Chatrapathi Review: Bellamkonda Sreenivas Film Tries To Be Salman Khan, Rohit Shetty Movie But Fails

A remake of the Telugu film of the same name, which released in 2005 and starred Prabhas, Chatrapathi marks Bellamkonda Sreenivas’ Bollywood debut. Directed by by V. V. Vinayak, best known for his action-comedy and masala films, Chatrapathi has Sreenivas sharing the screen with Nushrratt Bharuccha, Sharad Kelkar, Bhagyashree and Karan Singh Chhabra, among others.

There comes a scene in the second half of the film when our action hero Shiva (played by Bellamkonda Sreenivas) is seated in his car, confused with the turn of events in his life and tells his friends, “Ye sab kya ho raha hai.” I instantly replied to the on-screen character, “Same, ye kya ho raha hai!” Chatrapathi makes you ask this question time and again, probably every 20 minutes and surprisingly, the film is only two hours and a few odd minutes long.

The film is dated, set in what seems to be early 2000s — based on the old style phones being used in the movie — and revolves around a boy named Shiva and his half brother Ashok. Born in Pakistan, the siblings and their mother (played by Bhagyashree) are forced to migrate to a small sea-side village in Gujurat in 1985. Unfortunately though, Shiva is torn away from his family due to the chaos unfolding during the evacuation.

The saving grace of Chatrapathi were Sharad Kelkar, Sahil Vaid, and Amit Shivdas Nair, among others. The cinematography is also kept grand, in order to match the massy vibe of the film.

 Chatrapathi is good on paper but deserved a better execution. The film feels like it wants to be a Salman Khan massy movie with a vision of Rohit Shetty but doesn’t goes through with the idea.