Vivek Oberoi’s ‘Prince’ is every average Joe’s fantasy. Think about it, you have lost your memory, yet you have three of the hottest women on the planet romancing with you. You have lost your memory, yet the high speed thrills and chases never leave you for a moment. You have lost your memory, yet you know you are the only person who can save the world at the moment. If you think, that this is all there is to ‘Prince’, then think again. Welcome to the world of Kookie Gulati, the director of the film, who unleashes a web of high adrenaline and pointless action to thrill you. ‘Prince’ narrates the story of a gutsy con who has just six days to live but before that he has to find the ‘coin’!

What is it about : Vivek Oberoi stars as Prince, a gutsy con who’s involved in few high profile heists. After few days, he loses his memory. When he wakes up, three hot women enter his life and each of them claims to be his girlfriend, Maya. Prince has to find out what had happened to his memory and who the real Maya is. And yes, there are loads of villains, cops, cars, babes in bikinis to drag the film for over two hours. That’s about it!

It’s Showtime : The first ten minutes of the film gives that déjà vu feeling of ‘Matrix’ and every other Hollywood heist film ever made. After a point, these ‘inspirations’ become so blatant that it becomes a painful exercise to even recount the source. The actors, irrespective of their filmography, look dazed and too shocked that they are a part of the film. But then, there’s Vivek Oberoi, Aruna Shields and Nandana Sen who try too hard to act without twitching their facial muscles. Is there a script for this film? Yes, there is one, but it’s irrelevant.

Kookie Gulati, the director of the film, sets most of the film in Durban, South Africa. Naturally, when you have an Rs.40 crore budget, you would make it a point to prove that. ‘Prince’ has more number of aerial shots than ‘Superman’ series, which means people would be on helicopters most of the time. We have a ‘Maya’ swooping down a valley in a glider attached with machine guns. Vivek Oberoi’s dare devil stunts, with a huge dose of visual effects, are too ‘Dark Knight’ish with a tinge of Bollywoodish imagination. After almost 130 minutes of chases and shooting countless bullets, the director of the film wakes up to the end the story with the help of a ‘Bazooka’. Why didn’t anyone think of this half way through the film? That’s a wrong question again.

Despite all the high adrenaline and loud action sequences, the film has crater sized emptiness. There are hardly any conversations in the film and the dialogues are, well, from the 70s. The central conflict of the film about ‘Erasing Memory’ is outrageous to even think about. Drawing parallels between erasing your computer’s hard disk to erasing memory from human brain, the film stoops to extreme absurdity just to infuse more drama and confusion. What’s even funnier is how seriously the actors and actresses treat the whole scene. But then, the film isn’t meant to be taken seriously. They call this “entertainment”. Yes it is if and if only, everyone erased their memory before they step into the cinema halls.

Technical Departments: The background score of the film is so loud that it dominates almost every other emotion in the film and doesn’t it slightly remind us of ‘Pirates of the Carribean’? Sachin Gupta’s music composition especially ‘Tere Liye’ is pleasing on the ears. Vishnu Rao’s cinematography is pretty slick and most of the scenes shot in Durban are quite pleasing to the eyes. Why not? You can’t expect anything less when Neeru Singh and Aruna Shields scorch the screen more than the Durban sun!! Mayur Puri’s dialogues are flimsy and lame most of the times. Nicolas Trembasiewicz’s editing is neat; however it’s not his fault if the first one of the hour of the film turns out to be a bore! Kookie Gulati’s direction skills take a backseat and the film’s more about showcasing Allan Amin’s action choreography. However cheesy the action sequences maybe, they are well composed and they are among the very few things which the film justifies.

Bottomline: Despite all the words written about ‘Prince’, the big question is ‘Would you classify it as a good or a bad film?’ It’s neither of them. Films like these are made or rather packaged to throw your intelligence to disarray. It’s boring and equally great fun. It’s lame yet paisa vasool stuff at the same time. If you ask me, then it’s one of those ‘so bad and dumb that it’s awesome’ films! Now, the ball is in your court to decide if ‘It’s showtime!’ or not. But don’t forget to erase your memory and intelligence before hand otherwise; this ‘Prince’ will rinse your mind.

P.S: If given a chance, you should happily volunteer to get your memory erased with that ‘Coin’, afterall in return you get ‘3 Mayas’ in your life!!! That’s an awesome deal...:-)