TNI Bureau: Student of the Year (SOTY) is another typical Karan Johar film. From direction point of view K Jo is perfect in his attempt. But the story sometimes seems unrealistic. All the three debutants have tried their best, but while the guys are slightly better, the girl is yet to learn some hard-core tactics to mesmerize the audience. Yes, the humors are excellent.
The film revolves around three characters, Abhimanyu Singh, Shanaya Singhania and Rohan Nanda alias Ro, performed by three new comers, Siddarth Malhotra, Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan respectively. The same ‘Ek phool do maali’ concept. However, the twist here is the competition for the student of the year trophy by the two boys, one from a middle class background and the other is a rich brat.
The pathetic explanation in the end is very odd and seems like climax of TV Serial ‘Balika Badhu’. Again, the climax could be better.
The movie is set in the picturesque locales of Dehradun. Fantasy is the institution, where all the activities go on, is based in some wonderland where everyone comes to school in designer clothes. Even Abhi, who hails from a middleclass background, is not an exception. Teens drive Mercedes Benzs to school. In this way several concepts does not fit to an actual school, rather seems to be an institution in the wonderland.
The film is a youthful one and much synonymous to ‘Kuchh kuchh hota hei’. It seems K Jo has adopted the stereotype college story to catch the larger student community in the audience. Of course his presentation is good, though the same concept.
Amongst the three debutant, Sidharth Malhotra as Abhimanyu seems to be best, though Varun Dhawan, the spoilt brat is the best dancer out of the three. Alia Bhatt is like the Poo character of K3G, is average. Rishi Kapoor is perfect in his role. Ram Kapoor is very good as the latent bad boy.
All seven tracks of Vishal-Shekhar are youthful, romantic and mind blowing. It very well goes with the theme. Songs like ‘Disco Deewane’, ‘Radha’, ‘Ishq Wala Love’ and ‘Vele’ are already topping the chart.
Our rating for Student of the Year is *** stars out of 5.