas gives it his all, but the script just doesn’t support him. His grand entrance, usually a crowd-puller, is oddly dull. He looks uncomfortable, almost like he knows this film isn’t working but is trying to hold it together.
⭐ The Female Leads
There are three female leads — Nidhhi Agerwal, Malavika Mohanan, and Riddhi Kumar — but none of them have anything meaningful to do. They’re reduced to glamorous visuals with no real character arcs or purpose in the story. It’s disappointing, especially in a movie that could’ve used strong emotional grounding.
⭐ Supporting Cast
Sanjay Dutt, Brahmanandam, Yogi Babu, and Zarina Wahab are part of the supporting team. Zarina Wahab gives a grounded performance, but the others either overact or fade into the background. Boman Irani’s cameo? Blink and you miss it.
🎥 Direction & Screenplay: A Throwback to the Worst of the 2000s
Director Maruthi Dasari seems stuck in an outdated style. The story tries to blend fantasy horror tropes with mass masala comedy, but nothing clicks. Scenes stretch endlessly without purpose. Dialogues are cringe-worthy, and the screenplay feels like it was patched together in a hurry.
There’s no real emotion. No suspense. No humor. Just a lot of cinematic noise.
🌠 Visuals & Technical Aspects: Gloss Without Soul
The film tries to look grand, and to some extent, it does. The cinematography has its moments, and the sets look expensive.
But the visual effects (VFX) are shockingly poor for a big-budget film. At times, they look like filters from a mobile app. The background score is too loud and doesn’t match the mood of most scenes. It often distracts more than it helps.
Even editing feels rushed, as if the makers were in a hurry to release the film regardless of its quality.
👍 What Worked
- High production value
- Prabhas trying his best despite a weak script
- Zarina Wahab’s calm and sincere performance
👎 What Didn’t Work
- Poor screenplay with no emotional depth
- Overuse of glamour and lack of strong female characters
- Weak horror and forced comedy
- Badly staged action scenes
- Loud and mismatched background music
- Terrible visual effects for a fantasy movie
- Hindi dubbing is completely off-sync and jarring
🗣️ Audience Reactions & Social Buzz
The online buzz has been mostly negative. Fans of Prabhas expected another blockbuster, but instead, many are calling this one of his weakest films in recent memory — second only to Adipurush.
Viewers complained about the 3-hour runtime, overacting, poor VFX, and a storyline that made little sense. Even die-hard fans are finding it hard to defend.
❓ Should You Watch It?
Unless you’re a hardcore Prabhas fan who watches everything he stars in, this one’s an easy skip. It’s not scary, it’s not funny, and it’s not even entertaining. At best, it’s an expensive-looking fantasy tale that forgot to add a soul.
If you value your weekend plans, skip The Raja Saab and maybe rewatch something like Baahubali or Salaar instead.
🧾 Final Verdict: 1.5/5 ⭐
The Raja Saab is a textbook example of how not to mix genres. With a confusing script, outdated direction, and underwhelming performances, it wastes the potential of its leading man and the big budget it clearly had.
In the end, it tries to be too many things — fantasy epic, horror flick, romantic drama, mass entertainer — and fails at all of them.
Watch it only if you want to test your patience.
