Classmates - Review

Monday, April 16, 2007
Classmates: Clean and captivating
While looking at the title, the audiences would come to a conclusion that the film is being made with college backdrop and love stories. But in fact, it is a suspense thriller. The film was the remake of a successful Malayalam film with the same name. However, director Vijayabhaskar took every precaution to make the audiences believe that it is not a remake but a straight film. All the artistes did roles different from routine and every character in the film has a good scope to perform.

A group of students meet to commemorate the 10th death anniversary of their friend Murali (Sarvanand), who is also the son of their lecturers Chandram (Kota Srinivasa Rao) and Lakshmi (Sudha). Of them, Ravi (Sumanth), Raji (Sada), Baddu (Sunil), Satish (Ravivarma) and Siva (Sivareddy) are the best friends. While Ravi settles as a businessman in Mumbai, Satish turns an MLA, while Raji sets up a dance school in Bangalore and so on. One day, Baddu finds Ravi in an unconscious state and alerts their lecturer Chandram, principal (Giribabu) and hotel warden (Tanikella Bharani). The police start investigation whether it is a murder or a suicide attempt. At this juncture, Chandram questions Baddu as to why such incident had occurred. Then Baddu reveals that Ravi and Raji have fallen in love, but Satish, with an eye to become a politician, uses his influence and makes Raji to contest against Ravi in college elections. In order to defame Ravi and to separate Ravi and Raji, Satish plays some crooked tricks. At this juncture, Murali dies due to asphyxiation. After the elections, Ravi leaves the college and secures a small job in Mumbai. Then Raji and Satish go to Ravi's house to convince him to return to the college and take the exams. But they find that he was away from home. Then Satish repents and reveals all his crooked plans to Raji. Raji tries her best to locate Ravi, but fails. Somehow, they meet on the occasion of Murali's death anniversary. Raji explains how she misunderstood Ravi and both of them become friends. But Ravi reveals the truth that it was he who gave chloroform to Murali in a bid to escape from police, which led to the death of Murali. Here comes Razia (Kamalini Mukherjee) into the picture, who was in love with Murali. Unable to pardon Ravi for causing the death of Murali, she attempts to kill Ravi. But the film ends on a happy note with everyone repenting and realising the truth.

Plus:
The basic plus point in the film is the perfect screenplay by director Vijayabhaskar. Especially, the audiences could not even guess the twists in the film, which come one after the other. Sumanth, Sada, Ravivarma, Sunil, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Tanikella Bharani, Giribabu, each artiste gave their best of performance and made the film quite interesting. There are a couple of duets, one group song and some other song. Koti gave melodious tunes to all the songs. Sravanti Ravikishore's production values are good.

Minus:
Though the film is quite interesting, the politics in college caused a little boredom. Of course, all those scenes are common in colleges and university campuses, the average audience always look for teasing scenes in the college and not the routine political dramas.

Remarks:
It is really a clean film with no obscene scenes, no dirty jokes on lecturers, no exposing for the sake of glamour and as a whole it is a very neat entertainer. At the same time, the suspense, the twists in the film made the audiences stick to their seats. However, the film lacked the commercial elements that could attract the mass audiences. Definitely it is a different film for Sumanth and would remain a milestone in his career. Sada also did a very neat job. The film would pick up its speed only after a few days with mouth publicity.

Cast: Sumanth, Sada, Sarvanand, Kamalini Mukherjee, Sunil, Ravivarma, Tanikella Bharani, Giribabu, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Uttej, Siva Reddy, Raghubabu, Ahuti Prasad, Vemuri Satyanarayana, Maruthi, Sudha, Chitralekha and others.

Credits:

Lyrics: Sirivennela Sitaramasastry,
Producer: Sravanti Ravikishore,
Screenplay and direction: K Vijayabhaskar
Banner: Sravanti Movies
Released on: April 20, 2007

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