Yaariyan Review

Yaariyan brought to our screens by T-Series with the first lady of the company taking charge as the director is aiming to entice the youngsters from their schools and colleges to the movie theatres. The trailers of the film make it seem like a ‘Jo Jeeta Woh Sikander’ and ‘Student of the Year’ hybrid product with generous dozes of ‘Main Hoon Na’ sprinkled in. Is it able to match the success of those three films?

Story: Yaariyan, albeit predictably has a wafer thin plot line. It is centered around the most popular boy in college Lakshya (Himansh Kohli) whose main aim in life is to kiss a girl in front of everyone. He is also the son of a war martyr and always ends up fighting with his mother for the most trivial of things. When an Australian businessman buys the land around his college in Sikkim and threatens to build a hotel and a casino, his principal (Gulshan Grover) makes up a team to face the Aussies in a cultural/sports/whatever event. When the Indians reach Australia the story goes straight from Student of the Year territory to Lagaan territory with patriotism taking centre stage. Yaariyan ends with a very amusing climax.

Screenplay, Dialogues and Direction: Divya Kumar fills her film’s screenplay with the most typical elements that anyone could have thought of to put in a youth-oriented film. It has generous doses of plot elements from films like Jo Jeeta.., Main Hoon Na, Student of the Year, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.. And every film set in a college in the history of films. This could have turned Yaariyan into a disaster but fortunately the unpredictable genre changes throughout, end up saving the film to a certain degree. The dialogues are corny and cheesy and seem to have been written using Google translate. Divya directs Yaariyan with an amateur’s outlook. She doesn’t have the vision to pull off a film that tries to squeeze in so many aspects of a teenager’s life into one single film. Eventually you feel sorry for her for taking up a project that so very clearly is beyond her skill set.

Miscellaneous: The technical expertise of the crew of Yaariyan doesn’t comprise of world class technicians. The cinematography of Yaariyan is largely derivative of other greater films made in India and abroad. The production design is glossy and stylish. The editing should have been crisper. The costume design is unrealistic because the female characters in Yaariyan wear clothes which no college anywhere in the world would allow their female students to wear!

Music: Yaariyan is saved by its music album which as you’d expect from a T-Series film boasts of very good songs. Yo Yo Honey Singh and Benny Dayal give two hit hummable songs in the form of Sunny Sunny and ABCD. These two songs will rock every party in town. But the best song of the album is Baarish which is beautifully sung by Gajendra Verma. Anyone who is a big fan of soulful music is sure to fall in love with this song. The other romantic songs like Love Me Thoda Aur and Allah Waariyaan also make their mark. Let’s just say if not for the music, Yaariyan would have ended up as a terrible film.

Acting: There is not much that can be mentioned about the actors of Yaariyan when talented actors like Deepti Naval and Gulshan Kumar are made to mouth the corniest dialogues. These two talented actors sleepwalk through their scenes. Himansh Kohli who plays the lead role isn’t upto the mark at all. His acting is way below par and makes you wonder how he ended up getting this film. Rakul Preet Singh who has appeared in a few South Indian films before Yaariyan isn’t as awful as Himansh but isn’t fantastic either. If there is anything apart from direction which lets Yaariyan down, it is the acting which comprises of utterly pedestrian performances.

Conclusion: If you are not a college-goer and value your intelligence, then feel free to give Yaariyan a miss. But if you are in school or college and have some free time in your hands, some money in your pocket and plenty of friends in your friend circle then go watch Yaariyan – you might end up grooving to its music and might even end up liking it. It is best enjoyed with few buckets of popcorn and your best buddies.

Box Office: Yaariyan is likely to open below average to average because of the hit music even though it doesn’t boast of any known face in the starcast. The spending power of the Indian teenager might even help the makers make decent profits.

Positive:

• Music hits all the right notes
• The Unpredictable Changes in the Film’s Genre

Negative:

• Acting by all the actors
• Direction is below par

Rating: