Prahaar Reviews: Rajkummar Rao Praised, Pacing Is Not

Prahaar: The Ujjwal Nikam Story opened on Oct. 16 with strong notices for Rajkummar Rao and mixed ones for almost everything around him. The courtroom drama, directed by Avinash Arun, follows the special public prosecutor in the Ajmal Kasab trial after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

What the film is

Rao plays Ujjwal Nikam. Wamiqa Gabbi, Jaideep Ahlawat, Sikandar Kher and Ashish Vidyarthi are in the cast, and Lalit Prabhakar plays Kasab, according to The Hindu. It runs 140 minutes in The Hindu's listing, 2 hours 21 minutes on BookMyShow, and Dinesh Vijan produced it. Sumit Roy wrote the screenplay. Jaideep Ahlawat plays Chaudhary Zulfiqar, a Pakistani prosecutor who travels to India for the case.

What critics said

The Hindu's Anuj Kumar wrote that the film is caught between a nuanced legal procedural and a commercial urge to deliver patriotic spectacle, and said the writing avoids a jingoistic tone and respects due process. He singled out Prabhakar and a child witness played by Dior Ranju Varghese.

A review roundup on [Bollywood.com](http://Bollywood.com) shows a wide spread. DNA India gave it 4 out of 5, Koimoi 4, Bollywood Hungama 4 and the Times of India 4. Hindustan Times, News18 and India Today gave 3, Filmibeat 3, India TV 2.5 and the Indian Express 2. The recurring praise is for Rao's courtroom scenes and Prabhakar. The recurring complaint, from Hindustan Times, News18 and India Today among others, is that the film loses focus when it moves into family scenes.

The Times of India's social media roundup on opening day found viewers split in the same way, with praise for the courtroom tension and criticism of pacing and screenplay. BookMyShow's audience rating is 9.2 out of 10 in the listing we saw, which is far warmer than the critic average. Rotten Tomatoes shows 60 percent positive across 10 critic reviews, as cited on the film's Wikipedia page.

The money

Prahaar's first weekend was soft. A weekend table from the tracker Sacnic lists it at Rs 5.50 crore, below Nayyi Navelli's Rs 7.25 crore. Film Information reported that both new Hindi films of the week opened to poor houses and said the public reports were "not of the kind that one can expect miracles to happen in the coming days." Those are early numbers, and word of mouth on a courtroom drama can take a week to show.

Why it matters for Rao

Rajkummar Rao has had a rough run at the box office in recent years, alongside a strong one with Stree 2. A serious biographical lead like this one suits his record of courtroom and true-story roles, including Shahid, for which he won the National Film Award for Best Actor. Prahaar is also one of two biopics he has coming, the other being a film on Sourav Ganguly.

What we could not confirm

We could not confirm Prahaar's final opening-day figure from an official producer source. Tracker numbers differ by site, and some sites list day-one and weekend figures on different bases. We also could not verify BookMyShow's audience score beyond the listing text, and audience scores on ticketing sites are not a measure of critical consensus. Runtime differs by a minute between listings.

Sources

*Cover photo: Deepak Naik, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Actor_Rajkummar_Rao.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Actor_Rajkummar_Rao.jpg)* (CC0).*