![]() ![]() ![]() Barjatya has a sly, winning way of mixing mythology with modernity: the Prince’s horse-drawn carriage arrives with Forbes magazine in its reading rack, while there are nods to everything from the Ram-Leela legend to Game of Thrones via Roman Holiday. Perhaps inevitably, a princely stick-on moustache goes astray as Prem beds into his new role, and his good-natured yammering causes consternation for uptight courtier Diwan (a terrific Anupam Kher, scattering notes of worryworn humanity like rose petals). These tunics and saris give the lavish fabrics of Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella a run for their money the shimmering Palace of Mirrors – constructed, in defiance of all known health-and-safety guidelines, atop a waterfall – makes much of Spectre look like something on offer in Poundland. ![]() Writer-director Sooraj R Barjatya has apparently spent the nine years since his last feature finessing this coherent, pleasurable screenplay, while saving a decade’s worth of budgets to blow in one go here. If the plot’s familiar, no imagination or expense has been spared in mapping the kingdom it winds through. After an assassination attempt incapacitates him, the court turns to the one individual who resembles the prince to ensure the match proceeds as anticipated: this is Prem (Khan again), a prancing flibbertigibbet with a modicum of acting form from his days in a theatre troupe. Old Salman is represented in the personage of Vijay Singh – not the golfer, but a brooding, moustachioed prince with forearms like bedside cabinets, set for an expedient yet loveless marriage with aid worker Maithili (Sonam Kapoor).
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