Just a few days back in a Gurgaon Pub (near New Delhi), there was a Police raid in which they found hundreds of School children (mostly in the age of 15-18), partying hard with loud music on, liquor bottles in hands and joints being smoked freely. The scene in the pub shocked the policemen hugely and then they decided to call all the parents of the kids at the spot to show them the result of their liberty given. The invitation of the party was reportedly passed on through FACEBOOK & WHATS Up accounts which deliberately targeted 'School Kids' in particular charging a fixed amount for the booze and eatables provided.
Now this is exactly one of the many problems of the youth depicted in this well intentioned film SIXTEEN, which tries to present it quite realistically with many shocking dialogues, never been used before in a Hindi Film Script till date. Thoughtfully directed by Raj Purohit, it can easily be called a decent attempt to showcase the sweet, energetic yet tough & indecisive years of the youth in the age group of 15-18. The age, when life and all its important emotions are being discovered for the first time like friendship, ambition, love, lust, sex and infatuation. The school days, when the young ones are willing to try anything just for experiencing it once in an adventurous mode but cannot see its drastic consequences due to their short sightedness. Those energetic years, when innocence is eager enough to give away to boldness and so called adulthood in a fast mode. And when the young ones are simply not interested to listen to any kind of advice or suggestion given by their respected grown-ups around, for any matter at all.
The film captures many tender moments of that age honestly and doesn't shy away from using the controversial phrases like "losing the virginity", "how was it for the first time" and many more. Its first half keeps progressing calmly with many occasional brilliant moments and then loses the grip post intermission due to too many sub-plots being tackled together. Plus one of its tracks around the father -son relationship goes over the top too with an unexpected tragic twist in its storyline. The not so memorable soundtrack hinders the pace regularly with few avoidable songs but the dialogues keep impressing the viewer a lot right till the end. In short, once the film is over, you just feel like having seen something good and better than many big over hyped projects but still not anything exceptionally great or path breaking.
In the performance section, SIXTEEN has many likable acts by its entire young cast including Izabelle Leite, Wamiqa Gabbi, Mehak Manwani, Rohan Mehra, Highphill Mathews and Varun Jhamb. Along with the younger brigade, Zakir Hussain is great as usual and both Prabhleen & Keith Sequeira put up a cool act together. But in order to reach its desired target audience, the film desperately needed a great energetic hit song which could bring in that young crowd in the theater on whom the film is entirely based upon.
Therefore in absence of any instantly catchy song and heavy promotional campaign, SIXTEEN will remain one of those genuine & well acted small attempts which will eventually find it hard to reach its young viewers. So in case you cannot find the spirit to watch it in the theaters then do try to catch it on DVD once it gets released in the home video market in the next few weeks.
