PRINCE ( Vivek Oberoi ) Movie All Reviews.

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Posted: 15 years ago

Anupama Chopra reviews: Prince
(Action)

Anupama Chopra, Consulting Editor, Films, NDTV

Friday, April 09, 2010

Director: Kookie V Gulati

Prince is the funniest Bollywood movie I've seen this year. I laughed so hard that my sides hurt. Only I don't think that's the reaction debutant director Kookie V Gulati was aiming for.

Prince, which apparently cost Rs 50-odd crore to make, is an attempt at a super-slick action thriller. So our hero, Prince played by Vivek Oberoi, is the world's smartest thief just like Hrithik Roshan in Dhoom 2 but only with much, much lesser charm and not one, but three leading ladies, all of whom are equally uninspiring.

Though I should make a special mention here of Nandana Sen wearing tattoos, thick eyeliner and very obvious push-up bras.

One day Prince wakes up with no memory and a bullet wound in his arm. He then has to figure out who he is and how all of this came to pass.

Are you thinking Jason Bourne. Well, Gulati references every Hollywood thriller you've heard of: Prince's arms room where he does R & D on weapons looks straight out of Iron Man; there are snatches of Mission Impossible, Matrix and of course, James Bond movies.

The film and its actors strain hard to achieve cool. Everyone wears a lot of black leather - in fact the villain has an army of sidekicks in black floor-length trench-coats that look very unwieldy in combat.

Of course nobody is cooler than Prince who gets to say: "It's showtime every time he embarks on some superbly dangerous, kick-ass action sequence."

There are lots of slick gadgets including a memory-stealing chip that everyone is chasing, big guns and exploding cars.

Clearly Gulati and action director Allan Amin have worked hard to create high octane stunts. But none of this amounts to much because the script is so brain dead.

Once again the arch-enemy is a man with one silver hand - after Karz and Veer, I think this might be the villain most in fashion.

Dalip Tahil, with shocking white hair plays the head of an Indian Intelligence agency called GRIP.

It's hard to say what's most ridiculous - the plot which has everyone chasing a coin which has the chip or the amount of posturing these actors are indulging in.

At one point we see Prince's memory being extracted.

I thought they might have also extracted Vivek's acting skills because here he is making faces like his life depended on it.

Prince is a priceless experience. I recommend that you rent the DVD and enjoy it with a few good friends.

I'm going with two stars because the film was such a great comedy, unintentional of course.

Taran Adarsh Review

Indiafm.

Hollywood has come up with so many movies on memory loss, while Bollywood too has had its share of films which depicted the protagonist losing his memory, GHAJINI being the most recent example. But what if someone robs your memory? Quite an interesting thought, isn't it?

One of the advantages of having a GenNext director is, he's ready to take risks, ready to tread the untrodden path, ready to go where no one has been before. But there's a disadvantage too: Visuals and technique take precedence, while story takes a backseat. PRINCE has a terrific first half, where technique and content go hand in hand, but technique overpowers the content in its post-interval portions.

What surprises you is that PRINCE is penned by the writer of RACE [Shiraz Ahmed] and like RACE, PRINCE too has several twists and turns every 15 odd minutes. But the twists and turns are a mixed bag here - captivating at times, not captivating at some places. More on that later!

Write your own movie review of Prince

On the brighter side, PRINCE has great stunts and chase sequences [Allan Amin], fantastic visuals [South Africa] and of course, a chartbuster musical score [Sachin Gupta]. And these three factors, coupled with Vivek Oberoi's convincing performance, should take the film to safety!

One of the savviest thieves in the world [Vivek Oberoi] commits the biggest heist of his life. He wakes up next the morning to realize he has a gunshot wound on his arm that he doesn't remember getting. In his quest to find answers, he discovers his name is Prince, he used to work for a man named Sarang and his girlfriend's name is Maya.

He is being hunted by the secret service of India, the CBI and the biggest white collared criminals in the world. He is the most wanted man in the country because only he knows the whereabouts of the heist, which contains a secret that is linked not only to his loss of memory, but threatens the future of the human race.

Every day he meets a new girl claiming to be Maya. He doesn't remember where he has hidden the Heist. He has just dive days of his life. Time is running out...

Although PRINCE stands on a novel premise, flashes of the Dev Anand starrer JEWEL THIEF do cross your mind. PRINCE starts off with a heist and soon after, Vivek realises that his memory has been 'erased'. The mystery only deepens when he meets three different women, all posing as Maya and all having a new story to tell. So far, so good!

