Director- Vijayabhaskar

Cast- Sumanth (Ravi), Ravi Varma (Satish), Sunil (Boddu), Sadha (Rajeshwari), Kamlini Mukherjee (Razia), Sharvanand (Murali) and others

Producer- Shravanti Films

Music- Koti

There are certain simple rules that filmmakers forget when they remake films from one language to another- what works for one language doesn't necessarily have to work for the other.

'Classmates' was directed in Malayalam by Lal Jose. The film created box office records and has now become the biggest blockbuster hit that was ever made in Malayalam. The film's story is not exactly something that is exclusive to Malayalam but if it had not made such a good impact in Telugu, you might have to blame it on a careless screenplay.

The film is about a handful of college students- Ravi, Satish, Boddu, Rajeshwari and Razia. They are very good friends in college. There was another person in the gang- Murali, who happened to be the son of their favorite professors. Murali dies under mysterious circumstances even before completing the college. It was his idea that the gang should reunite after 15 years.

His parents organize the get together and invite the friends. 15 years later, almost all the friends had lost touch with each other. So, when they unite, they have lots of news to catch up with and pleasant memories of the past to relive.

But, on the night of the party, an attempt is made on Ravi's life. The weapon of the attempted murder is a string of the guitar that belonged to Murali. He is rushed to the hospital for treatment. The other friends and the professor begin to reminisce about the old times. What started as a pleasant conversation and a trip down memory lanes soon becomes ugly with many dark secrets resurfacing.

Why does he change his statement? What are the ugly secrets that get revealed?

Sumant has done a good job as Ravi, the student union leader. Sadha doesn't have anything much to do, but she does her role well. Kamlini Mukherjee is a surprise package as Razia. Sunil's comedy is absolutely amazing. Sharvanand had played the role of Murali in the film.

There are two main reasons why the film didn't do quite that well.

This was neither a commercial film, nor an offbeat one. It didn't have the essential ingredients of either commercial or offbeat film. So, for some strange reason, it looked incomplete.

The narration was sometimes very average. There was a staleness in the film's flashback college scenes.

The Pluses-

Performance of lead stars

Sunil's comedy

The Minuses

Tiresome flashbacks

Nativity factor suffers

No commercial elements in a commercial film

Cinesouth Says- They could have simply dubbed and released the Malayalam film in Telugu.