‘Crash Course’ Review: In 2004, i.e. 18 years ago, a banker Chetan Bhagat quits his job and writes a book with the dream of becoming a full-time writer, titled ‘Five Point Someone – What Not to Do at IIT’. The book becomes very famous. Thousands of copies are sold in bookstores and thousands more are sold at busy intersections of the city. A famous director like Raju Hirani even makes a film based on this book with Aamir Khan, but it is important to mention Five Point Someone here because after this book was published and gained fame, there was a revolution in the book world of India.
Suddenly more than 100 books were printed and released on life in college and college hostel. In 2019, TVF released a web series called Kota Factory and after that web series based on college life started coming like Hostel Days, College Romance, Girls Hostel etc. Kota Factory was the best and the rest were just okay. To show the dark world of coaching classes preparing for IIT admission in Kota, a very big web series – Crash Course has now been released on Amazon Prime Video. The only fault of this web series made with the right purpose is that the producer-director wanted to give this web series the top rank in the merit list of the audience and hence they used every angle in making it that they felt necessary.
Crash Course is destined to be compared to Kota Factory TVF. No matter how hard producer Manish and director Vijay Maurya try, the benchmark for Crash Course is already set. Does Crash Course have the power to make the audience forget Kota Factory? No. There are some chapters in Crash Course that are good, like Annu Kapoor. After a long time, seeing Annu Kapoor acting, one feels that this man can get more work. For Annu Kapoor, the character of Ratanraj Jindal is like him. Coming from a traditional business family and always with the aim of making a name for himself in the society, Ratanraj’s roots in the coaching business are repeatedly revealed through his behavior, conduct, and clothes.
Do whatever you want, but even while wearing a suit and boots, Ratanraj is seen abusing his mother and sister and he beats up the editor of the newspaper for publishing a false news about him. Annu Kapoor has his limitations but he has succeeded in becoming a hateful character. The second successful chapter is Anushka Kaushik who has earlier played small roles in web series. She changed her name from Anushka Sharma to Anushka Kaushik. Anushka Kaushik from Saharanpur, who started her journey with Tik Tok, has played the character of Vidhi Gupta. There is only one character in the entire series whose acting has many shades.
This girl comes to Kota with a dream of getting a top 10 rank in IIT and because of the different aspects of her life, the audience feels happy and sad along with her by watching the events happening with her. Binny Agarwal (Udit Arora)’s character in the role of Vidhi Gupta’s brother is very well written and Udit has put in all his effort in playing it. Udit should get more work. His character and acting were also good in Jamtara.
We all know about Kota’s admission factory and coaching classes mushrooming. The culture of coaching classes, seeing every house in Kota turning into a hostel, one coaching class luring bright students from other coaching classes with free education and many other temptations, spending lakhs of rupees on good teachers, adopting various tactics to finish other classes. All this and much more that has been happening in Kota has been published in newspapers for at least ten years. Circumstances do not change. Every year, lakhs of students from all over the country land at Kota station, out of which about 95% students see their dreams of IIT shattered and their families suffer the consequences.
Earlier, coaching classes were run by good teachers who really wanted to help the students. Now businessmen are there to run coaching classes, along with them there is a whole group of professionals who do everything in a corporate manner, even the marketing of toppers in studies is done with drums and rallies. Bearable pressure of studies, gain knowledge of as many subjects as possible in the least time so that you can fill the answer sheets in the exam. If you are unable to pass the exam or reach your destination, then either you start taking drugs or commit suicide. This is the simple math of Kota.
Crash Course wants to do many things. It wants to show the rivalry between two coaching classes, one of which is of a qualified teacher and the other of a businessman. There is teenage romance, sex, pregnancy, illegal abortion. There is the stress of studies, the desire of parents, unwanted pressure from parents, and parental affection. There is a gang of local goons, some beatings. There are drugs, one-sided love with a girl who sells drugs. There is also roaming the streets of Kota by disappearing from the hostel at night, studying with your friend in a cafe and also falling in love part-time. Manish Hariprasad and Raina Roy have not left out a single thing that should be there in any web series made on Kota.
In this case, director Vijay Maurya would not have faced any problem because he has included every element of a commercial web series in it. Anyway, this week belongs to Vijay. He appeared as an actor in Zee5’s Rangbaaz. He became a police inspector in Darlings on Netflix. And now he has jumped into web series direction through Crash Course. Vijay basically makes advertising films. He also made a film “Photocopy”. Advertising is a short form. It is a story of 30 seconds. The expanse of a web series is as big as the ocean, so it is important for the web series director and writer to keep in mind the original soul of the story. There is no one plot in Crash Course around which all the other plots are created.
Crash Course would have remained just a Bhelpuri if the young actors in it had not done a good job and Piku’s Chandrashekhar Prajapati had not done a great job in editing. If you have a lot of time and have not watched Kota Factory, then start by watching Crash Course. The web series is okay.
Detailed Rating
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AV Prafullachandra/5 |
Tags: Web Series
FIRST PUBLISHED : August 8, 2022, 18:26 IST