HUNTERRR (A)
Director: Harshavardhan Kulkarni
Cast: Gulshan Devaiah, Radhika Apte, Sai Tamhankar
Running time: 141 minutes
Mujhse sex control nahin hota... main kar deta hoon,” confesses the very earnest Mandar Ponkshe. You would think he is talking about his morning dump. And you would be right! For Mandar, the act of coitus is like clearing bowels. “Sex is like potty, you feel so relieved... You are doing it since you are a child; have you ever got bored?”
Harshvardhan Kulkarni’s directorial debut Hunterrr is a rollicking comedy about Mandar’s (Gulshan Devaiah) intestinal — read testicular — realisations. In a (500) Days of Summer format, it goes back and forth randomly to try and understand how the vaasu in him was born and just kept growing. Right from the time when still barely a teenager he would sneak into a soft-porn film screening and get his head shaved off by the cops.
From obese Bhojpuri heroines to the bosomy Samantha Fox, from village homes to university hostels, from young girls to bored housewives, Mandar’s obsession with sex — or as he would later call it, “physical need” — is chronicled in smartly written and directed vignettes. Particularly erotic and eventually excruciating is the steamy affair with the sexy padosan Jyotsna (Sai Tamhankar) right under the nose of her husband.
But since this is a Hindi feature film, meant to lure in maximum crowds and straighten up everything that looks bent, Mandar has to discover that thing called love and cleanse his system. Or at least make an effort in that direction. That catalyst is Trupti (Radhika Apte) who comes with her own baggage and is looking to move on.
Hunterrr is an out-and-out treatment film and because Harshvardhan has written the movie himself — he also wrote the fun Hasee Toh Phasee — he’s able to rustle up such delightful set-pieces. He’s also got a great eye for detail and Mandar’s childhood episodes alone can make for such a fabulous growing-up movie.
It’s only in the second half that things start dragging when at least three occasions have two versions each — one that Mandar imagines and one that actually happens. That makes Hunterrr 20 minutes too long and stops it from being the breezy irreverential comedy it set out to be. This one, for sure, didn’t need to be politically — read sexually — “correct” in the end.
Gulshan is the heat, er heart, of Hunterrr. He manages the tough balancing act of not coming across as a gigolo and yet not exactly playing a Don Juan. There is a palpable helplessness on his face and in his body language when he ‘needs’ to go. Radhika is again top-notch and Sai elevates her character from being just a boudi. Each one of the character and junior actors is cast perfectly.
A special word must go out to the soundtrack (by Khamosh Shah) — replete with a Bappi Lahiri song, an Altaf Raja track and a beautiful Arijit Singh-Sona Mohapatra ballad called Chori chori — and the fitting background score by Hitesh Sonik.
Badlapur, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, NH10 and now Hunterrr, Bollywood has suddenly started ‘scoring’ in the last few Fridays. Why doesn’t the Cricket World Cup come four times a year?
Pratim D. Gupta
Is Hunterrr the best fun film you’ve seen this year? Tell t2@abp.in
