It is summer time and the colleges are closed. The guys and gals are relaxing in movie theatres. This is the best time to release a movie like Classmates in the theatres, so the makers of the movie thought. But those who are watching Classmates in theatres think that such a movie shouldn't have been released at all.
Sumanth has every right to experiment with a novel script. Of course Classmates was tested in Malayalam before being made in Telugu. It was a hit in Malayalam and probably that's the reason Sumanth and Co. thought it would work out well in Telugu. But it didn't.
"Classmates" is a story about the reunion of a batch of college students after 10 years. So the batch of Sumanth, Ravi Varma, Sada, Sunil, Kamilini Mukherjee, Shiva Reddy and others meet at the same campus they once studied. There is a professor (Kota Srinivasa Rao) and lecturer couple who love the students as their own children. The memory of their dead son (Sharwanand) who was studying in the college is the common thread that binds all. And there are other memories of love, hostel life, and election rivalries.
Mixed with all these are a murder mystery and an accident. Should be interesting, but it turns out to be too grim. And the uninspiring music by Kota only sends out a constant chorus of booing by the youngsters.
After an early shock of an attempted murder the first half of the movie rolls happily with the flash backs of a typical campus life. And then in the second half the story takes a serious tone. But as mentioned already it turns out to be too grim and no student would like to think about the movie after coming out of the theatre.
All the actors have done their parts well. It is sad that a good effort to make a different kind of movie, though copied, didn't yield good results. And the youngsters are waiting eagerly for the next releases.
Critic: Kishore
(2 / 5) : Average