The Rajasaab

The Noise of the House

I'm wiped out. Honestly, there's a particular exhaustion that hits when a movie spends three hours straight throwing everything at the wall, seemingly terrified you'll blink for a second. Maruthi Dasari’s *The Rajasaab* is that exact brand of chaos—a massive 186-minute blend of horror, comedy, and fantasy that tries to be a lighthearted comeback for Prabhas, but instead gets crushed by its own messy scale.

Prabhas was clearly tired of the stoic, heavy-lifting roles in *Baahubali* and *Kalki 2898 AD* and apparently just wanted a simple, fun comedy for a change. You can still spot traces of that original idea hidden in the Raja Deluxe theatre setting, but somewhere along the way, the lighthearted vibe just mutated. It grew into this overblown, VFX-heavy spectacle that leaves the cast with almost no room to actually act.



How does the movie actually function? Well, the setup is pretty standard: a selfish heir shows up to claim an old family property and runs straight into an ancient curse. Had they played it for laughs, it might have been a nice little distraction. But Maruthi treats every scene like it's the grand finale. Thaman S’s score doesn't just support the scenes; it attacks them. A critic at 123Telugu put it best: 'loudness is repeatedly mistaken for impact,' which is painfully clear in those frantic Sanjay Dutt flashbacks.

Sanjay Dutt looks rough and brings a real sense of threat, providing some much-needed weight to the story. The problem is the camera never just lets him *be*. Instead, we’re hit with spinning drone shots, garish colors, and cuts so fast they seem like mistakes. Then Boman Irani suddenly appears as Dr. Padmabhushan, dragging in a thick subplot about hypnosis. For a brief ten minutes, the film actually catches its breath. Characters just sit and talk, and you can practically hear the theater exhale in relief.



That peace is short-lived, though. Malavika Mohanan and Nidhhi Agerwal are mostly just shuffled in and out to trigger jarring song-and-dance numbers. It's genuinely annoying. Maruthi tries to justify the structural mess by saying the 'psychological layers' need a second viewing to understand, but I'm not buying it. You can't fix a broken script by pretending it's just complex—that's a tired trick. The Week’s review nailed the tonal mess, joking that the director felt like a teenager who’d spent way too much time scrolling through Instagram reels.



Still, we have Prabhas. Even when he's lost in bad VFX and a script that yanks him from silly comedy to heavy drama in seconds, his charisma still manages to save a few scenes. Take that hospital sequence in the second half—his physical presence softens, the smirk goes away, and he shows a real, surprising vulnerability. It’s a quick reminder of his star power. Whether *The Rajasaab* is some deep psychological experiment or just a loud, bloated mess depends on how much noise you can stand. I didn't leave the theater feeling entertained; I just felt like I needed a long nap.