MAD movie review: A non-stop ride of gags neatly packaged in a campus film

In one of the early scenes of MAD, which takes place in the Regional Institute Of Engineering (RIE), the first-year students of the college run to a faculty to complain against the seniors who have ragged them, only to discover that the faculty in question is a super-senior himself, in cahoots with those who have ragged these freshers. There is the briefest moment of tension between the seniors and juniors, but before we think this situation is going to erupt into a war, the film instantly cuts to a song about the joys of college life, with the seniors and juniors becoming besties in two minutes. This kind of scene, where the serious instantly turns trivial and where trivial turns to something more trivial, is the essence of MAD. It is a tall task to make a film that consistently brings in the laughs, but MAD succeeds in that, rehauling familiar tropes with verve and sheer kineticism.

Director - Kalyan Shankar

Cast - Sangeeth Shoban, Vishnu Oi, Narne Nithin, Ram Nithin, Gouri Priya Reddy, Ananthika Sanilkumar, Gopika Udyan

The initial stretches of the film play out as myths, with touches of unexpected absurdity. A student trying to escape the college with all the intensity of a whistleblower revealing state secrets is busted and tied up. Turns out, he just wanted to run away from college due to homesickness. A super-senior known to enter the scene only when the problems blow up, only to console the previously escaping student and narrate the story of his adventures in college, following which he is free to decide if he wants to stay. We go back to 2016. The super-senior, nicknamed Laddoo (Vishnu Oi) was himself a timid, homesick student ready to flee. He stays back and we are eventually introduced to Manoj, Ashok and Damodar — the boys who form the MAD squad. The MAD boys also get their own introductory scenes establishing their characters. Manoj (Ram Nithin) is a handsome casanova known for trying his luck on women in college and the 216 RTC bus he commutes in. Damodar (Sangeeth Shoban) is a self-professed village bumpkin bursting with goofy yet endearing main character energy. Ashok (Narne Nithin) is a brooding introvert and an orphan, who unexpectedly rises to the occasion at a basketball game and becomes a part of the college gang.

One of MAD’s more unique strengths is that despite the film filled with events, it never feels like the film is progressing or developing into something big. There are two major revelations in the film, one concerned about the identity of a girl and the other regarding the parents of one of the boys, and yet this is not a film where you wait for these moments to land. The laughs come in consistently, almost as if the film was written as an excuse to make these jokes. The film also doffs its hat to iconic campus films like 3 Idiots and Happy Days, while also existing independently in its own right. Each of the boys gets a love story, and much like its predecessor Happy Days, the love stories have something to reflect about these individual characters. While one’s love story is a comedy landmine, the love stories of the other two boys play a role in them growing out of their introversion and childishness. The girls in the film — Jenny, Sruthi and Radha — benefit from writing that sees them as characters and not showpieces. It also helps that the film’s female characters are played by actors (Ananthika Sanilkumar, Gouri Priya Reddy, Gopika Udyaan) have the most pleasant and likeable screen presence.

The love story between Sruthi and Manoj was particularly fun to watch. It is an old-fashioned trope, one that a lot of us have seen in 90s and 00s films. The boy keeps chasing the girl, the girl keeps slapping the boy. And the two eventually drop the gimmick and become a real couple. While this form of courting is seen today in a more politically incorrect vein, the film adds a scene where Manoj tells Sruthi that she only hits him so that he can try again and that the affection is mutual, slapping notwithstanding. Maybe films in the past did not feel the need to articulate this because it was a given in their time, and when we view it in our time, we found it wrong and moved on. But MAD found a way of making this cute again. I did not really mind them playing the whole slapping sequence for laughs, but the romantic pay-off, with adequate context to indicate mutual attraction, was also nice.  

MAD borrows from multiple traditions of comedy, be it the comedies around slapping, the punchline comedy popularised by Trivikram and double entendres. Director Anudeep KV makes a cameo in the film and his style of irreverent, silly and subversive one-liners also feature prominently. Out of all the comedy that exists on paper, it is the physical comedy that Sangeeth Shoban brings to the table that deserves a special mention. It isn’t a stretch to declare that he is the soul of the film. Nithin Narne, the nephew of NTR Jr, has the most amount of “heroic” writing and backhanded elevations, but the actor himself does not rise up to the character he was handed with. MAD also benefits from an assured, quickfire direction, which is aided by Shamdat’s colourful, cheery frames (the cinematographer also appears in a blink-and-miss professor cameo).

Despite remnants of the campus film genre seen across MAD, one thing sets the latter apart from the rest. There is no sappy mythologising of friendship. As the film ends, we get a line. “College is worth going to for friends without whom you would feel your life would actually be better.” It is silly, it is profound, it is…mad.