Koothara

The movie Koothara from second show fame Srinath Rajendran has displayed the real sad side of modern day engineering graduates/ dropouts in a very smart way without losing any key incidents. But the story in the movie needed a fiction part to prove the inspiration factor and that last quarter of the screenplay which was reserved for this fails miserably.

The story focuses on the life of three friends Koobrin, Tharun and Ram. The college life of the three friends filled with non academic adventures, the hopeless life after college and a last try from them to get back to a good life is what Koothara focusing on.

Let me tell you one thing that Koothara has captured the college life in a realistic manner. The college elections, mobile phone and love affairs, malpractice in examinations, flawed preparations for exam, the hostel room fun, campus fights, those dreams to begin their own company etc are something we would love to see in a modern day campus story and Srinath Rajendran and Vini Vishwa Lal has done that part impressively. When they started writing the fiction in the film things started to go wrong. It’s true that they created a curiosity factor with the inclusion of Usthad Saali but they couldn’t explain or exploit that part of the story. The fun side of the friendship will not bore you but that lack of surprise will surely disappoint you.

Performances of the Kootharas Bharath, Sunny Wayne and Tovino Thomas were good. Gauthami Nair and Janani Iyyer were okay in their caricature characters. Shritha was disappointing. Bhavana doesn’t have much to do. The guy who acted as the assistant of Saali is a promising talent. Mohanlal’s extended cameo was an interesting one in the beginning but as the story moved on Saali was left alone in the shore.

Srinath has marked his presence in the industry with Second Show that showed a variety in treatment and similar fashion can be seen in Koothara too. The screenplay as I said was good in capturing the campus life but was shoddy in the Saali episode. Too much of anti female jokes kind of makes things annoying. Cinematography was good. Variety music and interesting BGMs. If those violent sea night shots with the boat were conceived using visual effects I would consider that as a great improvement.

Overall Koothara is an average work that failed to build something special. It doesn’t completely justify its name in the literal sense. I am going with a generous 2.5/5 for Koothara. For those who studied in self financing engineering colleges and still struggling to get things straight in life, this film has moments that will poke your nostalgia.