Imagine it’s your wedding and you want to look your best like never before. So you start by putting on a lovely wedding gown and a diamond set because it’s exclusive.
You also put on a Burberry scarf because it’s expensive and classy. Also some multicoloured hair extensions as your friends say you look cool with those and you finish your perfect look with shiny black 6 inch sandals which are supposed to give you great personality. What would you end up looking like?
This is what happens when you are making the dream project of your life; it’s your first movie and you want to try too hard so you pick a youth appealing subject and add ample eye candies and gimmicks.
With the best scenery, foot tapping music, friendship, emotions, national pride, betrayal, shock, suspense, a love story, romance, a breakup and finally all is well in the end – the result, an unbearable experience for cinema enthusiasts.
College stories have always been a filmmaker’s favourite subject and although we see those much less than the last two decades (earlier days of Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn and so on).
We still see some good simple movies made on the genre like F.A.L.T.U (2011) and Student of the Year (2012). The most important thing to keep in mind when choosing such a taboo is to keep it simple and execute well.
That’s how Remo D’Souza (F.A.L.T.U) did it with a relatively unknown and unpromising cast and without the grand setup of Karan Johar films (Student of the Year).
[easyreview title=”YAARIYAN” cat1title=”Story” cat1detail=”Common college story with some challenges thrown at good for nothing youngsters to fight for pride.” cat1rating=”1″ cat2title=”Performances” cat2detail=”Good work by all the debutants, routine performances by senior actors.” cat2rating=”1.5″ cat3title=”Direction” cat3detail=”So many things that made the movie go so wrong in so many ways could have been avoided.” cat3rating=”0.5″ cat4title=”Production” cat4detail=”Top quality production in all technical departments on such a low budget.” cat4rating=”2″ cat5title=”Music” cat5detail=”Popular numbers by various music directors, appealing to everyone.” cat5rating=”2″ summary=’Just an okay movie with some flavours of Nawaabi culture and lifestyle mixed with a quintessential criminal backdrop and a dash of suspense. Review Scores by Saurin Shah.’]
To cut a long story short, Yaariyan just doesn’t work. It’s very glossy and exciting in trailers with those Betty’s and Dudes and chart topper songs which are enough to drag you to cinema screenings but only halfway through the movie you feel disgusted and disappointed at what is going on.
The screenplay and direction kills the chart of first few scenes and a disgraceful sequence of events go on until the end.
Films can be entertaining, thrilling, comic, scary or boring but Yaariyan is one of those few movies which irks you throughout the show. The story flow is flawed, inconsistent, insensitive and intolerable.
There is an imaginary college in Sikkim, one of the most beautiful locations in India just like many such colleges situated in such hill stations shown in different movies in the past.
Mischievous students with their routine conspiracies woo hot girls in a comedy of errors much to the disappointment of a sincere principal who has to save his beloved college from the clutches of a ruthless foreign businessman.
To our astonishment, the casino tycoon proposes a competition like Lagaan (2004) where the students must fight and win glory for their nation. When we all know who is going to win eventually there is little need for putting all those unnecessary ingredients to spoil the tale.
But contrary to the writer’s belief, the youth of India are not so obsessed with a glamorous presentation of college life and Yo Yo Honey Singh that they wouldn’t mind a no-sense screenplay and let producers get away with crores over the opening weekend like yet another over-hyped publicised movie (remember Himmatwala, 2013).
Debutant director Divya Khosla Kumar, wife of Bhushan Kumar, the owner of one of biggest production house in India has reportedly said in her interviews that it was her long awaited dream to direct a film and it was really hard learning film making.
I am sure anybody who has gone through the troublesome experience of watching Yaariyan would be happy to sign a petition to Bhushan Kumar that will recommend sending Divya to a decent film making institute.
The problem lies in the fact that to excel at art you must be natural, spontaneous or at least creative and it’s a long forgotten fact that film making is art and not business. So trying too hard and gathering too much stuff doesn’t guarantee success same as cooking or fashion.
Everyone from the cast give decent performances. They are well presented and have good screen presence and expressions. Himansh proves he is suitable to play the protagonist and does well in all departments.
Rakulpreet is cute and promising. Gulshan Grover has only been doing decent character roles off-late and we really miss his amazing ‘Ba…d Man’ avatars (Kesariya Vilayati in Ram Lakhan, 1989).
One wonders why would Deepti Naval would have signed for the role she does with a lot of hamming. Sizzling beauty Evelyn Sharma has everything to show and little to act. Sayali Bhagat gives a forgettable performance and should refrain from accepting such roles.
Music and Cinematography are the saving grace of Yaariyan, the latter being the best thing about it. No movie of last year had better scenery, including the hills of Manali (India) in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013).
The locations and picturisation makes it worth watching the movie and you can forget those irksome moments for sometime. The Yo Yo Music is very popular among the public and songs like ‘ABCD’, ‘Sunny Sunny’ are favourites in clubs and at dance parties. ‘Meri Maa’ is a superb composition.
Only if you really want to enjoy those songs on big screen (like me and my friends) and are interested in the beauty of Sikkim, and on top of that glamour thrown at you in bulk, you can watch Yaariyaan. Let’s hope the director chooses a better script next time.
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