Story:
Backbench Student is basically a love story about a backbench student played by Mahat Raghavendra. And while on love story it’s a triangle love story.
Karthik (Mahat Raghavendra) has a steady girl friend Priyanka (Archana Kavi) during all his collage years. After the completion of the collage she moves out to US to pursue her MS which doesn’t go down well with Karthik as he is not taken into consideration before taking the decision. A dejected Karthik then meets Chaithra (Piaa Bajpai) which eventually turns his life around but she too has a problem. Meanwhile his girlfriend returns from US just to express love to Karthik. Finally whom does Karthik choose is what the film is all about, with few very emotional moments in between.
Performances:
Mahat Raghavendra makes a confident debut. However he lacks a screen presence and needs to improve upon his dialog diction. He can dance well which is always a plus in our industry.
Piaa Bajpai has got a nice character and she does justice to her role despite it getting repetitive after a point.
Archana Kavi’s character is fine as well. But her shortcomings as a performer are clearly visible for the role in question. She tries hard but falls short.
Among others the guy who plays the character Gali stands out. His character begins well initially but the film progresses it gets lost and remains one dimensional till the end making it a one note performance.
Veteran actor Sarath Kumar manages to make mark in a short but sweet role which is highly predictable.
Ali gets a good role but Brahmanandam is wasted in a completely forced role.
Positives:
Basic storyline of the film
Picturization of a couple of songs
Some genuine moments of emotion
Negatives
First half especially the beginning half an hour
Climax
Brahmanandam(The film would have been better without his scenes, it acts like a speedbraker )
Analysis
Director Madhura Sreedhar has taken a plot points that have been done to death and tries to present it in a fresh way. He succeeds partly in giving that fresh vibe but otherwise he sticks largely to the tried and tested template.
Joining in collage, ragging, becoming friends, having lover with whom hero has a very close relationship and parents who are very cool about this relationship etc are seen umpteen number of times and the director takes a lot of time with all these developments again. It is this part which is a big bore.
Once the director moves to the first conflict between the lead pair and there subsequent break up the film finally shows some signs of picking up and with the introduction of the character of Chaithra the film finally takes off.
The second half in comparison to the first half is far better and it gets interesting too with another fresh conflict between the pair. The climax again dilutes this to a certain extent but its till alright. In the end this second half is all that one remembers and rightly so irrespective of its clichéd predictability at times.
Music by Sunil Kashyap is a mixed bad. A couple of songs are good but others fail to create an impact. It’s the same with background score it’s good at places but is noisy otherwise.
Cinematography is fine. Editing is poor especially in the first half.
Bottom-line: A Beautiful Break Up Love Story
Rating: 3.25/5