BOTTOM LINE
Fun Idea, Weak Execution
PLATFORM
ZEE5
RUNTIME
90 Mins (6 Episodes)
What Is the Film About?
When Hari sneaks his friend Gani into their room, chaos erupts as the roommates hide him from their landlord. Gani stays, but their peace is short-lived when a local gang takes charge of the community cricket ground. Tensions, ego clashes, and broken pride push the roommates to challenge the locals. Everything culminates in a bet-match for the ground, leading to an unexpected finale.
Performances
Jerome Lobo is the funniest among the four bachelors. His innocent responses and expressions resonate with you to an extent. Aashith K, playing the software engineer eager for a hike, has his moments too. Aahan and Sachin Kumar Pawar are strictly okay. Sughosh A Ram’s decent screen presence isn’t utilised efficiently. Kushi Badrinath has very little to offer in a male-dominated narrative.
Analysis
Roommates, ZEE5’s latest Kannada series, has a fun premise, almost resembling a low-budget cousin of Chennai 600028 interspersed with bittersweet moments among four cash-strapped bachelors. The show treats their day-to-day struggles lightly, as they fight among themselves, share their joys and sorrows, and bond over chai, cricket, and booze.
All six episodes revolve around these four bachelors being placed in different situations and how they respond to them. Trying to find a semblance of a story or a coherent screenplay, however, proves pointless. Among the roommates are a new entrant yet to land a job, a software engineer desperate for a pay hike, an aspiring indie filmmaker, and a guy who delivers groceries for a living.
The first episode begins on a hilarious note as the tenants hide the new roommate from an elderly, hard-of-hearing landlord, where a new pair of chappals plays spoilsport. The humour is situational, verbose, and delightfully casual. If only the show had explored its setting with more consistency and not taken its absurdities for granted, Roommates could’ve been a blast.
Instead, it simply doesn’t know what it wants to do, and the writing feels extremely lazy. The characters chatter endlessly, relying on a few pop-culture references to inject excitement. The show forgets the thin line between portraying aimless characters and becoming aimless in its execution altogether. It fails to work as a convincing bachelor comedy, flesh out its quirky characters with some substance, or even function as a proper gully-cricket drama.
The barely 12-to-13-minute episodes are packed with trivial exchanges that grow tiring after a point. The indie filmmaker is in a steady relationship, and the new roommate from Shimoga lands a job rather easily. Though portrayed as strugglers, the four guys seemingly have all the time in the world to occupy a cricket ground throughout the day.
The editing is all over the place, and the narration feels completely disjointed. The laughs dry up quickly because the show lacks any real sense of direction. Fortunately, the tussle for the local cricket ground and the petty banter offer some respite toward the end. This gully-cricket tamasha, along with the wacky methods both sides adopt to counter each other, could’ve been explored much further.
The ending, even if abrupt, proceeds in the same mocking tone with which the show began and leaves you with a grin. Still, Roommates royally wastes its potential with the humour, the characters, and the cricket. You don’t end up caring for any of it, and that’s a shame.
Performances by Other Actors
Music and Other Departments?
There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the technical contributions. Composer Nandan Srinivas can’t do much to fill the void created by the poor writing. Jeevan, the cinematographer, fares better than the editor in him, though it’s hard to blame a technician for something as clueless and wayward as this. It only goes on to prove how little runtime has to do with a show’s impact. Even a series spanning barely 90 minutes proves difficult to sit through.
Highlights?
Initial scenes in the room
Some cricket humour
The basic idea – to blend bachelorhood struggles, cricket into a show
Drawbacks?
Lazy, aimless writing
Poor execution
Humour barely lands
Did I Enjoy It?
Not really
Will You Recommend It?
Unless you’re desperate for a Kannada OTT title (which is a rarity these days), there’s no reason for you to watch it
Roommates ZEE5 Series Reviewed by M9 News
