Samrat Prithviraj movie review: Akshay Kumar plays a heroic, righteous, compassionate, and feminist king. In one of his most underwhelming and uninspired performances.
Samrat Prithviraj’s opening disclaimer—which appears directly after the CBFC certificate with ‘Samrat’ carved in handwritten words from a ballpoint pen above the typewriter-typed ‘Prithviraj’—assures its audience that the film does not ‘glorify’ the terrible, antiquated traditions of Sati and Jauhar. I’m wondering whether they neglected to complete that phrase with a wink emoji. Personally, I can’t think of a better way to promote mass suicides than with a song-and-dance routine depicting ladies about to leap into a roaring fire pit.
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Samrat Prithviraj Based on True Stroy: Based on Prithviraj Raso, the movie tells the story of King Prithviraj Chauhan, who fought Muhammad Ghori to protect his pride and land from foreign invasion and captivity.
The best way to tell an interesting story is to set the tone right from the start. And what could be better than a dramatic action scene for a story about a righteous warrior king, Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan (Akshay Kumar), and his fight to keep Muhammad Ghori of Ghazni (Manav Vij) from taking over his pride, his people, and his land? After that, the story goes into the king’s life as a person and what made him decide to really fight Ghori on the battlefield.
The battle scenes in the movie are high-end and stylish, but they would work better in a Baahubali movie than in a story about real historical people. Arrows are shot in every direction, and Prithviraj dodges a spear in the air like Neo. Even though 24,000 men are killed, there isn’t a single pool of blood on the battlefield. In another movie, I might have been impressed by the camera angles, the dusty-beige look of the scenes, and the smooth action, but medieval battles are supposed to be more bloody, horrible, and cruel than the stunning John Wick style.
But after the break, the woman-power subplot gets less attention than it should have. It takes a moment away from the main plot of the movie. Also, none of the characters speak with a specific leheza or accent, which is both good and bad in some ways. It’s good because it’s easier for most people to understand, but it’s bad because it doesn’t sound as real as it could.
Even though Samrat Prithviraj has a big scope, it doesn’t get too fancy, which is something we’ve come to expect from movies in the same genre over the years. The set design and costumes work together to make that happen. Even though the topic is complicated and has many layers, it has been simplified so that the audience can understand and be interested in it.
Shankar Ehsaan Loy wrote all the songs on the album, but none of them really stick with you. The title song plays a few times in the movie, which can be a little strange. If the honeymoon song sequence and the last song-and-dance sequence weren’t in the movie, there might have been more room and time for scenes of war, action, and drama. There are a few scenes that look great, but the VFX could have been used better.
In terms of his performance, it’s clear that Akshay Kumar worked hard to get inside this historical character. He carries the huge responsibility of being a king with grace and dignity. Sonu Sood and Sanjay Dutt give the story a lot of weight with their roles as Chand Vardai and Kaka Kanha, respectively. In fact, Sanjay’s humor breaks up the serious tone of the movie at different points. Sonu’s character as a loyalist to the king to the end stands out because he has a lot of “thehrav” and maturity. In this movie, Manushi Chhillar, who won the Miss World contest in 2017, makes a strong and good first impression. In a movie about a warrior king and the way battles worked back then, she holds her own and gives a performance that shows she is the whole package.
On the other hand, senior actors like Manoj Joshi, Ashutosh Rana, and Sakshi Tanwar have had very small roles and have not been used to their full potential. It would have helped the story a lot if there had been a little more drama with these actors and the main characters of the story.
Overall, Samrat Prithviraj is a good family drama with good acting and good direction. It’s not as fancy as some other historical dramas, but it has enough to keep you interested and take you back to the pages of our glorious past.
Samrat Prithviraj is based on the poem Prithviraj Raso by the king’s loyal servant Chand Bardai, who is played in the movie by Sonu Sood. The movie often goes over into panegyric and bhajan territory, making it hard to believe that it is about a brave but still “human” king. Nothing makes a person seem farther away than a man who is already a god.
