Wednesday, 20 April 2011

Film Review - FALTU (2011)

F.A.L.T.U.
Director: Remo D'Souza
Cast: Jackky Bhagnani,Pooja Gupta, etc.



The first thing that you notice about F.A.L.T.U. is its liveliness. The story might remember you of 3 Idiots but the big distinction is there are no overstated emotions, excessive or little sentiment. The narrative does look juvenile, specially the clichéd ending but what holds your attention is the pace, it moves fast, doesn't give you time to get bored and before you sense repetitiveness creeping in, you move onto a different scene. Also what makes the movie an exciting watch is the absence of romance amongst the numerous young and natural actors.

Apart from for the title, nothing about the movie is FALTU, not the plot or even the story. It's fully colorful like a party and the story goes on like a party. Many students who pass out of school with just pass marks get into a college which is not registered just to escape from parent's harassment and have a ball in the campus. Most of them are either not inclined in studies, have poor IQ, lazy or plain irresponsible. They know they cannot get admission in a college as all of them ask for 70 percent and above.

This story is planned to raise a question. What about the rest of the students who get pass marks of 36 or end up anywhere between 36 and below 70. A student asks, "Why doesn't the college fail us instead of giving us pass marks which don't guarantee us an admission?" Well, four students find an answer for this and unintentionally come up with a bogus college overnight just to overcome a temporary problem and end up providing an educational cover for scores of students like them.

The rest of the story is expected, parents getting to know the truth and the students dealing with the outcome in a simple way. What makes it similar to 3 Idiots? The architects of F.A.L.T.U. realize the key to success is by encouraging each one of them to choose a subject of their choice, what they like most or inclined to and have the potential to do extremely well. Instead of dragging tutors to educate them for the simple reason that they might let the cat out of the bag they bring in digital education.

The finale is dramatic and artificial though, they force their way into a dance competition of schools and emerge winners bringing legibility and legality to their college. The biggest relief again is that there is no hi fi moral lessons by Mithun Chakraborty who plays a cameo. Talluri Rameswari makes a brief appearance and has exactly two words to speak. Everything is fast, light but with a message. Dialogues too are fresh, colloquial and some which refer to homo-sexuality could have been censored.

One character that stands out is that of a student's father who owns a scrap shop, who sees a meaning and a discovery in everything that's discarded but fails to notice the unutilized intelligence of his child. Songs are vibrant and lively. F.A.L.T.U. is a movie that would appeal to the youth and also the adults, it is light-hearted but with a message in allusion to the lop-sided educational system. But for the plot and endearing and confident performances by the ensemble cast, you would absolutely term the movie completely faltu.

In conclusion Remo D'Souza has the potential in him to make an excellent movie, far better than this but so far so good, he has dished out a fair movie, a full time pass.

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