Dil Review

Hi! I'm Srinu! I represent the typical "youth" of today. I fear no one, and spend a good part of this film defying and revolting against a meddling malicious bully who dares to tell me how I should lead my life and what's good for me. Dangerous people like this who constantly interfere in the lives of us youth deserve to be publicly insulted and humiliated, and I set an example through this film to lakhs of youngsters across Andhra of exactly how to deal with such people in their own lives. But enough about my father already. Just remember that I am supposed to be a role model for people like you who'll spend your valuable money to hoot and cheer for me, so treat your father exactly the same way that I do - then you will also be "cool" like me.

I'm cool in more ways than that, of course. I threaten the principal of Maharaja College in Vizag that I'll beat him up, and thereby get admission. This is the "power of youth". I decide to romance a girl just because her Dad doesn't want me to interact with her, ignoring that the girl and her Dad are two totally different individuals. This is the "logic of youth". It just so happens that I fall in love with her, but otherwise I'd have coolly dumped her after proving my point. This is the "ethics of youth". Importantly, I don't repent a single one of these anywhere later in the movie. That is just media power in immature and reckless money mongers' hands.

Still want to know the story for this turkey? Wow man, what would we Tollywood folks do without a lot of your kind in circulation! Anyway, here goes. I am a cheap, unethical 17-year-old who has the support of a movie director to make me appear worthy of emulation by making me look a very - yes - "cool" youth. In the very opening scenes of the film, I lie to my father and bribe my uncle to keep his mouth shut. We make it look comic, of course. In the next, I tell my Dad point-blank that I'll watch a movie just because he doesn't want me to.

Then I go to a college for admission and issue a veiled threat to a principal - technically my guru - that I'll beat him up if he doesn't give me admission. Making fun of lecturers then, is, of course, what college is for.

Then we cog the prima donna scene from Shiva (by the way, we do a lot of cogging in this one) where I yank out a motorcycle silencer to beat up 6 body-builder goons. (Incidentally, I am the most powerful 17-year-old earth has ever seen, but let's not stray.) We forgot that Shiva's hero had zero ethical flaws.

The college has Neha, daughter of big-time goon Prakash Raj. His henchmen threaten me mistakenly assuming I am serenading her, and me being what I am, I decide I will actually do it just to spite them. I fall in love really, however, and we get a chance to copy scenes from Jayam and the entire climax of Nuvvu Nenu in the process, where our whole college unites to marry a couple (I am incidentally about 3 years below legal age, but the law is a trivial thing). Incidentally, the movies are the only place where you'll find one guy for whom an entire college moves.

My role is easy - I don't have any demanding scenes, except for one Bobbyesque encounter with Prakash Raj, where I fail anyway. But that's okay - you suckers will keep paying until I mature as an actor, and besides, Dad's always there. Neha's part is quite simple, too, but that's still too much for her. She and I have more chemistry than wood, but not much. Our savior is Prakash Raj - he should have played hero and heroine too.

The music? By the second half, you're groaning every time there's a song on. As for comedy, we shameless copy age-old jokes, like that beginning interview of Venu Madhav.

In summary, every new hero with a big lineage gets a student film to tap the 5 million plus student crowd, and this is mine. We spare no effort in sickeningly pandering to this target market, so watch it. My condolences to your parents and your teachers as you emerge an anti-social... er, "cool" element.