Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2, Review: Sucker bunch and the sex carrots                                             

Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 has been described in some media reports as a not so true sequel to 2011 film, Pyaar Ka Punchnama. Not having seen the earlier Punchnama (dissection/five witnesses to a crime report report/post mortem; ‘punch’ means five), I cannot comment. On its own two (or fourteen, to be more accurate) main legs (three couples and the blast from the past), the film answers to the following description: friendship, best friends, ‘just friends’, love, sex, money, mistrust, betrayal, exploitation, relationships, indecisiveness, and a curvaceous dose of revealing anatomy.

Three room-mates, Gogo (Kartik Aryan), Sid/Chauka (Sunny Singh Nijjar) and Thakur (Omkar Kapoor) are in relationships with Chikoo (Nushrat Bharucha), Supriya (Sonalli Sehgall) and Kusum (Ishita Sharma-Raj). The relationships range from the platonic to the physical, the committed to the undecided, the emotional security to the financial security based. Chauka is so nick-named because of his great passion for Indian cricket (chauka means four, a ball touching or crossing the boundary rope and notching four runs to the player/team). All three go through the motions of most relationships these days, but manage to stay together. Their experiences lead them to form strong opinions about manipulative, fickle-mined, irrational, inconsistent women, who have devious ways of using men to further their own selfish needs. And the young men are rush in like fools where angels fear to tread because of the temptation dangled before them, in the form of the love-sex carrot.

One girl develops a soft corner for her childhood pal who is going through a break-up, another has issues about mismatched incomes and a third lacks the guts to talk about her boy-friend to her parents (Sharat Saxena and Mona Ambegaonkar), and introduces him a helpful friend. The parents, not the most endearing ones, treat him like a retained, servile odd-job man and errand boy. In an attempt to get away from it all, the six of them head for a Thailand holiday, but their problems continue to haunt them amid the sexy beaches of Pattaya and Krabi. One quits his job on account of an arrogant boss, another finds his girl’s wavering priorities unacceptable and confronts her in the presence of her girl friends, and the third finally puts his foot down when his girl testifies against him in front of her dictatorial father, who accuses him of enticing his daughter away from her home.

Director Luv Ranjan (Pyaar Ka Punchnama, AkashVani) is solo-credited with the story, while screenplay and dialogue are shared between him, Rahul Modi and Tarun Jain. Almost every scene reminds you of the Hollywood sex comedies of the 60s and 70s, most of which have been adapted to long-running Gujarati language stage plays. Having three couples, the girls always wearing the skimpiest of clothes (designer costumes, when they are not), and incorporating a bikini holiday in thigh-land as add-ons, the writers have added a huge glamour quotient. Situations and dialogue are authentic and funny. In particular, the nationalistic cricket fervour, the opinionating on Sachin Tendulkar’s cricketing contributions, the many shades of pink, the nail polish scene and the pointless aversion the trio has to a common Indian name, which means lotus, because, “What kind of a name is Pankaj?” Critics were told by some producers some time ago that the Indian censorship rules have now changed, and you cannot blip out cuss words and overtly sexual dialogue—it has to be muted. Not so here. There are blips galore, some of them strategically edited, to retain the last half syllable, to tickle your imagination.

Luv Ranjan, who is a Ghaziabad boy, studied at Hindu College, Delhi, and always wanted to be a writer. He wrote the script and lyrics of Pyaar Ka Punchnama (Part 1). In the earlier outing, he had Kartik Aryan (then known as Kartikeya Tiwari) delivering a long monologue about ‘what girls want’, which got many hits on social media The same is reprised here, with some variations, about ‘why men are suckers and get taken for rides by women,’ ultimately suggesting that masturbation might be a better option than marriage. I did not time it, but it could easily be 5-7 minutes long. Whether it is one-take or not, as claimed, one cannot confirm, in these modern times of technical gimmickry, but it sure is hilarious. It encapsulates the film’s philosophy, comes out of the blue, and gets dead-pan reactions from the two nonplussed, silent listeners.

Almost everybody talks twenty-to-the-dozen and cutting is often ‘swooshy’, with images flashing as jump cuts, then settling through slow-mo. Both the dialogue track and the background music are ear-splitting. Of the two main songs, the one about men being dog-collared (enslaved) by women is often repeated and will find many a man nodding in agreement. Rhyming ‘yaaron’ (friends) with ‘Paro’(legendary beloved of the Bengali tragic novel and film adaptation hero Devdas), the other song is like any other party/disco number, but a shade catchier. Almost all characters insist on sermonising about their own plights as well as the eccentricities of their partners and of the other four in the equation. After a while, you find it difficult to remember what was X’s problem, and wasn’t Y just saying…or was it Z who said that? In terms of meaty story, the film is thin. In terms of personal essays and the joys/perils of simultaneous pairings among room-mates, it has many things to take away. Ranjan has an enthusiastic bunch of actors, with over-flowing energy, who render even falsetto scenes with great conviction.

Kartik Aaryan, an engineer in real-life, was named Rajjo in Pyaar Ka Punchnama 1, and will walk away with the laughs on account of his monologue. Nushrat (an odd spelling of the common, unisex name, Nusrat) Bharucha (Pyaar ka Punchnama, Love, Sex aur Dhokha, AkaashVani, Darr@Mall) is the most sexy looking among the three girls, also the most coquettish. Sunny Singh (Dil To Baccha Hai Ji, Akaash Vani, Paathshala), son of action director Jai Singh Nijjar, is the most intense of the lot and acts with some depth. Sonalli Sehgall (Pyaar Ka Punchnama), who was seen in a soft drink ad with Salman Khan and in some music videos, is a Kolkata girl and a former Miss India International. She has a difficult role, as most generally do not sympathise with cowards and indecisive people. Nevertheless, she acquits herself reasonably well.

Ishita Sharma-Raj (Dil Dosti etc., Dulha Mil Gaya), a Kathak and Belly Dancer, reveals assets that might take some by surprise (actually, all the girls flaunt their curves uninhibitedly, surprise or no surprise). Having played the young Salman Khan in Judwaa and other child parts in Mela, Hero No 1, Masoom and Judaai, this is Omkar Kapoor’s adult debut. Co-incidentally, it happens in a film certified for exhibition to adults only. He is a bit flat in some scenes, but confident and dignified overall. Manvir Singh is effortless as the blast from the past, Sunny. Interesting cameos come from Sharat Saxena and Mona Ambegaonkar.

Rating: **1/2

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