Since 3 Idiots told us that ‘Aal Izz Well’ and laughed its way to a couple of hundred crores at the box office, every college kid in Bollywood wants to be Rancho, Raju or Farhan.

Essentially a dumb comedy with a few 20 and 30-somethings desperately trying to pass off as college students, Faltu would have done the audience a favour by sticking to being a mindless but fun campus caper.

Instead, choreographer-turned-director Remo D’Souza gets ambitious enough to try and make his debut film a comment on the country’s flawed education system. Result: A low IQ — often downright moronic — version of 3 Idiots.

The fact that the core of Faltu is derived from the 2006 Justin Long howler Accepted makes it a disaster even before the first frames unfold on screen.

The story of a college slacker — disillusioned with the hankering for marks and the rush to get into the IITs and the IIMs — who “founds” his own college, gets his friends to “study” in it and fools his parents into believing that he is getting an education, had the potential to be an entertainer. But Faltu is too busy showcasing its lead — Jackky Bhagnani ( producer ka beta hai, bhai!) — to bother about logic or message.

So here we have Jackky’s Ritesh — a street-smart college kid who barely manages to scrape through every exam — getting together with friends Nanj (Angad Bedi), Puja (Puja Gupta) and Vishnu (Chandan Roy Sanyal) to set up his own college. They take over a disputed property, hire Bolly extras as students, launch a fake website and get Riteish Deshmukh and Arshad Warsi to pose as the approving adults.

If the college in the original was called SHIT (South Harmon Institute of Technology), the one in Faltu is called Faltu — Fakirchand and Lakirchand Trust University. And did we tell you that Arshad’s character is called Google Chand? Clearly, all the creativity in Faltu has gone into the names and not the script.

To be honest, the first half isn’t that bad. Some genuine laugh-out-loud moments and some American Pie-styled mauj-masti keeps the viewer from yawning out loud. It is when Faltu decides to become less faltu that the real problem starts.

Everyone from Sajid Khan to Manish Malhotra to Remo himself walk in and out to emphasise the importance of alternative learning. Scene after scene is devoted to showing the students staring wide-eyed as the lecturers harp on how a career in fashion design or film is as good as number-crunching at a multinational. Two hours later, Faltu limps towards a predictable, done-to-death end.

Pedestrian performances —despite an earnest Jackky — and the lack of logic sound the death knell for Faltu. Sachin-Jigar’s music is a saving grace but too many songs — all looking like bits and pieces from the same music video — irritate after a point.

If you are looking for some low-brow humour, then Faltu may just make the cut. But why take the risk?