Razak Mohaideen’s celebration of collegial love plays like an orgy where the frat-boy host masturbates and the guests merely swallow (their own saliva, that is). In this case, the selfish host is Razak himself: the professor is so fascinated with the hormonal quirks of campus love, so caught-up in student politics and student banal talks, that his college movie forgets the very basics of freshman-level moviemaking. The obvious word for it is “sophomoric.” Razak seems intent to bond with the seniors and dismiss the faculty and juniors—he wants to be the cool professor—but he comes across as the clueless pretender—the one who says “All right, guuuys” and “That’s a wrap” and other film-prof hipspeaks. (Someone tell the professor that college hazing doesn’t usually end up with the juniors uncontrollably dancing to music.) The movie’s few winks are of the crudest kind; it’s garish and desperately recycled, like the batting of Azza’s heavily mascaraed lashes. Erra Fazira should be kept a few yards away from the dubbing microphone because she must shout when she’s supposed to pretend to whimper. Yusri is awkward and fake, and he, like his brother Edry does to clothing in an accidental venture into boudoir filmmaking, gets ready to shed the few remaining layers of dignity. When his character is hit by a car earlier in the movie, we almost wish him something. The director’s understanding of sidekicks is amusingly literal; he grabs them in when the romance sags and kicks them aside when the comedy stinks. Of course, at some point, the boy sidekick will dispense unexpected insight to the hero; the girl sidekick will comfort the heroine, but these moments of humanity are few and far between among the stretches of humiliating pratfalls. Oh yes, the synopsis: it’s the same old story of the tomboy-ish girl who has a crush on the player-ish boy, the same old story of clashing types and unlikely love—with new, unplumbed lows.
Posted by lotx0001 at May 16, 2005 01:33 AM