Review: Keratam- a youth's angst - TeluguPeople.com News

Hyderabad: Siddharth Rajkumar's debut film Keratam has an important message to youth that one's career and future is more important than love. Directed by Gautham Patnaik, the film is a remake of a superhit Kannada film, Josh which was released back in 2009.

The film opens in a junior college where Siddharth and his friends decide to be friends for life. While the rest of them have some ambition in life, Siddharth is deeply in love with Geetha (Aishwarya) and he doesn't care about anything else.

When all of them join the same college, Siddharth fights with Robo (Robo Ganesh) when the latter tries to hurt Geetha. Meanwhile, the parents of all these students are summoned and the situation is explained.

Siddharth comes from a middle class family and his parents are devastated to know that their son is not concentrating on his studies. The rest of the story is about how all these factors shape Siddharth's life.

Siddharth Rajkumar is a good talent to watch out for. He delivers a credible performance for his debut film. The best part about his boy-next-door persona is his character is a mix of arrogance and vulnerability. Among other actors who make quite an impression is Bhimineni Srinivas Rao, who plays role of Siddharth's father.

His helpless situation will definitely strike a chord. The film also captures the confusion of teenagers who grapple with love, career and the age itself which blinds them from seeing the road ahead.

When Geetha's father requests her to fulfill her ambition of becoming a doctor, it's more about a father's concern about her daughter's future and the same goes with Bhimineni Srinivas Rao's anguish that his son is clueless about his life.

Aishwarya hardly makes an impression despite playing one of the two main leads. Rakul Preet Singh and Suman make cameo appearance and they are good in their roles.

On the flip side, the film drags a lot initially. The scenes involving Venu Madhav and the students are a big bore. It's only when all the lead characters enter college that things finally begin to fall into place.

At times, the story is amateurishly handled and the story runs on the lines of 7/G Brindavan Colony, 10th Class, Thakita Thakita and few other films based on youth.

It does get a bit too preachy as story progresses and in an age where people have become more career-oriented than ever before, the film should have been probably made years ago.

Gautham Patnaik's intent in narrating a story like this is good, although stories with good intent do not necessarily transform to good cinema. Joshua Sridhar's music is soothing and he has done a good job with almost all the tracks and background score.

Keratam is a decent effort; however, with less preaching in its content and a better screenplay, this could have been a much better film.