As a project, smartly clear about its target audience, this is yet again surprisingly entertaining small town, youthful, social comedy which targets family audience as well as the younger brigade and is based on a bold unusual subject conceived exactly on the lines of VICKY DONOR, SHUBH MANGAL SAAVDHAN and BADHAAI HO.
Revolving around the new-age concept of Live-In relationships, it cleverly never gets into any offensive zone and doesn’t waste any time coming straight to the point within the opening 10-15 minutes post an enjoyable intro of the families and the lead characters. Largely winning over the viewers through its well-maintained pace, extremely relatable funny sequences and humorous one liners, LUKA CHUPPI occasionally comes up with any dull moment and the best part is that its second half is even more enjoyable with a highly satisfying climax, sorting all the hilarious confusions revealing the hidden secret.
Apart from the fresh novelty in its subject and praiseworthy writing, the film also works because of its highly likable performances led by Kartik Aaryan - once again in a lovable form post the hit SONU KE TITU KI SWEETY, Kriti Sanon – who looks stunningly beautiful and enacts very well too shining in her well-designed Indian attires, Aparshakti Khurana - as the funny close friend and Pankaj Tripathi - who delivers the most entertaining moments post some minor hiccups in the start. In the supporting cast where Sapna Sand brings the house down as the interfering neighbor in the first half, Himanshu Kohli does the same as the unmarried elder brother post intermission along with others in a well-chosen cast including Vinay Pathak in a different avatar of a conservative, politician father of the girl.
Making an impressive debut Laxman Utekar directs the film presenting two strong points in his narrative. One, he comes up with a taboo subject converting it into a simple, enjoyable family comedy where you don’t even get the time to think otherwise. And two, he boldly decides to make a daring social comment in his very first film, targeting the newly found religious fanaticism in the country wherein clubs are attacked and couples are beaten in parks and public places in the name of Valentine Day or Love Jihad fearlessly taking the law in hand. Right from the opening sequences he bravely targets this moral policing bringing in the reference of an organization/group called Rashtriya Sanskriti Manch led by a local politician. And that in my personal opinion is an appreciable master stroke deserving some brownie points.
In just around two hours of duration, LUKA CHUPPI also scores in bringing alive the small town feel with its eye-catching cinematography, on-location shoots, art direction, enjoyable background score and a fine editing with minimum dragging moments and that too only in the first half.
Listing the downers, though it thoroughly keeps you entertained and engaged, the very first sequence of the super-star remains the weakest part of the film and the initial romance between the couple also seems to be a little rushed up with no time spent on establishing the loving relationship. In fact here the makers missed a great opportunity to rope in a known name or a cameo of a superstar in the opening moments of the film surprising the unaware viewer.
Musically, though the songs are catchy and perfectly gel with the basic theme of the film, they are all recreated/inspired songs as usual (missing any original), with two of the most promoted - 'Poster Lagwa Do' and 'Coca Cola' not even included in the film (added in the end credits). Plus following the questionable silly trend we again have some Punjabi driven songs in a film based in Uttar Pradesh and that too simply ruining the beautiful original lyrics of the melodious track 'Tu Laung Main Elaachi'. So if possible, do search and hear the actual Punjabi song to realise the huge difference.
On the whole, LUKA CHUPPI is the new surprising winner of the year with mostly clean comedy that will be more enjoyed by the youngsters as it talks about them in particular and thus is strongly recommended for the readers of BTC.
Rating : 3.5 / 5 (with the additional 0.5 especially for making the bold social comment mocking the moral policing that certainly requires A DARE in the current unfortunate environment of religious fanaticsm)
