Prince Movie Review: Sivakarthikeyan and Anudeep’s madcap flick offers sporadic laughs

Director Anudeep’s Prince is a madcap comedy that relies on silliness. The slapstick comedy worked in some places, but fell flat in others, says our review.

Sivakarthikeyan’s Prince hit the theatrs on October 21 ahead of Diwali.

By Janani K: Sivakarthikeyan started his career as a stand-up comedian and rose to prominence with his witty one-liners. Today, he is a bankable star in the Tamil industry, who has several hit films under his sleeve. When a star like Sivakarthikeyen joins hands with Telugu filmmaker Anudeep, who is known for his slapstick humour, you expect fireworks on screen. Did their film, Prince, offer that?

Anbu (Sivakarthikeyan) is being ostracized by the village for a ‘mistake.’ His father Ulaganathan (Sathyaraj) also agrees with the villagers and gets ready to disown his son. Now comes the flashback. Anbu, who is irregular as a school teacher, goes to school regularly because of a British woman, Jessica (Maria Ryaboshapka). She joins the institution as a teacher. He eventually falls in love with her. While he thinks his father will say yes to their marriage, he says no for a reason. Ulaganathan’s father died in the freedom fight against the Britishers. How will Anbu convince his father and his father-in-law forms the story.

Anudeep’s strength lies in slapstick humour. With the films he has directed, he has established his style of humour which rides on silliness. And Prince is no exception. The film establishes several silly moments and tries to milk humour out of them. Imagine an entire stretch of comedy, just a ‘bottle guard’ that the heroine, Jessica, asks.

Prince, however, offers only sporadic laughs. This madcap film makes you laugh out loud in places but also falls flat on its face several times. Not all one-liners and jokes landed well. The first half of Prince borrowed a lot of the audience’s time to take off. One can handpick moments from the film where the comedy worked. Be it the Anandraj police station scene or the climax stretch about humanity, you see Sivakarthikeyan in full form. Even Sathyaraj is exceptional as the quirky father. Their combination scenes, especially the scene where he’s asked the meaning of Gummuratappura, are funny.

Also, Prince is a self-aware film. The director and the actors make fun of themselves and their previous works and it’s done supportively. That said, the major grouse with Prince are the stretches where the comedy fails to evoke laughs.

Here’s the trailer of Prince:

Sivakarthikeyan is in his prime form as Anbu in Prince. His expressions and one-liners are perfect for the situation. And we can literally see the real Sivakarthikeyan playing to his strength on screen. Sathyaraj, as a veteran, explores comedy to a large extent in this film. Maria did a fair job in her debut performance. The real surprise is Premgi Amaren who played the role of land-grabbing mafia head, Boopathy. The audiences are so used to seeing Premgi Amaren in a fun role and to see him playing a serious (to some extent) was a new experience altogether.

Thaman’s music, especially Bimbiiki Pilapi and Jessica, are picturised well by Manoj Paramahamsa. Extra points for Sivakarthikeyan and Maria’s energetic dance moves.

Prince is a madcap comedy that tries to make the audience laugh throughout its runtime. But, you get only occasional laughs in the latter half.

2 out 5 stars for Prince.