MAD

Kalyan Shankar's 2023 Telugu film is set in the hostel of an engineering college. The story rests on three friends and the torment they inflict on their warden; classes, exams and worries about the future stay in the background while the film runs entirely on daily pranks. It proceeds as a sequence of short episodes with no strong plot connecting them. Its success comes from catching the familiar detail of hostel life in India accurately: shared rooms, communal meals, rules and the ways of breaking them. Made on a small budget with unknown actors, it became an unexpected commercial hit and produced a sequel. The humour is crude and repetitive and seeks no restraint. Who it's for: viewers who like Telugu youth comedy and campus stories. Who it's not for: anyone who will find it a problem that the women are neglected and the humour often goes cheap.