KIRIK PARTY – Journey of College Life

Language: Kannada
Cast & Crew: Rakshit Shetty, Rashmika Mandanna, Samyuktha Hegde & Pramod Shetty
Music Director: B. Ajaneesh Loknath
Production Co: Paramvah Studios
Producer: G S Guptha, Rakshit Shetty
Director:  Rishab Shetty
Genre: Comedy & Drama
Release Date: 30Dec16
Duration: 2 hrs 45 mins

Plot & Summary

The Kannada movie industry seems have hit upon a sweet spot with good movies coming in back to back. The subjects the movies seem to cover are quite unique and crowd pulling.  KIRIK PARTY – the latest movie that hit the screens on 30Dec16 had great response from the 1st day.  I think there was a lot of expectation looking into the trailers and the movie only confirmed the expectations.

Shot entirely in Malnad Engineering College in Hassan, the story revolves around couple of boys who join the engineer course looking to explore various aspects of life.  Our here of the movie Karna played by Rakshit Shetty, a 1st year graduate student apparently who has taken up Mechanical as the specialization has got his gang of boys.  In the 1stscene, they show how the hero and his gang were eagerly waiting for a bus which brings in some girls to the college.  Among the girls comes one of the heroines, Saanvi played by Rashmika Mandana, a final year student.  Visibly every boy is a fan of the girl and they follow her everywhere around the campus.  The boys try to individually reach out to girl and get to know her more. But every answer from her makes one of the boys to back.  Cut two the show that the Seniors (final year students), getting over all the theatrics of 1styear student and end up confronting the boys.  Things take drastic turn when one of the 1st year boys is slapped.  Karna then mobilizes the 1styear’s gang to confront the final year boys.  This is a scene straight out of experience from college and we all can connect to it.  And the outcome is a suspension of the energetic boys.  End of the day, they show the gal leaving the campus with a guys in a car.  Boys gang of 6 then decides to buy a 2ndhand car to impress the girl but still are unable to convince the gal to sit in their car.  One of the boys, manage to convince the gal to sit inside the car, little did he realize that 4 other friends are behind him who sit in the back seat.  The car behind 2nd hand breaks down and here comes the hero Karna, to the rescue on a scooter.  Karna manage to drop Saanvi back to her home.  This they show as the start of friendship between the Karna and Saanvi.  Saanvi even trust Karna and call him late in the evening to help, of the sex worker who is pregnant.  Saanvi sees boyishness in Karna, which is not known to many people.  They also show an entire evening time spent between Karna and Saanvi in which they end up plucking corn and eat it.  The movie looks quite wonderful with the acting looking quite natural and effortless. While the love is just blossoming, there is an unfortunate incident with Saanvi in which she is seen to fall off from a room in Girls Hostel being in drunken state.  Karna is totally dejected but totally upset with anyone & everyone trying to build wrong stories about Saanvi.  Saanvi father being a Police Officer, tries to disown her coz her death due to drinking, brings a bad name to college.  He even throws one of the most important memory of their daughter i.e., her personal diary.

Next half sees the hero transform himself completely from the sweet boy to a final year ferocious Senior.  A person who does not care for people and is ready to pick up a fight and pushes his opinion.  He is seen to protect the interest of gals and stake a claim in anything happening inside college. At the same time there is an entry of our 2nd heroine Aarya, played by Samyukhtha Hegde.  She is shown to be a bubbly girl who is head over heels, having crush on Karna. Our hero is shown as the rough student who manages to win Student President Election.  But in the corner, Aarya has still not got out of his loss in the 1st year.  Along with the rough looks, they show a lot of humor in Aarya in trying to kidnap Principal thinking he is peon, Aarya’s conversation with Principal & his father.  Most of these are scenes we can recollect from our college days.  Infact, these are scenes which everyone has either been part of or our friends who have done & we would have seen or been with them.

One of the biggest highlight of the movie, I think is the location which is the Malnad College of Engineering.  This is the same college I studies personally Computer Science.  But then until now, I don’t think anyone has shown the college so much.  The shooting has happened entirely in the college campus.  Some of the location it’s been shot includes – College Entrance, College grounds, Canteen to the right at the entrance, Main Block Entrance, Administrative Block, Mathematics Department, Principal Chamber, Main Stage, Principal chamber, Computer Science department, Electrical Department, Silver Jubilee Hall, Swimming Pool area, Forest, Workshop area, Architecture block and many others.  They have also shot in the Boys hostel completely and shown the entrance, Old Block, New Block, Stone Block, TV Room, Canteen and also some part of Girls hostel.  If you have studies in MCE Hassan, then you should not miss this movie at all.  Even otherwise, most of the campuses do have most of the points I mentioned.

Casting & Crew

In terms of the star casting, I don’t think that anyone else could have played the role better than 3 main lead actors in the movies.

Rakshit looks different in both the halves.  And his acting is simply amazing and looks so seamless.  In terms of the looks, you can see him looking quite different in both the halves.  For a split second, you would think that it is someone different in the 2ndhalf, when he has the beard and sits on the bike.  Adding to his performance are his 5 other gang-members who have done great job themselves.  They acted like the perfect friends.

Rashmika Mandana looks beautiful and for sure anyone with the looks would have blown away the mind of the first year students.  She has done the controller acting which is necessary for a rather mature individual being in final year.

Samyuktha Hegde has done equally well in the second half, looking quite confident yet innocent when it comes to interaction with Karna.

The movie for sure has great star-casting and it would not have been possible for other to pull it off.

Music

The background score and the music in the movie are also equally good and fun to listen to.  There are 6 songs in the

1. “Katheyonda Helide” – Varun Ramachandra  3:53
2. “Thirboki Jeevana” – B. Ajaneesh Loknath  2:15
3. “Hey Who are you” – Indu Nagaraj, Bharath B. J  4:55
4. “Neenire Saniha” – Shreya Ghoshal                3:38
5. “Last Benchu Party” – Chintan Vikas, Varun Ramachandra, Chandan Achar  2:57
6. “Belgeddu” – Vijay Prakash, Anuradha Bhat  3:37

My favorite among these are Katheyonda which introduces us to the movie.  Then the Belgeddu song in which we see Karna with Saanvi in a couple of song.  The other songs are also very good but are best watched with the video.

Direction

This movie needed a director who is able to get the best out of actors and make the story believable to audience.  I am sure a lot of research is required to be able to tell how a specific scene needs to be acted.  I think Rishab Shetty has done a great job with the team of very talented actors.  The movie lets everyone explore their own college life.  I am not sure if it will be easy to recreate anything close to what this movie has brought to the plate.  This surely is a great step for the new director.  It will be good to see how he fares in his next movie.

Conclusion

I think it is one of the best Kannada movies that I have watched in a long time.  The best part of it is that realistic portrayal of the characters.  Everyone in the audience can correlate to something a little similar to what has been shown via this movie.  I feel that both of the movies had something totally different portrayal of the personality. I am sure that at the end of movie, you would all go with a heavy heart and feel quite happy to have gone through a college life & also watched a wonderful movie like.  I would recommend that everyone should watch this movie and also promote this across to all close friends and relatives.

Rating

4.5/5