Spoilers ahead…
In terms of the inventiveness of the storytelling and the structure, I was reminded of the wonderfully riotous Malayalam film ‘Thallumala’. This is one of the most enjoyable, most cleverly constructed films of the year.
Nithin Krishnamurthy’s Boys Hostel (dubbed into Telugu from the Kannada hit, Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare) is a fun ride that is also very clever – but let’s talk about the “fun” part, first. As the title suggests, we are in a college campus, and one of the first signs that this is not your regular movie is the teacher with the sine-curve walk and in a glittering red sari. (Said teacher is played by Ramya, and there are other cameos by Rishab Shetty and Pawan Kumar. The Telugu-version cameos are by celebrities like Rashmi Gautam and Tharun Bhascker.) A salivating (fantasising?) student turns back to the audience and says that their college is so cool that even their Mathematics teacher is so hot. In another film, you’d say he is breaking the fourth wall – but then, in Nithin Krishnamurthy’s anything-goes universe, there are no walls to begin with. With a host of hyper-excited actors and with cinematographer Arvind S Kashyap’s manic energy, the director pulls us into this world, into this chaos.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/kannada/movie/review/hostel-hudugaru-bekagiddare/
And you can watch the trailer / video review here:
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