No, we’re no great fans of Vivek Oberoi.

Nor for that matter fans of any of Ash’s male friends, past (Vivek or Salman) or present (Abhishek).

But Prince is not total crap like Akshay Kumar’s De Dana Dan or Kambhakkht Ishq.

Au contraire, think of  Prince as the Desi Bourne Gaand Identity, albeit a lengthy, unedited one (2-hrs 15-mts).

Low Expectations
After being repeatedly subjected to the Akshay Kumar brand of Bollywood garbage on the screen, these days we are happy if a Hindi movie doesn’t turn out to be total trash.

Call it the Bollywood Law of Low Expectations.

That’s the only way to maintain your sanity after sitting through these nonsensical films.

Action+Weird Story
Prince (directed by Kookie V Gulati with the story and screenplay by Shiraz Ahmed) is an action movie with a weird story underpinning it.

That kinda makes for an ‘interesting’ combination, albeit one that can come only from Bollywood.

Vivek Oberoi plays the eponymous Prince, a legendary thief, who can pull off seemingly impossible heists a la Abhishek Bachchan pulls off crap when he walks or talks.

After a major plunder of diamonds, our Prince wakes up in Durban, South Africa with a loss of memory.

Now, don’t laugh guys. This is not the Ghajini kind of memory loss stolen shit.

This is the ‘memory loss’ from a director/story writer who likely watched the Hollywood action thriller Bourne Identity one too many times and followed it up with Iron Man and Batman a couple of times.

Since it’s Bollywood ishstyle Bourne Identity, memory loss, fast chases and all quickly turns into Gaand Identity even as our hero sophomorically mumbles It’s show time each time he attempts an impossible stunt.

As Prince struggles to cope with his memory loss and desperately strives to find out about his identity, we have a parade of characters passing by – the Indian CBI, an intelligence agency called IGRIP, a notorious criminal called Sarang, another criminal Sherry and a triad of Mayas (girls who claim to be Prince’s girl-friends).

Alas, none of the Mayas were drool-worthy.

The first two Mayas can’t act if their lives depended on it.

The last Maya (Aruna Shields) was the best of the lot. If only, the woman was well-endowed. 🙁

The plot gets convoluted by the minute – a 3,000 year-old coin made with gold extracted from demon king Ravan’s chariot and downloadable memory chips are the raisons d’être of the film- without adding too much to the thrills but, hey, it’s not completely idiotic either.

Vivek Oberoi, who’s struggling to stay afloat in Bollywood, didn’t do anything noteworthy but to his credit he didn’t crap all over the movie either.

The stunts in the mountains were alright. Not jaw-dropping stuff but not the amateurish junk, Tamil movie style either.

You Call This Music, eh?
A major letdown of this movie, as with most Bollywood movies lately, is the ho-hum music.

None of the songs got a lift out of us.

Whether it’s the first song O Mere Khuda or the later number Tere Liye, it was all the same – Banal, cacophonous shit.

Nor were the picturizations of the songs anything to write home about.

All in all, Prince is certainly not an extraordinary, must-watch movie by any stretch.

But we’re grateful that we were not subjected to the Akshay Kumar brand of De Dana Dan drivel or the Aamir Khan brand of stolen shit like Ghajini.

If you’ve got nothing planned this weekend and if you are tired of wanking off or going down on him/her, go watch Prince with low expectations.

That way, you won’t complain that much.