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Cast: Sacchin Nachiappan, Samyuktha Vishwanathan, Goutham Raj, Vidur, Dravid Selvam, Avinaash Ramesh, and ensemble.
Creator: Sathish Chandrasekaran.
Director: Sathish Chandrasekaran.
Streaming On: Amazon Prime Video.
Language: Tamil (with subtitles).
Runtime: 5 Episodes Around 30 Minutes Each.
Engga Hostel Review: What’s It About:
A group of freshers joins an engineering college in Tamil Nadu. Trying to fit in into the old batch and also navigate their personal lives, some find redemption while some are pushed to the wall.
Engga Hostel Review: What Works:
Engga Hostel is the Tamil remake of the Hindi show Hostel Daze, the now is moving towards its 4th season and is quite popular in a certain section. The Tamil version tweaks and mends the narrative of the original to the taste of its audience and even changes some character graphs while doing the same. But are we really interested in the idea of remakes while subtitles and dubs have made our lives already simple?
The introduction to this world created by Sathish is quite interesting. He introduces to his characters in the most dramatic way possible. He makes the hostel look like some sort of a concentration camp but at the same time also adds much-needed humour. The parts at the base level are very interesting. An introverted boy trying to live in an environment he never even imagined, a naive guy trying to make the world around him a better place without realising that the people are happy in their pit. A girl who is alien to this entire landscape trying to make friends and is done with all the unwanted attention.
There is smart human in Engga Hostel and one cannot ignore it. Many jokes land well and are cleverly used.
Engga Hostel Review: Star Performance:
The cast members put their best foot forward but it is the script that ditches them. Sacchin Nachiappan stands out in this ensemble because he has got the heaviest lifting to do. He manages to showcase a range and also impress with it.
Samyuktha as Aahana does get to play an interesting part but it also gets very stereotypical after a point. There is something that she has been hiding it seems but we are never told before that lasts scene. Goutham Raj is a very good actor who knows how to make a staple part interesting with his talent. So are Dravid Selvam and Avinaash Ramesh.
Engga Hostel Review: What Doesn’t Work:
While the characters are fun and well-written at the base level, the show does nothing beyond to explore them anymore. There is so much meat here in the parts because every single one of them has a story and one that can be told with patience. Rather we are only told one line about each of them without really delving into their world to understand and root for them better.
The show is so hell bent on covering as much as it can that there is no scope for the viewer to breathe. No one character gets to have their spotlight completely because the screenplay is very busy in jumping from one storyline to the other without giving a concrete ending to the last. Many issues are raised and forgotten never to be mentioned again. That brings us to the lethargy in how the show finds quick and half baked solutions for problems that are much bigger.
Also how much is too much should have been written on the top of the script. Every character is given a trait and it is used so repetitively to an extent where it begins boring the viewer.
Engga Hostel Review: Last Words:
Engga Hostel only begins with ambitions but goes no where beyond it. This could have been a great show but it doesn’t try.
For more recommendations, read our Taaza Khabar Review here.
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