This teen drama, as we all know, takes its basic premise from Student of the Year (directed by Karan Johar). So the review has to start with comparisons.
SOTY 1 in a typical KJo style was full on glamour and apologetically glitzy. The wonderful trio of Varun, Sidharth and Alia and the associate cast,some good writing gave reasons enough to hit the mark.
This latest one seems to be like the poor sibling. Not that they have lowered the levels of glitz but the writing, the cast and the direction made it very tepid and mediocre.
Rohan’s (Tiger) only aim in life is to get into prestigious St. Teresa to get close to his so- called girlfriend (Tara Sutaria). When he gets admission and scholarship, he faces Tara’s apathy, the trustee’s son (Aditya Seal) who is the reigning trophy winner and his snooty sister (Ananya Pandey). The rest of the story gives us a mix of friendships, betrayals , love triangles, dances, races and lots of kabaddi .
Directed by Punit Malhotra (I hate Love Stories, Gori Tere Pyar Mei), it seems more like a second launch of Tiger Shroff , who inspite of being marvellous when it comes to dance , stunts and brawn, just fails to make it in the acting department. The movie , with its weak writing and shallow characters was too dependent upon poor Tiger to pull it through.
The writing doesn’t delve into the characters who remain superficial polished good looking dolls and hence fail to impress. An ultra chauvinist flavour treats both female characters almost as bimbos and the so called competitions for the trophy had almost no female participation.Hilariously even in the dance competition , it was only Tiger who was in spotlight.
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The rich poor divide,the races and sports competitions reminded us of the lovely and memorable ‘Jo Jita Wohi Sikandar’. Though nothing as impressive as that movie, the kabaddi matches kept us entertained.
Performance wise, amongst the new comers, Ananya Pandey ( Chunky Pandey’s daughter) looks promising.We could see some spark and pleasing gamut of expressions as against Tara Sutaria who looked quite dead pan with a very “oh-so-seen-before “ kind of face.
Aditya Seal looked impressive reminded me a lot of Neil Nitin Mukesh.
Tiger was all over the movie of 2 hrs 30 min . His strengths and weaknesses are quite consistent as in his earlier movies.
The songs are not as rocking as SOTY 1 and had just one groovy remix.
That makes me wonder, if the makers had no intention of investing in good writing or music, or side cast like in SOTY 1 , what was the whole point in taking the franchise further. Sometimes, the lure of capitalising on the original just ends up in panning the next one because comparisons are bound to happen.
If Ultra uber, glammed up,good looking characters dressed up in the latest fashion, can provide you with some iota of entertainment , you could go for this one. But do not mind the cliches and lack of story and keep your expectations low.
As frivolous light cinema, this one could be a one time watch.
Score- 6 on 10