The most honest thing you can say about Prem Keetanu is that it arrives carrying two films on its back, the one it wants to be and the one it used to be. Apoorv Singh Karki, who built genuine dramatic credibility with Sirf Ek Banda Kaafi Hai and the Aspirants universe, now steps into the most crowded room in Hindi cinema: the campus rom-com, in October, opposite a Malayalam original that a sizeable chunk of the audience has already lived through, quoted, and mourned the OTT disappearance of. That is not a marketing problem. That is a structural one, and the film never quite solves it.
The College Quadrangle, Rebuilt From Memory
Karki and writer Deepak Kingrani set their action in the UP–NCR corridor, and the opening act does the job it’s assigned: introduce a friend group, establish a love triangle between Veer Pahariya’s chaos-catalyst lead, Aparshakti Khurana’s contrasting presence, and Aafiya Syed’s romantic fulcrum, then let the comedy carry the weight. The trailer’s most-discussed stretch, the college-set triangle with its comedic misadventures, is the film working as designed. Pahariya plays the mischief engine, Khurana plays the straighter counterweight, and the rhythm between them is where the ensemble actually earns its runtime.
But watch how the film handles its own tonal pivot, because that’s where the seams show. The heartbreak number “Tujhse Bichad Ke”, heavily promoted as Pahariya’s emotional showcase, is staged as a full stop: the comedy halts, the frame narrows, and the film asks you to buy a shift in register that the preceding hour hasn’t fully earned. “Ishq Ka Ghulam” does similar work on the other side of the emotional ledger. Two songs, two pivots, and in both cases the film leans on the soundtrack to do narrative labour the screenplay hasn’t banked. That’s a genre-execution tell, not a music problem, the songs are fine, the structure underneath them is thin.
The Ghost In The Frame
You cannot review this film without addressing the elephant, and the elephant has a name. Premalu‘s removal from streaming ahead of this release turned a routine remake into a small online grievance, and the casting skepticism that followed was less about any individual performer than about the fundamental question: what is this film adding? The sources give us no evidence of meaningful re-contextualisation, the UP/NCR setting is texture, not thesis. Compare that to how a genuinely reworked adaptation earns its existence, and the gap becomes legible. For a sharper example of a Hindi project reframing familiar material into something with its own pulse, our review desk’s take on Vibe review is instructive, that’s a film wrestling with its own identity too, but at least the wrestling is the point.
Rakesh Bedi and Nikhil Vijay round out the ensemble competently, though the material gives neither the kind of scene that would register them as more than furniture. The 2h 18m runtime is the other quiet problem: for a comedy with this much song-driven emotional resets, the middle stretch sags, and there’s no editing intervention strong enough to disguise it.
What Karki Gets Right, And What He Doesn’t
The director’s genuine strength, visible in his earlier work, is extracting grounded emotional truth from young performers under pressure. Here, that instinct survives in fragments. Pahariya’s comedic timing in the group scenes is looser and more watchable than his promotional material suggested, and the film’s best passages are the ones where Karki just lets the friend group exist without plot machinery grinding around them. The problem is that those passages are the exception, not the spine. Too often the film reaches for the love triangle as a structural crutch rather than a dramatic engine, and the result is a romance that never quite decides whether it’s about a boy, a girl, or a generation.
The comparison pressure is unavoidable, and it’s worth noting that a sequel-adjacent franchise can survive audience fatigue if the world itself remains compelling, as we’ve examined in our coverage of how Mirzapur verdict managed its own shrinking kingdom. Prem Keetanu doesn’t have that luxury. It has one film’s worth of goodwill to borrow and no franchise to fall back on.
The Verdict
Prem Keetanu is a competent, watchable campus rom-com with a genuinely charming lead turn from Veer Pahariya, a reliable supporting presence in Aparshakti Khurana, and a soundtrack doing more narrative heavy lifting than it should have to. It is also a film that never answers the only question that mattered going in: why this version, why now. The comedy lands often enough to justify a theatrical trip for undemanding audiences, but the remake baggage and the sagging middle keep it firmly in the “fans only” column. If you’re here for the songs, the campus energy, and Pahariya’s screen presence, you’ll leave satisfied. If you’re here for the film Premalu was, you already know the answer.
Rating: 2.5/5
For more of our latest cinema reviews and box office analysis, visit Hindi Romance reviews.
Ankit Jaiswal is the Chief Author, covering Indian cinema and OTT releases with honest, no-filler criticism. An SEO strategist by background, he brings a research-driven approach to film writing, cutting through hype to tell you exactly what's worth your time.
