Chhatrapati Shasan review: Noble intention, sloppy execution

One can’t deny that director Khushal Mhetre’s Chhatrapati Shasan has noble intentions. Over the decades, Maharashtra has seen several parties and politicians gather votes and build careers using Shivaji's name. Their supporters get overwhelmed by their speeches which then become their sole source of knowledge about the 17th century Marathi king.

As shown in the movie, these supporters never bother to read or carry out any personal research to know Shivaji and his times, preferring to blindly believe their political masters without doubting their intentions.

The opening credits of Chhatrapati Shasan are a visual treat. The life story of Shivaji, from his birth till the end, is presented through sand art. The way one image merges into another is remarkable. This brings back memories of the opening credits of Deool (2011), which had used similar sand art. 

It would have been great to restrict the film to Shivaji’s biopic through the aforementioned sand art because what we are presented with thereafter is just a juvenile attempt at filmmaking. In fact, even a little of the goodness of the opening credits does not carry over into the main film.

Santosh Juvekar’s character Ranjit is the protagonist here, or so it seems. He is the man Friday of a local councillor in a village in Maharashtra. He dresses up like those typical politicians who consider themselves protectors of Shivaji’s name and heritage in modern times.

Hence, in almost every scene inside his house, a bust of the king is a must in the frame. His subordinate always wears T-shirts with an image of Shivaji. The best — read, worst — of all is his little daughter using a sword to cut her birthday cake. Weirdly, the child's birthday party concludes with a raunchy dance number. Would Shivaji have approved, we wonder.

Juvekar does look dashing and also shows some glimpses of his acting ability. However, his character lacks depth. We are not given any information about his background. Nor is it explained how he leads a wealthy, luxurious lifestyle despite being lower than a councillor in the political hierarchy.

The character of Amar, played by Prashant Mohite, gets equal footage. He is a misguided youngster whose only source of information about Shivaji's exploits has been the speeches of various political ‘leaders’.

Amar is brought on the right track by his college principal Dr Samar (Makarand Deshpande). This is the only good bit about the film apart from the opening credits.

However, Amar’s track with the principal is stretched needlessly. Amar's main aim in the film is over-ambitious and amateurish at the same time.

Prashant Mohite is quite talented and one suspects he can be more than a handful if aided by good content and an excellent director. But here all we notice is the massive continuity lapses involving his beard.

Deshpande does not suit role of a college principal at all. In fact, he only revives bad memories of his act in his previous Marathi film, Truckbhar Swapna (2018). In an attempt to be creative, he is shown taking a run in slow motion repeatedly, which becomes unintentionally hilarious.

The film’s storyline is thinner than a wafer. You keep wondering about the film's plot for most of its duration. A few characters just come and go without fulfilling any purpose. Some sort of a conflict is sought to be created before the climax, but it makes hardly any impact.

Perhaps to stretch the film to a little over two hours — which appears to be much longer than two hours, by the way — the screenplay is filled with long passages where nothing much happens. Kishor Kadam, who plays a madman, has a number of loud monologues throughout the film, which soon get on your nerves.

After a while, you realize you can take a loo break every time he starts off on a monologue. When an admirer of Kishor Kadam can feel this way, it speaks volumes about the film.