TVF Pitchers Review: Best when watched TWICE!

Editing credit: Rajiv Dixit.

Background: There’s a group called “The Viral Fever” on youtube ( http://www.tvfplay.com) that has launched its series called “TVF Pitchers”, a couple of months back. Recently, Pitchers’ final episode was released.

Review:

Pitchers is a ‘Start-up’ adventure of 4-youngsters, which frequently comes dangerously close to turning into a misadventure. Pitchers titillates your curiosity, it makes you long to meet the actors, its writer and director. The reason being what they portray is strikingly close to the hardships and the emotional turmoil faced by the generation in their 20s. Each decision has the potential of making or breaking the life of a youngster. And Pitchers pitches on that emotion.

Spread across five episodes, the series presents hilarious introductions to a bunch of four youngsters in their mid-20s. They have a ‘million-dollar idea’. Impertinent exits from well-paying jobs follow, comical complications in family and relationships unfold, and then comes the biggest challenge: Who gives them the money? And do they give it ‘the way these four want it from them’?

In the world of cinema, where the only barometer of success is how many people come out to buy tickets at the Box Office, TVF Pitchers is a refreshing and fitting response to many mindless multi-crore movies.

You are bound to leave a comment at their website nearly imploring them: I can’t wait, when is the season two of it coming out?

Pitchers takes you into the world of ‘Start-up’. What goes into the making or breaking of it, the regressions and delicate portions of the relationships involved, the unforeseen challenges it can throw at you, how clashes can push you to the breaking point, the brutal functioning of the corporate world with the inherent manipulations involved, making and breaking of a team and hearts.

The storytelling aspect of this one would keep swinging you between emotions or amusement. And if not either, you would be on the edge of your seat wondering: Now what?

The characters’ description, detailing and their consistency is THE strength of Pitchers and it’s of impeccable quality.

Reflect on the recent movies you have watched and which is your most favorite character? Most likely, it would be someone to whom you can relate to: it could be you, your friend, your boss, your father, your spouse or your girlfriend.

That is where TVF Pitchers clicks. All its characters are comfortably perched around your daily lives.

Jeetu (Jeetendra Kumar) is an ace-programmer; he is the one who just longs to be the ‘good boy’. With an arranged marriage that has not blossomed yet, and a father who ‘knows it all’, Jeetu has tasted professional success but remains deprived of appreciation and validation from the very people he loves. This has left him with supressed wounds which flare-up on certain occasions.

Mandal (Abhay Mahajan), a typical MBA, is a cute fellow who believes presentation is the key differentiator between the ordinary and the extravagant. His random insights are mostly irritating but such ‘samples’ are out there, available in plenty. A loner due to his over caring nature and insisting attitude, he wants to desperately break-free from the stigma attached to him about being orthodox, latch on to the team of intellectuals (his only ‘friends’) and end up in a league way above his existing one.

Yogi (Arunabh Kumar) is that ruthless fellow who is conspicuously present and vividly noticeable, if you visit a LIVE-concert venue, a day before concert. He would be treating people as ‘objects’ and would be screaming instructions at everyone without any mercy. Yogi manages the logistics of the team. However rash one may be, everyone has a soft spot in their character. So does Yogi. When titillated, the revelations that spill-out from him leaves you astonished and stupefied.

Naveen (Naveen Kasturia), the CEO (of the yet-to-succeed start-up), is the delicate thread that holds all the mavericks together. He walks the fine line, avoids trivial conflicts, and steps in only when he has to sell the conviction of his idea or a decision to his team. He is sturdy but as fragile and vulnerable as any youngster in their early-20s would be. When threatened with unforeseen fear he can buckle, only to bounce back a bit later.

TVF Pitchers is both a learning for those who desire to do so and an emotional entertainer for those who want to have a laugh riot with the struggling youth of the country.

It’s a sneak preview into the dirty side of the corporate world: How people manipulate each other, how information is extracted, how minds are changed from a ‘no to yes’ and vice-versa.

TVF Pitchers has a spectrum of events and emotions to offer, all palpable. The topic appears well researched by the creators (Biswapati Sarkar, Amit Golani, Arunabh Kumar, and team) and that aptly reflects in the variety of human interactions it portrays.

In all episodes, there is a reason why a character is doing what they are doing. The more you get into it, the more intriguing it turns out to be.

Remember that moment when you are slowly walking out of the cinema-auditorium, and are in such an awe of what just finished, that you ask your accomplice or even a stranger, “How does that guy show-up at the climax? Why did he have a band-aid on his neck?”. Over the coffee that follows after, you end up discussing the movie for about half an hour finding parallels and similarities to your own life.

The bottom line is, TVF Pitchers is so close to reality that it takes you over in amazement.

Whereas the whole series leaves you at times with a lump in throat and amused at other occasions, certain portions come out to be long and boring. Jeetu’s prolonged interactions with his father, the three’s stint at the investor-gathering are the patchy portions that slow-down the otherwise fast moving, interesting story.

The sidekick, Rastogi (Gopal Dutt), does well to irritate you, but has his role overstretched. A female actor in the team of protagonists would have given a twist and flavor to the whole series. At times, it feels too technical and engineering-college centric.

Having said that, these ignore-able flaws don’t threaten to hijack the series in a larger sense.

Together with well-authored dialogues, the haunting background scores remains the unsaid backbone of Pitchers. It (naturally) stirs up your emotions for the character on the screen. You are likely to play certain portions over and over again and would long to hear the full version of the shortened soulful music.

The editing is so perfectly orchestrated that you never realize that on more than one occasion, two unrelated stories are running at different locations. Unknown to you, you remain simultaneously curious about the outcome of both.

Somewhere in the first episode, Naveen’s boss mocks at him subtly and says: “Baahar jaake dekho Naveen! 3 mein se 2 cabin mein sab start-up founders hi baithe hain (This idea of start-up is so casual that every two out of three professionals in this office are ‘day-dreaming’ of forming their own start-up.)”

I would recommend: Go about in a corporate office in the morning. 2 out of 3 youngsters are watching TVF Pitchers.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

( 0.5 deducted for the foul language usage that doesn’t let me recommend it to my niece and nephews!)

 

Footnotes:

Targeted for: above 18 (but strictly below 35, umm.. ok, 40).

Best male character: Jeetu

Best female character: Shreya

Best sarcastic dialogue: “One in hand is obviously better than one not-so-sure in the bush.”

Best comical dialogue: “Sex karne ke liye koi shaadi karna compulsory thode hi hai…?”

Best emotional dialogue: “Disagree karte hain unse, disrespect nahin karte hain unki”

Best background music: When Naveen leaves for the Airport in the first episode.