What sets you apart in life?
Your skill? Your intelligence? Your background?
None of the above.
Your attitude. 
"12th Fail" is another reminder of this axiom, told through the eyes of a student, Manoj Kumar Sharma (real-life), and through the milieu of IAS exams (fondly known as Civil Services exams), arguably the toughest entrance exam in India. (Some would say IIT JEE, CAT, etc., but UPSC takes the cake in my opinion for the sheer breadth and depth of what the candidate must go through).
Picture this. About 1.4 million applicants (that is 1 out of every thousand Indians) appear for the ‘Prelims,’ the first hurdle. After passing through a couple more hurdles, 'Mains' and 'Interviews,' only fewer than 1000 applicants get inducted into Civil Services. A success rate of less than 0.1%! You must be kidding!
Being a top civil servant in India is a coveted job for millions. The power and opportunity that it provides to change the course of the country is immense, and many a starry-eyed youth attempts to scale this great wall every year, and some do it multiple times (max of 6 or 9 or unlimited – depends on where you stand in the social equity table). Don’t let the number fool you. Each time you fail, you do a grueling 'Restart' from ab initio. Go back to the axiom above. 
When I used to work for a Public Sector company in India in the late-80s, I could see the craze of UPSC exams amongst the trainees. They used to prepare day and night and would rattle off the number of rhinoceroses in Kaziranga National Park and at the same time argue about why Bal Thackeray was right/wrong depending on whether they got Pooris or Rotis for dinner! 
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Manoj Kumar Sharma, from one of the most backward parts of India, wants to just pass his 12th standard (A-levels) so that he can get a lowly peon’s job somewhere in his village and fails repeatedly (Title aa gaya!). But life is a crazy little thing. Through a chance encounter with a righteous officer, Manoj decides that he wants to become a police officer and sets out into the big bad world. Does he succeed in his endeavor? What did he have to go through on his journey? Watch it on the silver screen, indeed!
From a movie and screenplay perspective, "12th Fail" is highly predictable. You can almost say what would happen next after every set piece, even to the extent of who will be highlighted in a particular scene! And the sense of #3Idiots déjà vu was palpable throughout! Vidhu Vinod Chopra perhaps thought that this generation needs a 3 Idiots equivalent! 😃 Vikrant Massey as Manoj was fabulous; so was Anshumaan Pushkar as Gauri Bhaiya, the restarter.
But what really makes the movie work are two things: a) the nostalgia of competitive exams and the adrenaline that flows through the applicant's taut body, and b) the performances of some of the actors in the movie.
…where Manoj misreads a question and fails one of his attempts, the educational exasperation just hits the roof.…where a privileged student disses a Hindi-medium multi-attempter as 'waste of resources' only to get lectured passive-aggressively by the tea-stall-owner-cum-UPSC-coach.…where Manoj’s father wants him to give up, oh so reluctantly, the son turns it back nicely on how he learned to be stubborn from his father…where in the final interview scene (not sure whether it followed the real one or not), how Manoj turns his weakness (being a 12th Fail) into an advantage – good writing that!…where Manoj struggles to write about himself in 200 words within 8 mins and 20 seconds, you realize the need for the crazy preparation on all topics under the sun!
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"12th Fail" can be watched to feel good that there is a success story from the unlikeliest of places. 
"12th Fail" can be watched to feel bad about how difficult it is for the Manojes of the world to come up. 
Above all, "12th Fail" can be watched to feel nostalgic and ask yourself the question, ‘What if’? 
