35/100 Movie Review

40/100

Director Deepak and his team have given their first exam in the KFI exam hall. Some people may be interested (not many, considering the turnout at the Tribhuvan theatre) in knowing how they fared at their maiden attempt. Well, here is our evaluation of the film.

Direction (2/5): Deepak is a naughty man, and he tries to be Akira Kurasawa’s Roshomon. Of course, the last line is a bad rhyme, but the analogy is just fine. To put it in simple verse, Deepak repeats the same scenes from multiple viewpoints aka Roshomon style and falls short of pulling them off or putting them together. Except a couple of scenes (heroine’s dress caressing hero’s face, and a fight scene in college canteen) other scenes are merely repetitive and mostly uninteresting.

Screenplay (1.5/5): The best thing about the screenplay is it does not tread the conventional path of a typical KFI film. The bad thing is, it does not really tread any path at all! The story of two (or more) boys falling in love with a girl in a college is yawningly old and the film’s slow narrative doesn’t help the matters a wee bit. As any evaluator of an answer paper will tell you, the absence of bad answers doesn’t really substitute for the lack of good answers!

Cinematography (2.5/5): Except a couple of songs, the camera is there because it has no other choice. It’s strictly ok.

Editing (2/5): It seems Deepak’s complex style of narration, riddled with flashbacks and multiple viewpoints hasn’t earned him any fans in the editing department. Some scenes do not have proper ending, and some do not end at all!

Acting (2/5): Most of the actors are rank newcomers and it shows in their acting. Shweta Murthy, Vikram Joshi, and Manoj are all the travelers of the same boat.

Music (2.5/5): Couple of songs are really good

Overall Evaluation: The film is the beginners attempt with good intentions of making a sensible, off the track film. But mere intentions are not enough to carry a film through. At the same time, Deepak has at least tried something different in the way he has narrated the film.

Even though it hasn’t come off well this time, we will look forward to his next attempts!

P.S. The name ‘Maharaja class’ for the balcony in Tribhuvan theatre is an irony of sorts as lot of hard labor is involved in getting to that place! Will the theater management make accessing this place a bit easier?

-Movie Review By Raju Shanbhag