In my college, ragging used to be an inoffensive activity. Actually, our very own professors would ask our seniors to rag us. We were made to sing songs and dance on benches. And everybody (including our professors) used to have a happy time! This was mainly done to break the ice between the seniors and us.
Even in our movies, ragging is portrayed in a very funny way. Munnabhai M.B.B.S and 3 Idiots didn't represent ragging as a very grim problem. But there is a flip to this, and Manish Gupta (The Stoneman Murders) attempts to address the problem as a threat.
Hostel is the story of Karan (Vatsal Sheth) who takes admission in an engineering college in the interiors of Maharashtra. He stays in the college hostel, where he's subjected to unimagined pain in the name of ragging. Some people from the college administration are also involved, but the spineless principal declines to take any action. Karan's only support in this uproar is his girlfriend (Tulip Joshi).
Manish Gupta's narrative stars favorably with some hard-hitting moments. But it soon fizzles out as it becomes humdrum. You just have Karan being tortured in diverse ways, which doesn't take the story ahead. Some of the cheesy dialogues are cringe worthy. The romantic track intended to give some relief, in the otherwise gloomy movie, lacks spunk. Even the climax, doesn't provide any solution to the issue of ragging, making you wonder why this movie was actually made in the 1st place.
Srikant Naroj's cinematography is decent. Virag Mishra's music is boring. The editing by Sanjib Datta is good.
Vatsal Sheth gives a good performance, but the role doesn't permit him to go beyond a selected group of expressions. Tulip Joshi is OK. Mukesh Tiwari is very good as the bad guy. All the other actors perform well.
A weak script makes the stay in this Hostel far from being a good one.
Rating - 1.5/5
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