F.A.L.T.U 2011 Movie Review

Young, lively and satirical. That, in short, summarizes F.A.L.T.U., helmed by director Remo D'Souza [his first Hindi film; he had directed a Bengali film before].

Come to think of it, a number of choreographers - right from Kamal, Saroj Khan, Chinni Prakash and B.H. Tharun Kumar to Farah Khan, Ahmed Khan and Ganesh Acharya - have accepted the challenge of going beyond their boundaries of work. Call it a coincidence, their first attempts have never been musicals or dance-based affairs - something that the viewer would naturally expect from them. Now Remo sets his maiden effort F.A.L.T.U. in a college campus, casts young talents and comes up with a film that has loads of energy, plus a message before it concludes.

There's talk that F.A.L.T.U. is a mishmash of the 2006 Hollywood movie ACCEPTED. In fact, the Hindi film industry had already made mincemeat of it in a film called ADMISSIONS OPEN, which released last year. It was so poorly crafted that it arrived and departed without making any noise.

Again, ACCEPTED wasn't an original piece of work. It borrowed from two films, ANIMAL HOUSE and CAMP NOWHERE, with a bit of VAN WILDER thrown in. Remo, on the other hand, may be inspired by ACCEPTED [although the story is credited to Sachin Bajaj], but screenplay writers Mayur Puri and Tushar Hiranandani give it a desi feel to suit the Indian sensibilities. Besides, like Rajkumar Hirani's iconic Hit 3 IDIOTS, F.A.L.T.U. drives home a message in its penultimate moments.

F.A.L.T.U. gives its take on the educational system, but it's far from serious and preachy. With foot-tapping songs and energetic choreography [naturally, with Remo at the helm], loads of humor and tremendous youth appeal, F.A.L.T.U. is more of a fun ride that's wildly aimed at the youth in particular. In fact, I'd go to the extent of saying that the film reflects the attitude of Gen X.