Clearing the doubts about the film’s negative impact first, thankfully this is not any cheap, sleazy sex comedy as portrayed by its theatrical trailer, possibly designed with the only intention of grabbing some instant attention. So the good news is that we are not dealing with any deliberately made project here on the lines of KYAA KOOL HAIN HUM or GRAND MASTI, where the camera angles are more interested in looking beneath the clothes of all beautiful faces than anything else portrayed on the screen with a sick motive.
Hence giving the project its deserving due, yes this is not any milestone kind of a film in this particular genre. But it still remains a mature take on the subject revolving around a character who has grown up thinking about sex alone instead of love and is now suffering due to the same in his later years heading towards the middle age.
HUNTERRR begins on an interesting note with a series of flashbacks coming repeatedly in the narration (throughout the film) and its first 30-40 minutes realistically depicting the age of adolescence in an entertaining comic manner setting a fine premise. It beautifully takes you back in the 80s in those times of ‘Adult Video Parlours’ running illegally, tickets being sold in black and cinema being the only entertainment for the people from all age groups. As the main protagonist grows up to be a college going boy, he teaches you a new word “Vaasugiri” and turns into a hunter of girls/women looking for some casual sex. The only erotic scene is served just before the interval and overall the film makes a decent impact on the viewer mainly due to its unexpected mature take quite different from the cunningly compiled trailer having a completely different vision of a B grade movie.
Admitting the vulgarity, it does hurt you in a scene where the young boys are trying to touch the middle aged ladies in the market as their private game (which doesn’t look like funny at all) and the obscene suggestive gesture shown in its publicity poster. Yet as a whole, the honest biographical tone doesn’t demean the women, who actually turn out to be an equal partner in the crime too representing their bold new-age avatar in its various sequences.
However, as usual the light-hearted feels gives away to a tiring repetitive run in the film’s second half. And we get to see a quite slow, confusing and too long narrative towards the end (140 min.) that ideally should have been summed up within a two hour format. The last hour of HUNTERRR sadly puts it back into the category of just a well-intentioned attempt that shies away from trying anything experimental in its climax that could have been its highlight as a pleasant shock.
Probably (debutant) writer-director Harshavardhan Kulkarni got caught in the dilemma of how to end the film, that doesn’t put it in the category of a too mature or an artistic take on the subject finding fewer takers. He surely had got the opportunity of making an off-beat gem moving ahead of all those cheap sex comedies making 100 crores, but couldn’t maintain the pace and the entertaining factor continuing in its over-lengthy & monotonous second half as required. Having said that, I would still like to praise him for a fine effort made, not falling into the trap of using the sick tricks of the trade when it comes to such ‘sex-based films’.
Following the 25 years life span of its key character, HUNTERRR gets its much needed lift from the script and dialogues that do not depend upon any cuss words at all. So there are no ‘Censor beeps’ heard in the film surprisingly which certainly needs to be counted as a rare appreciable merit in the current scenario. The minimally used songs are just fine (composed by Khamosh Shah) making it as an interesting soundtrack particularly due to the numbers sung by Bappi Lahiri and Amit Trivedi (penned by Swanand Kirkire). Plus the background score certainly provides a great support to the film along with its art-direction & cinematography. But on the other hand, a better editing could have helped a lot since moving ‘back and forth in time’ starts irritating after a while as it gets out of the teenage years, putting it frankly.
In the performance section, HUNTERRR truly belongs to two people alone and they are Gulshan Deviah as Mandaar and Radhika Aapte as Tripti playing their respective roles brilliantly. Gulshan displays a fine sense of comic timing with an emotional sincerity too that doesn’t let the viewer hate his ‘negative’ character of a ‘sex-maniac’ and Radhika delivers another lovable polished performance winning the hearts post BADLAPUR. So the film deserves to be seen for these two actors alone if not for anything else. In the supporting cast, Sai Tamhankar provides the erotica real-well, Veera Saxena makes a decent debut with a comfortable ease and Sagar Deshmukh truly does a noteworthy job in his few scenes coming after long gaps.
In short, though the subject is disturbing focusing on just sex alone, yet the film deserves to be rated as a contributing step in our progressive Hindi cinema that doesn’t bow down to the usual cheapness planned for some quick box office returns. Its not a milestone alright but has it visible merits and a mature take on the subject too with some outstanding realistic performances forcing you to admit the harsh truths of our questionable real lives shamelessly. For instance, (without going into the good or bad) how many friends reading this (including both men and women) would not feel the awkward situation, when a gorgeous young girl wearing a designer backless blouse suddenly enters the lift and then stands right in the middle with her naked back staring boldly at every other person there in the lift behind her. (Now please don’t say that No it will not make any difference at all!)
Anyway, ending on a different note, HUNTERRR made me recall one of my favourites Hindi cult classics that also revolves around the different phases in a man’s life and his loving relationships with three different women teaching him the meaning of love. The film was showman Raj Kapoor’s most beloved child MERA NAAM JOKER released in 1970.
But perhaps due to the changing times & mindsets, where MERA NAAM JOKER focused merely on heartfelt emotions, love and trust, HUNTERRR solely emphasis on sex and one night stands alone representing the inevitable change around us in the 21st century. So forgetting its misguiding trailer, do give it a try as a mature adult comedy rising much above the films we have earlier seen in this controversial genre.
Rating : 3 / 5
