‘Crash Course’ Review: In 2004, 18 years ago, a banker, Chetan Bhagat, quit his job and dreamed of becoming a full-time writer, writing the book ‘Five Points Someone – What Not to Do at IIT’. The book became very famous. Thousands of copies can be seen being sold in bookstores and busy town squares. Noted directors like Raju Hirani also made a film starring Aamir Khan based on this book, but the mention of Five Point Samoan is important here because after this book was published and gained fame, there was a revolution in the world of books in India.
Suddenly, hundreds of books on life settled in college hostels hit the market. In 2019, TVF released a web series called Kota Factory followed by web series on college life like Hostel Day, College Romance, Girls Hostel etc. Kota Factory was great then everything else was fine. A massive web series to show the dark world of coaching classes preparing for IIT admission in Kota – Crash Course is now out on Amazon Prime Video. The only mistake in this web series made with the right intention is that the producer-director wanted to give this web series top marks in viewership and hence they used every angle necessary to make it.
Kota Factory TVF Comparison Crash Course Good luck. No matter how hard producer Manish and director Vijay Maurya work, the benchmark is already set for Crash Course. Does the crash course have the ability to forget audience quota factories? No. There are few chapters in Crash Course that are as good as Annu Kapoor. Annu Kapoor’s performance after a long time looks like this man might get more work. For Annu Kapoor, Ratanraj Jindal’s character is perfect for him. Hailing from a traditional business family and always aiming to make a name for himself in society, Ratanraj’s roots in the coaching business are exposed time and again by his behavior, ethics and attire.
Whatever you do, Ratanraj can be seen abusing his mother and sister in Suit Boots and treating the editor of the newspaper for the wrong news published about him. Annu Kapoor has limits but manages to turn into a despicable character. The second successful chapter is Anushka Kaushik, who has previously been doing small roles in web series. She changed her name from Anushka Sharma to Anushka Kaushik. Saharanpur’s Anushka Kaushik, who started her journey with Tik Tok, plays Vidhi Gupta. There is only one character in the entire series, whose performance shows many shades.
This girl comes to Kota with a dream of getting a top 10 rank in IIT and due to various aspects of her life, the audience is both happy and sad to see what happens to her. The character of Binny Agarwal (Udit Arora) as Vidya Gupta’s brother is written very well and Udit gives his full strength to act. Udit should get more work. His character and performance in Jamtara was also good.
We all know about quota filled factories and coaching class mushrooms. Coaching class culture, seeing every house in Kota converted into a hostel, promising students of another coaching class joining one coaching class with various inducements besides free tuition, spending lakhs of rupees on good teachers, using different types in other classes. Finishing Techniques All these and many other incidents that happened in Kota have been reported in newspapers for at least ten years. The situation does not change. Every year lakhs of students from all over the country descend on Kota station, out of which about 95% students find their IIT dreams shattered and their families suffer.
Earlier coaching classes were conducted by good teachers who really wanted to help children. Now businessmen are present to conduct coaching classes, along with a whole team of professionals who do everything in a corporate manner, even marketing the toppers in the studies with drum-tashe-rally. Tolerable stress of study, gain knowledge on maximum subject in minimum time so that you can fill booklets in exam. If you never pass the test or reach your destination, either start taking drugs or commit suicide. Quota math is so simple.
Crash Course wants to do a lot. He also wants to show competition between two coaching classes, one for qualified teachers and the other for businessmen. There’s teenage romance, there’s sex, there’s pregnancy, there’s illegal abortion. There is the pressure of studies, parents’ wishes, parents’ undue pressure, parents’ affection. There are also groups of local Mawlids, and some beatings. There are drugs, there is also one-sided love for the girl who sells drugs. Disappearing from the hostel at night, measuring the streets of Kota, sitting in cafes, studying with friends and making love part time. Manish Hariprasad and Raina Roy have not left out a single thing that any web series made on Kota should have.
In this case, director Vijay Maurya would not have had a problem as every element of a commercial web series has been included in it. Anyway, this week is about victory. Appeared as an actor in ZEE5’s Rangbaaz. Became a police inspector in Darlings on Netflix. And now has jumped into directing web series through a crash course. Vijay mainly makes commercials. An image was also made ‘photocopy’. A short form of advertising. The story is 30 seconds long. The scope of a web series is like an ocean, so it is important for the director and writer of the web series to keep the core spirit of the story in mind. Crash Course has no single plot around which all other plots are built.
Crash Course would have been Velpuri if its young actors had not done well and Piku’s Chandrasekhar Prajapathi had not excelled in editing. If you’ve been around for a while and haven’t seen Kota Factory, start by watching the crash course. The web series is good.
Detailed rating
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Tags: review, web series
First Published: August 08, 2022, 18:26 IST
