Yuva movie review: Yuva Rajkumar’s debut film is all mass and no material

1.5/5

Yuva movie story: Yuva (Yuva Rajkumar), a promising national-level wrestler, is banned from the sport, after allegations of match fixing are levelled against him and his coach. Unable to follow his passion, Yuva’s favourite pastime in college becomes picking up fights with other students, until a personal tragedy forces him to take up family responsibilities. Will Yuva ever realize his true potential?

Yuva movie review: Not long ago, there was a Kannada film called 10. Directed by Karm Chawla and starring Vinay Rajkumar as a boxer, this was a very gritty and realistic sports drama, which, most people may not have seen or even heard of. It was one of those Pushkara Mallikarjunaiah productions that came to theatres and on too OTT within days, all without much fanfare. Vinay had done an incredible job in the film, but then no one saw it, so, director Santhosh Ananddram figured he could just tweak that and use it as ‘a’ plot point in the former’s brother Yuva’s acting debut.

But unlike Karm, who made a start-to-finish sporting drama as a classic underdog tale, Santhosh didn’t weave a good sports film. Instead, he makes a pretty intolerable film that’s a mish-mash of ‘commercial elements’, even dedicating the entire first half to a meaningless college gang war that has no bearing to the actual story (if you can call it that).

The first hour has 4-5 fights and 2 songs – that’s it. The only purpose this half of the film serves is to show that Yuva can fight and that he does quite well. Only problem is that the latest entrant from the Rajkumar family seems to be channelling Rocking Star Yash in his every move. Yes, Yuva is only a debutant and has a lot to learn as far as acting goes, but here, in trying to highlight his lineage, Santhosh gives the actor a ton of punchlines and gets him to deliver those with tight close-ups, which becomes rather counter-productive. It highlights how woefully ill-equipped the actor still is as far as emoting goes.

What’s worse is that the supporting cast doesn’t prop him up either. The normally dependable Achyuth Kumar is almost hysterical in most of his scenes; Gopalkrishna Deshpande is given too many lines that he delivers quite high-pitched and with little effect. Sudharani gets the raw end of the stick here, with fairly nothing to do, and Hitha Chandrashekar, as the sister puts in a far more solid performance than leading lady Sapthami Gowda. That should give audiences an idea of how the filmmaker squandered an opportunity of giving a debutant a solid start.

I am a big fan of Vinay Rajkumar’s growth as an actor and his choice of films, something I’d attempted to address with Yuva, but he is clear that the direction of his career will be more mass oriented. This, unfortunately, was a misstep for the entire team. 

Yuva movie verdict: If you are still enamoured by routine commercial elements – 5-6 fights, dialogues subtly bashing other actors, family sentiment, etc., and don’t really care about solid story-telling – Yuva is the film for you. But if you’ve moved away from that genre, you know what to do!