FALTU is not an original and as a copy it’s pretty
dismal. Borrowing liberally from the recent Anupam Kher, Ashish
Vidyarthi dud called ‘Admissions Open’ which in turn seems to
have garnered inspiration from the Hollywood film ‘Accepted,’ this
is one film which doesn’t even have a clue as to what it
wants to say. Is it debunking the existing education system? Is it
promoting a utopian concept of all inclusive education or is it just
a film produced by a loving parent who wants to see his
son’s name shining in the arclights. The latter option seems to be the
closest to the truth. Choreographer Remo D’souza debuts as
director of this plotless, witless and totally undramatic,
extremely loud and unbecoming film appropriately titled FALTU. At least
they got the title right. A more appropriate moniker would have been
hard to find.
The screenplay/story by Mayur Puri and Tushar Hiranandani is totally
ridiculous. Rietesh(Jacky Bhagnani), Pooja(Pooja Gupta), Nanj(Angad
Bedi) and (Chandan Roy Sanyal) are best of friends. The former three
fare equally badly in their exams while the latter does phenomenally
well. The former do not get admission in any college while the latter
gets the cream-a seat in the prestigious St Peter’s College. So
what do the three fools do? They rope in their friend Google bhai
(Arshad
Warsi), a fixer of sorts to set up a college for them. Overnight a
dilapilated haveli gets transformed into a college acronym F.A.L.T.U, a
website is up and running and a dummy principal(Ritesh Deshmukh) is
also in place. Google bhai apportions junior artists to play the
students but instead real students who have been rejected by other
colleges turn up. Traversing the ‘admissions open’ route the colleges
up and running with digital video lecturing and students choosing the
kind of subjects they want to learn. But recognition is not forthcoming
as UGC representative (Akbar Khan) becomes the stumbling block. In a
ridiculously ham-handed development the FALTU team put up a dance
performance which wiins them a three year provisional reprieve from
Education Minister Chakraborthy(Mithun). The story truly boggles the
mind and the performances fail to pass muster. Given that the film was
being directed by a choreographer turned director, one would have
expected some really groovy dance numbers. But except for the climactic
sequence the dance is pretty much pedestrian. The music though has
quite a bit of verve. But that too is a problem because the film begins
to resemble one long never-ending MTV dance/music video. And it’s
not an attractive picture to sit through at all! God save us from such
loving fathers!
Rating: *