But the difficult part is to keep the viewer's interest alive till the finale and that's where PRINCE starts crumbling. The second hour - the entire journey of Prince and the real Maya going on a wild chase to trace the coin and also regain Prince's memory - is exciting in bits and spurts.

The concept of erasing a person's memory and then inserting it back with chips and gizmos sounds wow, but the way it has been projected in the film is ludicrous and far from convincing. Ditto for the climax, when Prince traces the villain to the Afghan-Pakistan border. He does so after he had hidden a device in the villain's shoes, while he was being bashed in the earlier sequence. Also, showing Prince having the same qualities as Spiderman [he can cast a web anytime he's in distress] makes you wonder, is he an ordinary mortal or a super human?

Director Kookie Gulati has an eye for visuals and that's evident from the very start of the film itself. The film looks magnificent and wears an international look as well. Shiraz Ahmed's screenplay is watertight in the first hour, but leaves a lot to be desired in the latter portions. Dialogues [Mayur Puri] are well worded. Cinematography [Vishnu Rao] is top notch and the eye-filling locations are a visual treat. Allan Amin's stunts and chases are mesmeric. Sachin Gupta's musical score is trendy and catchy.

Vivek is super in a rather difficult role. He is excellent in dramatic portions especially and carries off the stunts with remarkable ease. Nandana is effective. Neeru doesn't get much scope. Aruna is the best of the lot. Sanjay Kapoor enacts his part well. Dalip Tahil is alright. Isaiah has screen presence and looks ferocious on screen. Rajesh Khattar is hardly there.

On the whole, PRINCE has great music, super stunts, Vivek Oberoi's bravura performance and terrific promotion as its trump card, but where it falters is in its writing [in its second half mianly]. Yet, all said and done, the film has the merits to strike a chord with the youth and lovers of masala movies.

Edited by maddy1973 - 15 years ago

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Angel39

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Posted: 15 years ago

Mediocre reviews- Waiting to see what the public review is.

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sam

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Posted: 15 years ago

Im going to watch it for VO for sure and looking forward to the action .

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4492

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Posted: 15 years ago

hindustan times guy has a huge issue with Vivek Oberoi

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lalita

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Posted: 15 years ago

Director: Kookie V Gulati
Cast: Vivek Oberoi, Sanjay Kapoor, Dalip Tahil, Isaiah and Nandana Sen
Release Date: 2010-04-09 00:00:00
Quick Take: This Prince makes you wince

Well well, what do we have here? Prince looks like an action extravaganza, with Vivek Oberoi kicking butt like he was a superhero. But in reality this film is nothing more than a cheap hybrid between The Matrix (action wise), Dhoom 2 (since Vivek's character does everything Hrithik does in Dhoom 2) and The Bourne Identity (since Vivek's character loses his memory but retains his mano e mano fighting skills a la Jason Bourne).

Vivek Oberoi is Prince an international con man who steals for a living and protects his identity by working with a company called Wolf International. He's the ultimate thief and that is endorsed even by the hard cop Khan (Sanjay Kapoor). But Prince mysteriously loses his memory after he acquires a coin and misuses its power. His boss Sarang (Isaiah) wants this powerful coin at any cost and so do the Indian authorities masquerading under the acronym IGRIP. And everyone, including three different versions of a woman called Maya, is on Prince's trail each party having its own ulterior motive.

The action is quite frankly impressive. Very Hollywood-esque. And so is the cinematography. The movie looks slick but it seems its entire budget was spent on production and special effects only. The narrative and its development are abysmal. Director Kookie V Gulati has used every trick in the Hollywood spy book especially that of James Bond's book to make Prince look like a believable character. But the story tries too hard to be intelligent and goes off on too many tangents post interval. The CGI fails emphatically in some scenes as Prince, who's flying through the air, looks like a cardboard cut out.

On the positive side, even as the film is defying most logic, the foot tapping music and insane stunts keep you entertained. And Vivek Oberoi can be commended on a decent performance but it's simply not good enough. If only, this masala movie was made with a bigger star and a better director.

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lalita

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Posted: 15 years ago

https://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1217671

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Zareena

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Posted: 15 years ago

Originally posted by: laly
https://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1217671

She is the worst critic!

Coming back to the audience response, they're appreciating actions and Viveik performance. Only few could not connect with the movie. Hope movie would become a hit, viveik needs a hit and that too on his own.