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Yudhra

Farhad Dalal Founder
By-
Farhad Dalal
Rating
1 Star popcorn reviewss

Introduction

Excel Entertainment has fast turned out to be a production house of two extremes. Either the script that they greenlight is excellent and ground-breaking, or it is such a dud that you wonder on how this dogsh*t is approved in yhe first place. And the new Hindi film Yudhra falls in the latter category. What seemed to be a stylized action entertainer from its trailer, turned out to be one of the worst films that I have witnessed this year. Picture this – you have the two main leads (Yudhra and Nikhat) who are shown to be madly in love get together in a foreign land wherein the protagonist Yudhra reveals a rather disturbing and unfortunate incident involving Nikhat’s father. And instead of a theme of sorrow engulfing the narrative, they just randomly break into a steamy number in the very next scene almost as if they didn’t care for tge Good Lord about a character that was seemingly important! In a separate scene, you see Yudhra smearing his face with ashes from coal, and beating himself up with a sewing machine and stabbing himself with a pair of scissors in order to imitate his ‘fate’ from a rival gang in jail. This before unleashing his fury. The scene was unintentionally funny and rather weird – why would you inflict wounds in order to look badass. The variations of looking to be a badass don’t end there – you see him growling and grunting too, almost as if he is constipated. Such is the stupidity of the proceedings that made me want to punch myself in the face, just like Yudhra, in order to be spared of watching the film!

Story & Screenplay

The premise of Yudhra is an amalgamation of various subplots from various films that you have seen. If you don’t believe me, observe this pattern – a young protagonist having anger management issues (Animal) grows up to be a biker while racing on the streets of Mumbai (Dhoom) only to be sent to a Cadet academy by his foster parent in order to help him find his goal in life (Lakshya). Further, the turn of events land him up in jail wherein he is coaxed into going undercover to expose a drug syndicate (Don), only for him to turn into a full beast at the end (John Wick, oh ho Hollywood also). And in between, I have skipped a few movies to avoid any ‘spoilers’, just in case you are interested. Clearly, the script here is a joke in itself that had no head or tail to it. In fact, its screenplay standing at a whopping runtime of 140 odd minutes resembles a headless chicken that runs in any direction without any purpose at all.

At a point in Yudhra, after the initial character setup of the protagonist being a loose canon while growing up, I wondered on why there was this entire episode of him being enrolled in a Cadet academy, and also falling in love with his childhood sweetheart. The answer of the same lay in its second half wherein the protagonist randomly becomes a sharp-shooter (wait, part of the first half too) while the genre of the film changes from a thriller to a romantic-action entertainer. My only question was why? This was one of the major problems of the film given that it did not even remotely wish to stick to its original theme (if ever there was one in the first place), while completely going at a tangent that was unintentionally funny and woefully infuriating. Time and again, the writing was out there to prove on how silly could it actually be, with every scene pushing the drama further into the black hole of stupidity.

I also wished to talk about the different kind of combats and deaths that were included in the drama. In a scene, you see Yudhra literally stitching up a man’s hands so as to represent a folded ‘Namaste’ (something like this 🙏). Imagine this scene being a turning point of sorts in the overall scheme of things. Well guess what, it was absolutely NOT while being staged in a manner that had me chuckling with laughter which really wasn’t the intended emotion of the scene. Elsewhere, Yudhra kills a nameless character with a Lollypop (and I am not even joking here) by inserting its stick in the ears and neck of the concerned individual. Slow claps if the makers thought this was ‘badass’ and not funny. In another scene, a character is killed off with a flute pierced in its neck that plays a sound before he dies off. And I happened to let out a hearty laugh right there!

One of the reasons why the film doesn’t work here despite the fluff is because it chooses to take itself seriously. At no point did I get a feeling that the writers were self-aware of this mess that was being created. They probably were always under the impression that the film was a chaotic action entertainer for the masses. As a result, every cinematic liberty in the world is taken as the characters jump across locations, while even returning after being shot and falling in water (because khoon paani mein jam jaata hai, RIP Science). The twists and turns are just so random and predictable that they would give Race 3 a run for the money. And one of the penultimate scenes includes a character dying after being electrocuted by another character, but someone the other character still is in the firing line and gets shot. Talk about being a dimwit of the highest order which is where I knew that there was no stopping this film from being completely silly. The screenplay literally made me slap myself for going through his torture.

Dialogues, Music & Direction

The dialogues are designed to be massy but delivered so poorly that none of the lines make even an iota of an impact. The music comprises of songs that appear randomly in the narrative that makes no sense at all. In a sequence, you also are witness to Raghav Juyal breaking into a dance to showcase his jealousy. I mean dude WTF! The BGM is generic and nothing much to shout about. The only two aspects of the drama that actually shine are the cinematography and to an extent the action choreography that works in a few places. The frames coupled with the lighting are pretty good and compliment the desired tone of the drama very well with changing colour palates that exhibit the inner anger of the protagonist. But I really did wish that the screenplay complimented the same. The editing is all over the place and further fragments the already fragmented drama. Director Ravi Udyawar who had previous made the terrific Hindi film Mom, is completely off-colour here. The direction is all over the place and never focused on a single theme that would last to the end. And to stage sequences that are unintentionally funny as opposed to the intended emotions being completely different, is a criminal offence in my books. The direction is horrible here and just not upto the mark.

Performances

The performances are such a mixed bag here by a group of talented actors. Talented actors like Gajraj Rao, Ram Kapoor and Shilpa Shukla are reduced to such caricatures that it absolutely infuriated me. Raghav Juyal as Shafique is actually good here but he barely is given a screentime of 20 minutes that does nothing to his incredible talent. Raj Arjun as Feroz is the main antagonist who is given a solid appearance but is laced with such a brutal stereotype wherein you see him butchering a man in his introductory scene. That just doesn’t make him intimidating but instead a laughable figure that tries too hard to scare the daylights out of you. Malavika Mohanan as Nikhat is at the other end of the spectrum as far as her performance is concerned, given how she delivered a career best performance in the Tamil film Thangalaan. She often goes overboard with her emotions while having zero chemistry with Siddhanth that really didn’t help the film’s cause here. Siddhant Chaturvedi is a fine actor and to be launched by Excel Entertainment in such a manner would make many actors envious. Unfortunately, the mass genre is just not for him. His dialogue delivery is so flat and generic that it doesn’t spice up the larger than life dialogues here. I mean imagine these lines being given to Salman Khan or even Shahrukh Khan, they would have brought the roof of the theatre down. I really hope Siddhant bounces from this dud soon because this was such a massive opportunity lost which would have established his stardom while elevating his status as an actor. Unfortunately, this performance has lowered the stature as an actor (and my heart pains to write this given how much I want him to succeed).

Conclusion

Yudhra is a MASTERPIECE…………of a bad film packaged in a senseless screenplay that resembles a headless chicken. By the end of the film, I was contaminated by its sheer silliness to the point of no return. This is perhaps one of the worst films that I have watched all year that sums up the horrid time that I had while witnessing this unintentionally funny actioner. Available in a theatre near you.

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