'FALTU' is entertainment, old school-style

Film: FALTU
Director: Remo Fernandes
Cast: Jackky Bhagnani, Pooja Varma, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Angad Bedi, Riteish Deshmukh and Arshad Warsi
Rating: ***

A second-hand shop owner imparts his life’s motto to his son – it’s about seeing the worth in things others have no use for, and to make them work. The son, Ritesh  (Bhagnani), hasn’t got admission in any college and, so, starts a fake one – Fakirchand And Lakirchand Trust University (FALTU) – with a bunch of friends. It’s on a plot of land away from the city and only students who have scored low and not got a seat anywhere else come seeking admission. 

These are your not-so-bright-at-studies ‘duffers’ parents are constantly worried of. What will they do if not educated? Will they get a job? Will they be able to make something of their lives? Ritesh looks around a room of such youngsters, wasted after a night of partying, aimless and without ambition. He’s one of them, and he wants to change all that.

FALTU is almost entirely inspired by Accepted, the kind of high school film you watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon and forget about soon after. The plot is outlandish and most of the time you wonder where the film’s going. At the same time, though, the film has an inherent pleasantness that is hard to ignore.

If N Chandra and Rajkumar Hirani collaborated on a film, the result would be FALTU. Director Remo recreates a world we have seen before in our films, yet manages to infuse it with a freshness you don’t expect. Even though the plot is somewhat similar to 3 Idiots’, the film is more akin to campus films of yore, like Jawani Diwani, Rafoo Chakkar, and Style in recent times.

Many of the jokes, though, fall flat and the film is unnecessarily loud in places. Most of the first half is devoted to stock gags that revolve around ragging and the female anatomy. After the frolicking and aimlessness of the first half, you expect the film to find it hard to get its act together post-interval, but it does.

Videos of professionals from various fields emphasising on the importance of learning skills rather than stressing on academics alone is effective and the finale where the students put up a show is the real clincher.

Remo puts together a sort of dancing spectacle that’s less gimmicky and more a tool to communicate the message of the film. And it does so beautifully. To his credit, he impresses not just in the dancing department but also as someone keen on narrating a story as honestly as he can. With a more refined script, he could do much better.

Chandan Roy Sanyal stands out as the nerd who goes berserk when he finds a wild side to himself. Angad Bedi goes overboard most of the time, hamming in most scenes. Pooja Gupta is likeable. Jacky Bhagnani has an extremely affable screen presence and even though he’s got a long way to go before he can be considered an actor to bank on, he should do fine in roles that don’t demand histrionics for now. Riteish Deshmukh and Arshad Warsi are good with their comic timing as usual.

The styling of the actors is interesting – Jacky’s tees, especially, are eye-catching. The music is already a rage and ‘Char baj gaye’ and ‘Ho ja fully faltu’ are more enjoyable when watched in the context of the film.

For a film that you don’t expect much from, FALTU over-delivers. Watch it if you are looking for some mindless fun.