BANGALORE: While one would have expected a romantic outing with a new twist to the genre going by the title, S Nagendra Urs’ Just Love falls flat. Poorly paced, haphazardly edited, and made with oodles of indifference, the movie lurches from scene to scene, undermining the efforts of its performers.
The plot of this love story revolves around the relationship between Surya (Jayaram Karthik), Nandini (Neha Saxena), his parents and his friend, a role played by Chikkanna. Surya, a happy-go-lucky youngster, is attempting to complete his education in engineering when he meets Nandini in a bus as he travels to Chickmagalur upon his father’s (Achyuth Kumar) request.
Surya surprises his parents by bringing Nandini home, where she narrates her suffering. His father, stingy by nature, allows her to stay for a week. During this time, Nandini falls for Surya but Surya doesn’t believe that love can happen in two days. Upset, Nandini goes back to her hometown in Mangalore.
While this is the first part, the second half is about how Surya travels to Nandini’s hometown and tries to win her back. Whether a relationship develops or not makes for the very low-key climax. You can guess most of the movie.
The inherently slow nature of the story has references to a slew of older movies, yet it doesn’t delight its audience. The main problem is the screenplay. The director has not used the characters and has failed to bring out the latent talent of the lead pair. There is neither much romance nor action, except for some dialogues which sound pretentious.
JK in his debut as a hero doesn’t seem comfortable in his lover-boy character. He keeps up the macho image throughout the endlessly dull sequences. Thankfully, Chikkanna tries to liven things up with his comedy.
Neha Saxena has still a long way to go. Arun Suresh has captured a few beautiful shots in the songs. Music has been scored by Satish Babu. JK and team did manage some good dance moves, but sadly it does not help the film.
The Verdict: Just Love, which was supposed to belong to the action-romance genre, doesn’t venture anywhere near the bracket.
Film: Just Love
Cast: Jayaram Karthik, Neha Saxena
Director: S Nagendra Urs