Backbench Student

Story: Karthik (Mahat) is a typical backbencher engineering student. He befriends Priyanka (Archana), who’s a bright student. A college romance blooms between the two, but it comes to an abrupt end when Priyanka moves to the US to pursue higher studies. That’s when Chaitra (Pia) steps into the scene. It also turns out that Karthik has a special talent and isn’t as dumb, after all.

Movie Review: Let’s begin with the most path breaking scene in the movie. Priyanka wakes up with a sore back, beside a topless Karthik, on his bed, and is a little unsure about what happened after the party ended last night. She’s embarrassed to find out that it was Karthik’s mother who applied amrutanjan and put her to sleep on her beloved son’s couch! Seems like the movie lives up to its name, to call this movie a howler, would be putting it kindly.

The movie begins with Priyanaka deciding to give up her master’s course in America midway, unable to deal with the pain of living away from her ex-boyfriend Karthik. Pushed by her parents to pursue her MS, she decides to dump Karthik who’s flunked in 16 subjects in his degree. She comes back to discover that her man is in love with Chaitra.

The love triangle isn’t what the movie is about though. The filmmaker just uses it as a tool to tell the story of a backbencher who goes on to be successful despite flunking his engineering. It turns out our boy has a flair for ethical hacking, which becomes his ticket to success. Moral of the story – every body is born with a special talent which when nurtured can turn every loser into a success. Haven’t we heard that before?

Sadly there isn’t much to cheer about acting wise either. Mahat is just too wooden and seems to have just one expression no matter what the situation. Archana Kavi and Piya look the part but their acting leaves too much to be desired. Honestly their characters seem to be very poorly conceived as well. We’ll not get into the filmmaking bit, for it’s just too lame to merit an analysis.

Tip Off: Forget it.