Pyaar Ka Punchnama - a hindi movie review

Director Luv Ranjan

Cast Divyendu Sharma, Karthikeya Tiwari, Rayo Bhakirta, Ishita Sharma, Sonali Sehgal, Nushrat Bharucha

Rating**1/2

Three young guys, shacking up in a pad, looking for some action. Old theme. What makes `Pyaar Ka Punchnama’ cracklingly fresh is in the way it makes this trio look and sound instantly, and hilariously, believable.

The flat that they live in is bachelor haven. Everything is a comforting mess. Clothes and dishes lie unattended ; much love is lavished upon shiny laptops and other electronic devices on which violent games can be played. Real life games are afoot, too. Rajat ( Tiwari) moves in with the hyper Neha ( Bharucha). Chaudhary (Bhakirta) thinks the sexy Riya ( Sehgal) is the one for him. And Liquid ( Divyendu) has tender feelings for his colleague Charu( Ishita).

This debut feature is Bollywood’s first genuine all-get-out bromance. The flavour of the joshing and the leg-pulling between the guys is what you hear on the smarter TV programming and in the patter of radio jockeys. The backchat is very authentic, very Delhi. And the whole we’ll-be-friends-till-those-vixens-do-us-apart is a total guy thing. Debutant Luv Ranjan nails the young men, and all three do a great job of keeping us in good humour. But we must single out Divyendu for a special mention because he gets the loser-with-a-good-heart to a T, and spices it up with a stream of well-delivered invective which is wicked, whacked out, and very funny.

The writing is unerring when it comes to the lads, but goes off track with the lasses. Their acts are good, but distressingly single-tone. Bharucha as the possessive pretty young thing is the most fleshed out, but after a while you tune out to her shrillness. Sehgal is the kind of gal who can never leave her first boyfriend but can never say never to a second-guy-on-the-string. And Ishita is typical of those shamelessly manipulative females who will use a guy ( Liquid not only crunches her numbers, but also pays her beauty parlour bills, all so she can doll up for her boy friend), and then dump him with nary a qualm. You recognize these girls, but their tracks get annoyingly repetitive. And how come not one of the other sort of girl is in here?But while it lasts, you can laugh your head off most of the time. Not a bad reason to see a film.