• To dismiss ‘R… Rajkumar’ merely as a throwback to those cheerfully low-IQ 80s potboilers would mean letting off the makers too easily, for this is cinema of the most exhausting kind. The climax alone carries on for over 15 minutes, in which Shahid is repeatedly stabbed, and then whacked around with everything from iron rods to wooden planks. He survives, but you almost don’t.

  • Shubhra Gupta
    Shubhra Gupta
    Indian Express

    0

    I was left asking, why was R.. Rajkumar made? It is nothing but blank putrid noise. R.. for Rubbish. Zero star.

  • `R…Rajkumar’ is a vague attempt to produce a film with a variety of emotions, but sadly you will find no trace of any kind of emotion, not even humour. The filmmaker has failed to make even a single moment where the movie viewer connects to any of the movie characters.

    Watch the film only if you don’t love yourself!

  • Suparna Sharma
    Suparna Sharma
    Deccan Chronicle

    3

    …is stretched, dragged and pulled in all sorts of irrelevant directions just so it covers the remainder time.

    Prabhu Dheva’s films are infantile fantasies that seek to gratify the fragile male ego and libido. Any further analysis of this imbecility would be a waste of time.

  • The film begins pretty well and Shahid entertains in bits but there’s only so much he can do to make this kind of stuff work.

  • From this critic’s point of view, watching this film is like being trapped, for all of two-and-a-half excruciating hours, in a torture chamber with no escape channel in sight.
    It is a dreadfully painful and numbingly grotesque drama that could put one off Bollywood action flicks for a while.

  • Madhureeta Mukherjee
    Madhureeta Mukherjee
    Times Of India

    6

    While ‘R…Rajkumar’ entertains at some levels, it suffers from utter plainness and predictability. The raw action is impressive (Ravi Varma), the songs (Pritam) and the choreography are routine attractions. The second half seems like a sari too long and the comedy is often forced.

    It has some ‘Must Haves’ of a pot-boiler, but misses the real thing – a SOLID STORY!

  • Gaurav Malani
    Gaurav Malani
    Times Of India

    5

    Shahid Kapoor gives his heart and soul to the role, though the converse of it is not true.

  • Why wouldn’t the formula of violence, sex masquerading as romance and low-level humour work, when our audiences have told us that it will? Take that combination and milk it dry without stopping to consider creativity or originality. Rope in an actor who sees a chance to cash in.

  • Watch it if you are in the mood for a loud no-brainer that relies on formulaic over the top entertainment.

  • …a below ordinary, at best Prabhudheva’s most modest work till date. Setting up the usual claptraps with parading dialogues, the film bludgeons you to bits. The fun moments are few and though you might find yourself guffawing in parts, in the end the film is neither cohesive nor compelling and that too without an over enthusiastic lead man that you expect from such films.

    It wasn’t fun and definitely not bang for the buck.

  • The film does not leave you with a single memorable scene despite its loud effort to impress. Prabhu Dheva clearly loses track of his own film early on. The first half is a jumble and the second seems too long.

  • Faheem Ruhani
    Faheem Ruhani
    India Today

    4

    …marks the end of pseudo-desi films

  • Suhani Singh
    Suhani Singh
    India Today

    3

    Everything is heavily choreographed: from the songs to the action sequences. Kapoor demonstrates that he is the best dancer in Bollywood with fluid moves and energy in “Gandi Baat” and “Sari Ke Fall Saa”. But the action soon becomes tiring as there are only that many flying and rolling bodies that you can see. Towards the climax, one feels one is watching a bout of the Ultimate Fighting Championship whose result is long known.

  • Taran Adarsh
    Taran Adarsh
    Bollywood Hungama

    3

    R… RAJKUMAR doesn’t work. It is Prabhu Dheva’s weakest Hindi film to date!

  • Daily Bhaskar
    Daily Bhaskar
    Dainik Bhaskar

    4

    The biggest reason why R…Rajkumar is a big disappointment is that there is no surprise element in the film. One could easily predict the entire plot of the film.

  • Sachin Chatte
    Sachin Chatte
    The Navhind Times

    2

    The choreography and the music are the only non-irritating aspects of the film. As for the acting, they could all have phoned in their part even though Shahid Kapoor shows a little more zest than that.

    Watch it at your own risk.

  • R… RAJKUMAR is like a cocktail of bizarre dance moves with no synchronization of mind and body to the beats. The music is another horror. It pummels your senses and leaves you numb with disbelief. Such cacophony to pass as music is a cruel joke on an industry that once boasted of soulful music and poetic lyrics.

    Shahid’s pet dialogue is ‘this: ‘Silent ho ja varna main violent ho jaunga.”
    It should have been us telling him this!

  • Shahid Kapoor , Sonakshi Sinha and Sonu Sood might have put in sincere performances but for a movie that is so awful, all their effort seems to be in vain. And yes, wish the ‘silent ho jaa nahi toh violent ho jaoonga’ threat was used on the man who scored the relentless, consistently bad and criminally loud background music.

  • …not even close to average. The film is loud, dramatic and over-the-top. I’m going with a generous one and half out of five rating.

  • Clearly, being a great dancer doesn’t automatically turn you into a great filmmaker. And, that’s precisely why dancing star Prabhu fumbles and falters into making any real impression in ‘R…Rajkumar’.

  • The most annoying film of 2013.

    Here’s all you need to know about the story. Hero joins villain’s gang as henchman. Both hero and villain like the same girl. Hero will do anything to save the girl. That’s it.

  • Mansha Rastogi
    Mansha Rastogi
    NowRunning

    3

    …one of the weakest works of Prabhu Dheva and a highly banal and boring action-romance.

  • Neha Pinto
    Neha Pinto
    BookMyShow

    5

    Sometimes I wonder why talented actors like Shahid Kapoor do films like R…Rajkumar. I mean the boy has so much potential! He should be doing better films. And then a little voice in my head whispers: “He does such films, because they make money”.

  • The Prabhu Dheva school of film-making, which includes flying cars, crowd-pleasing dialogues and some loud acting, has worked commercially for him in the past with Wanted and Rowdy Rathore. This time, with R… Rajkumar, the director may have perhaps pushed his luck too far.

    There will be far more worthwhile things to do this weekend than watch R… Rajkumar.

  • Filmmakers like Prabhu Dheva aren’t even trying to make good films. It’s a set formula that benefits average filmmakers and audiences that either don’t like being challenged, or don’t have other options.

    Avoid, unless you’re stuck in a time-warp.

  • Shahid Kapoor does make the most of it though. His comic timing as required for a film of this nature is decent, and he does his best to emote anger, fatigue, worry and the rest too. Unfortunately, the comic lines are either over-writtent to sound way too “filmy” or are inane.

  • Karan Anshuman
    Karan Anshuman
    Mumbai Mirror

    4

    As a businessman, Prabhu Dheva has mastered the formula. But how long will the audience want to watch the same content – the same old fight and dance – repackaged over and over with different actors? Ask yourself.