Triple Riding review: Ganesh leads cringe-fest that lacks imagination

1.5/5

Story: On his very first day on duty at a Mysuru hospital, Dr Mahesh (Ganesh) falls head over heels in love with the resident surgeon, Dr Rakshitha (Megha Shetty). Rakshitha, though, is the daughter of local MLA Surappa (Sharath Lohithashwa), who wants her to marry the Home Minister’s son for his political benefit. The love birds run away, but then Mahesh breaks news to Rakshitha that he has not only been using a fake identity - he’s actually Ram, someone who dabbles with multiple jobs to get his livelihood, and pretended to be in love with Rakshitha at the behest of his actual arm-candy, Ramya (Aditi Prabhudeva), for reasons that only she knows. What gives?

Review: Why oh why would Ganesh do a film like Triple Riding? What was so fantabulous about it? There doesn’t seem to be a single plausible reason – at least as far as the script goes. It’s a terrible film that is so stale it stinks. How many times will Kannada filmmakers peddle a story of one guy and multiple love interests with him ending up with one of them? 

Triple Riding, literally, has Ganesh sleep-walking through it; he’s got some comedy (with the master of cringe, Sadhu Kokila), romance, a few dance numbers, couple of fights, and one emotional scene – elements that have supposedly become must-haves in his films. It is unfortunate that in the name of pandering to fans, filmmakers put together scripts that offer the actor nothing to chew on. If you take Triple Riding’s Ram and put him in any of Ganesh’s other recent films, you may not even notice the difference.

Director Mahesh Gowda, who has also written this film thought it was smart to name his heroines after three former popular heroines, Ramya, Rakshitha and Radhika. Hell, he even throws in Rashmika. Jothe Jotheyalli’s Megha Shetty is the most annoying of the lot. Her acting isn’t all that bad; it’s when she opens her mouth that it all goes wrong. The actress’ voice does her no good – it’s like Niveditha Gowda without the weird accent. Perhaps, getting someone else to dub for her would be a good idea going forward. Aditi Prabhudeva was solid in her performance and that was expected. She lived up to what was asked of her. Sadly, though, that was not much. The surprise package was Rachana Inder. The young actress has been improving with every movie and is a talent to look out for.

Mahesh’s writing and execution is the biggest culprit in making Triple Riding as bad as it is. Ideally, one would be mortally scared if a hospital is led by a doctor whose idea of treatment relies heavily on astrology and horoscopes of patients and, who can’t tell if a patient is genuinely in a coma or faking it. The resident surgeon only has an MBBS degree, who is allowed to operate on a patient who literally wakes up on the operating table. The less said about the actual hospital set-up the better. It is not difficult to shoot at actual hospitals these days, considering there are a dime-a-dozen at every corner, why then would they create one and do a shoddy job at it? That operating theatre was truly laughable. But then, the hospital sequences were meant to be for laughs. The question is, who will laugh at any of that?

The biggest issue with Triple Riding, though, is the basic premise. One guy with no particular credentials – he’s not rich and does not have any specific professional qualification or job, who is, however, irresistible to a bunch of ultra-rich girls. Really! Does that work in the real world?

Verdict: Kannada cinema is enjoying a good phase right now, thanks to a few films that caught the fancy of the nation. Good story-telling and making, even with a rooted subject, has takers. Yet, there are still filmmakers who are banking on done-to-death formulas that suit the ‘image’ of the actor on board and hope that fans will see them through at the box office. Those days, alas, are gone. This is a ride that you may want to miss. Triple Riding is an offence, you see!