The film Kalkandu marks the debut of Gajesh, son of actor Anand Babu and grandson of legendary actor Nagesh. The romcom features the debutant as a carefree youngster in the first part. The narration takes a more serious turn in the latter part. Gajesh has a pleasant screen presence, and shows enough confidence on screen. But he could have selected a better launch for his career.
The plot opens with a scene showing two brothers — Karthik, played by Gajesh, and his elder brother Vignesh, played by Kalluri Akhil. Their father, a school master and a strict disciplinarian, wants his sons to be doctors. Vignesh fulfills his father’s wish and gets a job in the US. But Karthik goes through a rigmarole of misunderstandings before proving his worth.
The screenplay is insipid and the narration lacklustre. The characters and moments are weakly etched — neither interesting nor believable. The episode of Karthik getting admission in a medical college and then losing it due to a technical error is barely convincing. The scenes that follow — Karthik trying to get back his seat, falling in love with a medical student, Karthika of Yaaruda Mahesh fame, hanging around the college for the rest of the course — lacks conviction.
The narrative style is like that of a TV serial. In the second half, the screenplay takes a nosedive never to recover. Akhil, after the initial scenes, disappears, only to return towards the end to give a predictable third angle to the contrived episode. The antics of Karthik and his friends (Kanja Karuppu and gang), makes one wonder why the director surrounded his hero with such an assorted, unlikely and annoying bunch of buddies. With nothing positive going for it, Kalkandu is a wasted effort.
