Januse Mohammed’s 100 Days Of Love (2016) Movie Review

Januse Mohammed’s 100 Days Of Love (2016) Movie Review

Starcast: Dulquer Salmaan, Nithya Menen, Sekhar Menon, Aju Varghese, Vineeth, Praveena, Rahul Madhav, Abhirami Suresh and Jacob Gregory

Directed by Januse Mohammed
Music Composed by Govind Menon
Background Score by Bijibal
Edited by Sandeep Kumar
Written by Sashank Vennalakanti

Censor Certificate: U & Runtime: 155 Minutes

There are movies which are pure mindless commercial entertainers.

There are those which try to build awareness about issues.

There are those which portray cruel reality.

And then there is “100 days of Love”.

It’s a hooptie that capsulizes all the clichés of the romantic genre with none of the charm. Director Jenuse Mohammed takes up an old hat romantic tale to mark his directorial debut, and tries very hard to pull off a clichéd flimsy screenplay that had been told a umpteen times. At each and every scene, the director tries to bring in the typical Bollywood romantic film clichés. Like the hero is fascinated with Nithya Menon’s smile, Da Thadiya fame Sekhar Menon as fatso best friend who provides much needed moral boost to the hero, this remind us of Kunaal from IHLS, Starting off like a lazy loser (pretty much in every romantic tale), Businessman Rahul as Mr Perfect and with whom Nithya is currently engaged with, touches 3 Idiots, Even having a brother who constantly pulls down morals of the lead actor, even Shree 420 umbrella sequence, and breaking into song, Joker finding his way to Harley Quinn to get this thoughts right, at the end Nithya Menon searches for Dulquer in white salwar & thus the clichés go on… 100 Days of love becomes a addle of romantic drama clichés that proves a bit vapid even for the rom-com fans.

Starting off with Rao Gopal Rao (Dulquer) narrating his 100 days of love, of which you hardly see 10 days, from day of sensational Facebook comment to the Nithya Menon accepts his love. The narration is arty with colorful set up and soothing background score, that suck you on a dulcet trip to the bachelor lives of Rao Gopal Rao (Dulquer Salman) & his sidekick Gummadi (Sekhar Menon). Rao Gopal Rao is a journalist works for The Times and lead of the film, while Gummadi is a freewheeling video-gamer, and the bestie of RGR. It when RGR meets a girl Savithri (Nithya Menon) and fancies to be the girl of his dreams that he and Gummadi both set out in search of her, so that RGR can propose her. All this happens like an adventure in a video game with levels and clues spread around.

Regardless of script uneven pace and indecisive disposition, Dulquer Salmaan with a classy grin, gives his best shot. In some scenes, his energy results in an overdone performance but most of the places, especially in scenes like Drunkard Joker, Finding the past places with Nithya, the star is in complete command. Nithya Menon has done a good job, she is dazzling yet confident looks and vast past experience made her job well-heeled. Da Thadiya fame Sekhar Menon gives his best according to the situations and his fascination towards gaming is fun. Praveena, Vineeth, Aju Varghese and Abhirami Suresh made their presence felt in their limited characterizations.

Once in a Interview director Raj Kumar Hirani said, “ In 100 years of cinema we have probably said everything that we can say on Love.” And that what makes romantic genre so much harder. This movie has nothing to do with RKH. It has been directed by debutant Jenuse, and the story of “100 Days of Love” was nothing more than a ho-hum cliché. Movie begins on a somewhat interesting note and then goes on to become a tediously long ride with everything predictable till the climax. The romance loses all its charm as it progresses and the writers remain befuddled between their target audiences making a futile attempt to cater the genx viewers. In fact this has been the dilemma or conflict seen in most of the projects today when they try to incorporate plots with safe bet screenplays and in this effort make a complete mess out of the film deliberately.

Music of the film by Govind Menen and cinematographer Pratheesh Kumar remain the saving grace for this film in the technical department, which unfortunately didn’t get the support they deserved from the script. Dialogues Sashank Vennalakanti and Lyrics by Krishna Chaitanya do not come up with anything extra ordinary to mention over here. Editing by Sandeep Kumar could have been crispier and tries to keep up the pace of the movie only to be slightly voided by the song sequences which tend to make you yearn for the movie to continue. Production values of the film are fine.

Survi Review: 1.5/5 (For Performances, Music & Cinematography)