Graduate is the first release from Telugu Film Industry in 2011. True to the saying ‘ring in the new’ the movie has an all new star cast, crew and producer too. Let’s see how the year starts off for the TFI.

What’s it about: Chakravarthi (Akshay) is a good hearted, outgoing student from Gitam College, Vizag. His friends group includes Shiva, who has weakness for girls and easy money, and Srinivas who is easily influenced by anyone. The group includes a girl Manisha, who is head over heels in love with Chakri. However, Chakri thinks love comes with lightning and thunders and avoids Manisha’s advances. Manisha never stops trying until Chakri falls for foreign returned Pavani (Ritika Sood). The fact that Chakri is preparing for Civil Exams with Pavani, while Manisha (Tashu Kaushik) is doing an easy job in call centre brings a gap between them. Soon, the otherwise strong willed Chakri, deviates from his path until a real life incident, distances him from his friends. Whether Chakri’s friends find him back is the question the movie tries to answer.

What is Good: Tashu Kaushik is the only experienced actress in the main lead and it shows by a distance. Akshay has good looks and a great voice, while Ritika does some acting and some badly shot skin show. In any case these are the only good parts of the movie, and it takes some time for anyone to write anything good about the film! It is that bad!

What is bad: The story is pretty clichéd and it is evident right from the start. We have seen many films such as these, but none of them have been so badly treated narrative wise. The hero is shown as a gentleman, but why he falls for ‘hot’ Pavani just like that, leaving another hot chick behind him is never explained. Characterization of Manisha ranges from being questionable to plain dumb sometimes. One wonders why established actors like Brahmanandam, Krishna Bhagawan and Chandra Mohan take up roles in such films at all! Even though it is nice to see Poornima (of Srivariki Premalekha), it seems she forgot how to act! The technical departments of the film too do nothing surprising.

Technical Departments: : The screenplay of the movie is easily one of the worst in the recent times. Almost every single scene has been done to death and every other dialogue is contrived! Cinematography doesn’t have any surprises too. Editing is shoddy and jerky. Music, choreography, rerecording aren’t exciting. The movie gets one point because it has been made and released even during tough times in the Telugu film industry. The producer should have spent some money sending the director to a filmmaking school and the hero to acting school!

Final Point: It is always hard to write off a movie, but fact is Graudate isn’t worth seeing for free. Save your money for the next week’s four releases!