…the film feels somewhat dated. Here a rape-and-murder, there a club dancer shimmying; here a Haji Ali song sequence, there a funeral-dressed-in-white-kurta-pajamas. Of the ensemble, in which Panday gets to wear a bad wig and vamp it up most enjoyably, Ali Fazal is the most impressive: as the young ‘waaris’ of his father’s legacy, and someone who has a head on his shoulders, Fazal holds this thing together.

The style of the film veers from domestic soap opera to dramatic crime and action stitched together by political drama. Structured like a Shakespearean tragedy, Prassthanam is built on countless conflicts, awash with textbook characters and dated in its story-telling.