The RajaSaab Movie Review: Prabhas Stumbles in This Abysmal Horror Comedy

I usually do not make New Year resolutions. But 2026 has compelled me to make one, and the trigger is Telugu cinema's first major release of the year, The RajaSaab. Dear Universal Being - whoever you are - please grant me the confidence of director Maruthi, who publicly challenged viewers to send brickbats to his address if they disliked his film.

Whether that address is accurate or not is beside the point. What truly deserves admiration is that unshakeable self-belief - especially when what one has delivered is a spectacularly mediocre film that is destined to become social media fodder, first during its theatrical run and then all over again after its OTT release. Most unfortunately, the collateral damage here is Prabhas, no longer merely the Rebel Star or Darling, but ceremonially crowned as India’s biggest superstar. If you thought Adipurush was embarrassing, this one insists you recalibrate your threshold.

The RajaSaab follows Raju (Prabhas), a happy-go-lucky “young” man - quotation marks necessary, given the visual evidence - who lives with his grandmother Gangamma (Zarina Wahab), an Alzheimer’s patient obsessed with memories of royal lineage and a long-lost husband, Kanakaraju (Sanjay Dutt). According to her fragmented recollections, Kanakaraju disappeared while chasing a treacherous courtier, Ganagaraju (Samuthirakani), and never returned.

When Raju stumbles upon proof that his grandfather might still be alive, he sets out on a quest largely to fulfil his grandmother’s emotional needs. Naturally, this noble intent keeps getting interrupted by two heroines (Malavika Mohanan and Nidhhi Agerwal) and a cousin (Riddhi Kumar) with incestuous feels, completing a trifecta of attractive women orbiting a hero.

After far too many songs and action detours, Raju finally remembers the purpose of his journey, leading him to a decrepit mansion hidden deep in a forest - an obvious gateway to the film’s promised supernatural arc. This is where he confronts his grandfather, now revealed to be nothing like the moral paragon of his grandmother’s memories.

There is a scene involving Bessy (Agerwal), a prospective nun, who glances at Raju’s photograph and immediately looks up at a stained-glass portrait of Jesus Christ. One is tempted to read this as a self-aware jab at the trolling Prabhas faced during Adipurush, when one of his Lord Ram looks was compared to Jesus. But given the film’s overall lack of coherence, crediting Maruthi with such meta-awareness feels generous. If that awareness truly existed, the more pressing question would be why it did not extend to recognising how flawed his own film is.

Marketed as a horror-comedy-romantic-action entertainer, The RajaSaab collapses under the weight of its own genre ambitions. The horror elements rely on dim lighting and aggressively intrusive on-your-face VFX, as if the film forgot it is not in 3-D. If these visuals scare you, then blame your parents for taking you to this film before your third birthday.

Comedy fares no better. Humour may be subjective, but what unfolds here the film being blissfully unaware that franchises like Kanchana and Aranmanai already exhausted this business of loud comedy and annoying side characters within a horror template - without carrying a multi-hundred-crore price tag.

Romance is treated as obligation rather than emotion. Prabhas slips back into the archetypal Telugu hero mould, flitting between women who appear less like characters and more like glamour punctuation marks. There is no genuine chemistry with any of them. In fact, the only consistent rapport the actor shares is with the camera - perhaps explaining the repeated slow-motion walks and conspicuous mundu-lifting flourishes. The women exist largely as ornamental distractions, despite fleeting pretences that Malavika Mohanan’s role might matter.

Action, meanwhile, borders on self-parody. Once upon a time, Rajinikanth jokes thrived on exaggeration. Now, that exaggeration has become industry standard. A particularly audacious stunt has Prabhas leaping almost horizontally from a terrace to a Dahi Handi suspended mid-air - an image that deserves its own revival of those old joke circuits. Much of the remaining action depends heavily on slow motion or nimble face-swapped body doubles, whose agility also appears to spill over suspiciously into the dance sequences.

As an entertainer, the film falters early. The first half is interminable, clogged with repetitive comedy, romance, and action that keep postponing what could have been the most compelling thread - the supernatural mystery. The intent is clearly to resurrect Prabhas’s mass-hero persona, but one wonders when this strategy last worked convincingly for any of his contemporaries for him to return to this template.

Even when the horror track finally takes centre stage, The RajaSaab never asserts control. Editing is sloppy, with scenes awkwardly stitched together. The tonal inconsistency is relentless - tense moments are immediately undercut by forced humour, ensuring neither the drama nor the horror ever lands. Ironically, there are more scenes of the hero flirting than of Sanjay Dutt’s spectral presence terrorising anyone. Dutt’s participation feels less like creative conviction and more like a misguided attempt to ensure his home production The Bhootnii does not stand alone at the bottom of the horror-comedy barrel.

The film drags relentlessly, even briefly roping in Boman Irani only to discard him with startling abruptness. There is a stretch that seems inspired by 1408, with illusions blurring reality. On paper, it is a promising idea. On screen, it devolves into hammy performances, erratic editing, and severe tonal confusion.

The finale throws its entire VFX budget at the screen - Prabhas battling a fake crocodile, followed by a gargantuan, smoky manifestation of Sanjay Dutt - in a last-ditch attempt to inject excitement. Instead, it induces drowsiness.

The RajaSaab Movie Review - Should You Watch It Or Not?

The RajaSaab is a film driven by misplaced confidence, tonal confusion, and a stubborn refusal to recognise its own limitations. It is an exhausting showcase of excess - excessive length, excessive indulgence in star worship, and excessive reliance on spectacle to compensate for weak writing and direction. And if you think the director was (over)confident in his speeches, the movie also ends with the promise of a sequel where Prabhas would be seen in a joker getup. Perhaps that's the horror part the movie promised us. If that's the case, good job!