'Kirrak Party', starring Nikhil and others, hit the screens on Friday.  Here is our review of the college campus film.

Story:

Krishna (Nikhil) is a happy-go-lucky first-year Engineering student.  All that he believes in is leading life full size, one cigarette at a time.  With a bunch of friends for his company, Krishna's naughtiness knows no bounds.  Meera Joseph (Simran Pareenja) is his senior and it's love at first sight.

Just as Meera starts falling in love with him, catastrophe hits him in the form of a tragedy.  He goes mad.  The film takes a 3-year leap.  Krishna is now in the fourth year, ready to conquer student union politics, always wooed by Satya (Samyuktha Hegde), the daughter of the college's principal.

By the time it's farewell time, Krishna revisits a character from his past and boy, he is evolved.  The End.

Analysis:

Ninety-nine out of 100 times, one shouldn't sensibly go to watch a remake of a Kannada movie expecting a strong storyline.  And 'Kirrak Party' is not the one exception.  So, this is how it goes.  Once the film takes a 3-year leap, you expect the hero's character to undergo a drastic makeover, especially after the untimely tragedy at interval bang.  Actually, this makeover is limited to beard and a palpable change in dialect.

A devastated Krishna, we are told, went mad after the tragedy.  Almost three years and so many backlogs later, he becomes a student leader.  'Krishna Ane Nenu', he thunders, taking an oath nobody seems to take seriously.  Pray, why does he become the college's president?  To rag juniors with authority?  Who is his rival?  A friend-turned-foe whose character graph is a joke.  And what is he up to?  Kidnapping the principal.  Varun Tej in 'Tholi Prema' achieved so much without contesting student union elections.  That too, without growing a beard.

What shades of RGV's 'Shiva' were the makers talking about in a film where rival student groups resort to kiddish fights, only to bond over a farewell party?  If this is some kind of a Sekhar Kammula-meets-Sandalwood joke, where did 'Shiva' come into the picture for the makers?

When they are first-year students, the hero and his friends indulge in orchestrated buffoonery (not necessarily unwelcome).  When they are in the fourth year, the hero and his friends and rivals indulge in much the same (necessarily flimsy).  In one scene, they actually quarrel over the relative significance of the various branches of Engineering in a semi-comedy scene.  In the principal's room, the rivals mention "beautiful figures".  What was the point in that beard and the student union elections?  They could well have had such a childish argument on the farewell day.

Your search for an emotional anchor to the hero's character will go in vain until the climax.

What about love?  When the hero has to impress Meera, he donates blood to a pregnant woman.  She is mighty, mighty impressed with his 'kirrak' humanism.  This 'kirrak' humanism makes a comeback in the climax, complete with the arithmetic of two packs of cigarettes a day costing Rs. 6000 a month.  It's a carnival of cliches.

Everything said, the first half delivers many laughs in terms of college campus comedy.  The bromance works to an extent.  This is mainly due to the backdrop and the ability of the actors to scrape through despite their antics bordering on over-the-top.  Nikhil's comic timing is sensible.  Rakendu Mouli, Brahmaji, and others are engaging here and there.  Both Simran and Samyukth have an aura of innocence about them.  We don't expect much from the unfamiliar faces and it's a blessing for the film.

Chandoo Mondeti's dialogues are engaging here and there.  Sudheer Varma's screenplay is definitely found wanting.  Advaitha Gurumurthy's cinematography is a plus, more so Ajaneesh Loknath's music.

Verdict:

The college campus humour works to an extent in the first half.  Sharan Koppisetty extracts decent performances from the newcomers.  Nikhil has surely evolved as an actor and his maturity in the climax says it all.  Technical departments do an able job.  However, it's more of the same in the second half.  Had Meera's story been spiritually present through the second half, Nikhil's character would have had an emotional core.  The element of student union politics is almost pointless.

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