BTech Review: weak screenplay made this a clumsy one

VK Prakash's Nirnayakam was one movie that got extreme responses as it had a relevant issue getting addressed inside an untidy screenplay. The feeling BTech, the movie directed by Mridul Nair delivers is very similar to what Nirnayakam did. You have performances and a main issue as a plus point. But the weak screenplay sort of derails the movie.

A bunch of BTech students, some of them are studying, some have back papers and some are unemployed are our main characters. A young Muslim boy from Kerala comes to their college and he was a favorite of everyone. At one point he had to face something terribly and the movie BTech shows us how his friends came in support of him.

The script here is untidy. There are random celebration visuals strengthening the on screen stereotyping of youth for a large chunk of time. These sequences does offer fun sporadically. But the relevance of these scenes will bother you as we are not in for a nonsensical drama. The film takes a sharp detour to get to the central conflict. And the ambitious second half is strong emotionally, but the clinical perfection one would expect was not there.

Asif Ali gets a character who is always frustrated and hot headed. He makes Anand look authentic and the performance from him towards the end was really commendable. Arjun Ashokan gets a good character to establish himself. Niranjana was good. Aparna Balamurali needed more space. Sreenath Bhasi, Deepak Parambol, Saiju Kurup, Alencier, Jaffer Idukki are the other main characters. Aju Varghese, Anoop Menon, Neena Kurup etc were also there as other minimal characters.

Mridul Nair is a bit confused in the beginning on how to treat the film. He is trying all sorts of stuff and that sort of makes the movie clumsy. The script gets a hold over the narrative only when the main conflict is addressed in the later portions of the movie. The behavior of authorities and the islamophobia factor gives an emotional edge to the story. But the packaging is not fool proof. The visuals are fine. The cuts aren't that great. The music from Rahul Raj was really good.

If you are someone who felt Nirnayakam from VKP was a movie that should be watched, the BTech is also one such movie. It has a subject that's compelling, but the making is not that appealing.