The moment a character in a film — let alone the leading man — is described as “Einstein of palmistry” and “India ka Nostradamus”, you know that this movie-watching experience is going to be painful. Well, Radhe Shyam, now playing in movie theatres, lives up to that promise. It’s painful to the point of driving one to a semi-permanent state of numbness. The pain resurfaces once you stumble out of the dark theatre after what seems to be a lifetime, and you end up experiencing it in body parts that you never even knew existed.

“Was Bahubali an anomaly?” That’s the niggling question that hounds one through the 142-minute running time of Radhe Shyam. Given Saaho before this and now Radhe Shyam — both positioned to project Prabhas as a larger-than-life pan-India heartthrob and both disasters of epic proportions — one is inclined to think that once out of the shadow of Mahendra/ Amarendra Bahubali, Prabhas struggles to live up to the massive expectations every film of his post the SS Rajamouli-directed magnum opus comes with.

Radhe Shyam, a bilingual directed by Radha Krishna Kumar and aspiring to be a timeless love story, seeks to highlight the perpetual tug of war between free will and destiny when it comes to matters of the heart, but is so insipid in its writing and has such lacklustre performances, that everything about it, even in its most serious moments, comes off as laughably embarrassing.

Set in the 1970s, Radhe Shyam has Prabhas’ Vikramaditya as an ace palmist who walks around in sharp suits and carries a Louis Vuitton briefcase and reads the future of some of the most powerful people in the world. One look at then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s palm makes him foresee the clampdown of Emergency no less, the repercussions of which compel him to shift to Rome. That gives the makers of Radhe Shyam the opportunity to show their leading man do everything from racing with stallions to swimming in the ocean to climbing the highest mountain peaks. “Who is this good-looking bad fellow?” a character is made to wonder during the course of the film. Which is just one of the many cringeworthy lines you will get to hear in Radhe Shyam.

When not reading palms, Vikramaditya finds ample time to go around with many women, but stresses that he isn’t interested in a relationship. “Flirtationship” is what Vikramaditya aka Aditya is looking at, a word that the writers seemed to have gleefully discovered recently and go on to annoyingly use many times in the film.

Putting an end to Aditya’s ‘flirtationship’ is Prerna (Pooja Hegde), a doctor who spends less time in the hospital and more in leaning precariously out of trains with a scarf tied around her waist and asking random strangers, “Kya tum mujhe sambhal loge?” It’s the strangest introduction scene ever, but as expected, our man Aditya rises to the challenge. Prerna falls into his arms and the two fall in love, followed by one too many music video-inspired unmemorable songs, which act more as a tourist brochure for Europe than do any service in taking the story forward.

There is nothing about Radhe Shyam that makes it even semi-watchable. Even the exotic European locales are filtered with such unrealistic visual effects that everything comes off as artificial. The hospital Prerna works in looks like a mansion from Downton Abbey. When she’s heartbroken, she chooses to cry sitting in a bathtub surrounded by hundreds of candles. The walls of Aditya’s home have pictures of John Lennon requesting him for an autograph. When a key character is involved in an accident, even the blood is carefully choreographed to drop in slow motion on a hairclip gifted to her by her lover. Aditya has two major accidents in the film but manages to walk to the hospital himself. The list just goes on and on and on. And did we mention a Titanic-styled climax in which Aditya walks out of a tsunami practically unscathed? Well....

What also doesn’t help Radhe Shyam’s cause is that its leading man seems completely disinterested in what’s happening around him. Prabhas is blessed with amazing screen presence but that slow drawl and one-tone act makes you feel he’s dialled out of the film even before it’s started. Pooja Hegde tries to infuse some energy into the film, but ends up being nothing more than a cardboard cutout. Bhagyashree plays Prabhas’ mother but looks at least a decade younger than him. Sachin Khedekar and Kunaal Roy Kapur are appallingly overdramatic.

At its core, Radhe Shyam has some ideas worth exploring, but ends up being one of the worst films in recent times. We suggest you steer clear of it. Even a flirtationship with this film is not worth it.

Radhe Shyam (u/A)

Director: Radha Krishna Kumar

Cast: Prabhas, Pooja Hegde, Bhagyashree, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Sachin Khedekar, Sathyaraj

Running time: 142 minutes