Prince : Its Showtime

Rating : 3/10
Release Date : 9th April, 2010
Time : 137 minutes
Director : Kookie V Gulati; Writer : Shiraz Ahmed; Music : Sachin Gupta
Starring : Vivek Oberoi, Nandana Sen, Aruna Shields, Neeru Singh, Isaiah, Dalip Tahil, Sanjay Kapoor, Mayur Puri

I’ve seen mosquito nets with fewer holes than the script here. The characters are insipid, including a heroine with a severe lip synch problem, a villain with a snarl and a prosthetic arm and CBI agents who seem to be brain dead. I wanted to say that this film is juvenile, made for fifteen year olds, but then I realized I knew a few very smart early teen kids.

Its all about a thief, Prince, supposedly the world’s coolest & most professional (their words, not mine) and a coin which contains a memory chip that can scan / transfer / store a persons memory. Prince’s memory has been erased, so he now has no recollection of anything (shouldn't this make him like a baby, with even no motor skills ?). There is, however, a succession of women who claim to be his girlfriend, Maya. And a succession of people who want the coin. Which he doesn’t remember where he kept.


More than the chip, I would like the bullet repellent that Prince seems to possess. His Plan A for the opening heist involved him going in to the toilet, in disguise, in a very heavily guarded facility, coming out as another person yet no closed circuit camera picking that up. Plan B involved him running 50 metres in the open with many security guards firing at him but of course, jaako raakhe saaiyan maar sake na koi. Even later, people keep shooting at him with fancy automatic weapons, while he runs or motorbikes in the open yet none strikes him. When one finally does sneak through , he gets thrown backwards about 50 metres…backwards, not forward…Actually, all this wouldn’t matter, as logic takes a backseat even in Bond movies, but then it begs a tight, witty script or a charming, lovable central lead.


We get Vivek Oberoi. Who seems to equate facial contortions to acting. Who inspires as much empathy as the 7th robot in the 9th row in I-Robot. And mouths lines like ‘I’m in. Its time to win’ or ‘Its showtime’…

Someone seems to have forgotten that all the stunts, exploding cars, skimpily clad women and the black leather threads amount to nothing if there isn’t a cohesive story or charming lead to hold it all together…In Race, we felt for Saif. Here we feel for no one. This missile is very badly misdirected…