'Hunterrr' review: Disarmingly frank sex comedy

The hero of Harshvardhan Kulkarni's quirky tale of a sex addict is so unabashedly cheesy he could be a new recruit at your neighbourhood cyber cafe, assigned exclusively to pilot porn sites.

In the opening sequence our, errr, hero Mandar explains to his friends why and how intercourse is a biological need for him, like going to the bathroom.

Once you accept the leading man's attitude to sex as a mere bodily function, much of the film's insanely uninhibited display of libidinous appetites begins to make sense.

Mandar is an ogler, voyeur, pervert, wife-stealer and girl-friend cheater. There is nothing he wouldn't do to hit the sack with anyone woman who cares to. The narrative moves through Mandar's sexploits with the energetic momentum of a bull in a china shop. Though what a bull would be doing in a china shop or an ordinary guy like Mandar in the bedrooms of so many willing women, is anyone's guess.

But Mandar is a scorer. In fact, the girl that he eventually falls in love with and marries, brings up the subject of how many women Mandar has bedded. "Ab tak chhappan?" Radhika Apte's spicy chuckle fills the air with a feverish fornicator's flair.

This is the kind of film where raunchy rhetoric rents the humid air, rendering every girl in sight into a commodity to be evaluated and stared down and even touched. This is 'dirty picture' with the dirt carpeting every move that the protagonist makes.

Thankfully, the film's naughtiest nuggets are set in the 1990s when such voyeuristic intrusive behavior was not called stalking. Hindi films of that era endorsed unwanted male attention as flirtatious romancing.

Mandar is more into sex than romance. And he makes no bones about it. ‘Hunterrr’ fills its soundtrack and visuals with sounds and images that are suggestive in a very casual and unostentatious way. The sharp editing takes us back-and-forth, or given the raunchy format, in-and-out of Mandar's past and present.

Some of the episodes like the one where the young Mandar (Vedant Muchandi) is pulled up by a leery cop for watching a porn film in a seedy theatre or the one where the grown Mandar checks out chicks with his fiancee Trupti in a crowded bazaar, tend to trip over their own cleverness.

The sharp inward drawing of the breath that should have come automatically to viewers while watching Mandar drop his pants in front of sundry compliant women, just doesn't happen. What saves the day is the warmth and honesty with which the debutant director takes Mandar on a bumpy ride through puberty and adulthood.

This is the story of a guy who thinks with his penis. The talented Gulshan Devaiah plays Mandar with a delightful absence of inhibition and artifice. Ironically, some of the film's best moments are those where Mandar shares buddy moments with his two child pals, played effectively by Vaibhav Tavwadi and Sagar Deshmukh.

Tavwadi has portions where he abandons his Casanova lifestyle to marry an abused girl, provide a semblance of bearing and emotional resonance to a plot that seems to go everywhere, and not get anywhere.

I'm not very sure of what ‘Hunterrr’ says about guys like Mandar who can't keep their excitement in their pants. But yes, to its credit, the film nowhere enjoys Mandar's lascivious behaviour. At the most, the director stands back in cautious embarrassment watching the protagonist get dangerously cheesy with women. That Mandar comes out of the amorous adventurous humanied and untarnished is entirely due to the treatment meted out to the plot by the writer and director.

Harshavardhan Kulkarni treats his horny hero's coming-of-age film with remarkable restrain. A couple of unnecessary lovemaking scenes (check out the one in the kitchen with the couple slithering on the washbasin while the married woman's son plays outside) apart, this is a film about a guy who can't earn the ladies' respect because all he has to offer is a particular part of his body.

‘Hunterrr’ is a disarmingly frank sex comedy that knocks off all moral policing and strips the holier-than-thou brigade to the bare essentials. You may not like Mandar's leery behavior. But hell, some men do look at women as sex objects. And anyone who objects to sex is advised to look away.

'Dum Laga Ke Haisha' review: Warm, fuzzy sweetness set in reality

A good cast is the best thing that can happen to a movie. It is especially great when all of them not only look perfect for their respective roles but also individually give their best to the film. 'Dum Laga Ke Haisha' is the perfect example of this fact.

The effort that has gone in to making this sweet romantic comedy set in the small backdrop of Rishikesh and Haridwar, is apparent.

The plot is easy to predict but the performances would blow your mind. Whether it is Ayushmann Khurrana as a good-for-nothing dreamer or Bhumi Pedneker playing the strong willed educated girl with a dream of being a school teacher.

Bhumi is perhaps the best debut actress that Bollywood has seen in the past few years. She is genuinely a good actress, has a great screen presence and looks beautiful as Sandhya. Her struggles with being fat does not curb her spirit and that is what the audience will take from this movie.

The straight from the heart storyline will take you back the memory lanes. The director has taken his time to wind you in his 90s memorabilia starting with the charm of listening to cassettes – complete with how we wound them up patiently and how our favourite songs were put together in one cassette with stickers telling us the playlist. There were also the scooters which one had to carefully balance upon to get from one place to another. All in all the nostalgia of the last decade of the 20th century has been beautifully recreated in the film.

The director has kept the characters strong and the story concise. Even with the predictability of the movie the growing chemistry between Ayushmann and Bhumi is worth watching.

Sanjay Mishra, Sheeba Chadda, Alika Amin and Seema Pahwa (one who played Mishra's wife in 2014's critically acclaimed movie 'Aankhon Dekhi') are perfect supporting cast for the love story.

Sharat Kataria who is known for his quirky endeavours 'Bheja Fry' and 'Bheja Fry 2' has proved his genius once more with 'Dum Laga ke...'. While his last ventures focussed on urban characters, his now semi-urban story also is spot on.

The movie steers clear of exaggerated feelings and speaks of some real situations and real disappointments without being didactic. The fat girl, who has to overcome the prejudices her husband has about her, is not however the unimaginative loser that we have seen in Bollywood so far. She is educated and has an ambition – therefore lucrative for her in-laws. But they don't take advantage of her. Even with the usual Indian taunting by the Bua, the family mostly supports her and considers her feelings. The girl herself knows how to stand up to the world.

This modern thinking without the preachiness is refreshing. Kataria has excelled in making you feel for his characters.

The background score by the Italian composer Andrea Guerra is perfect and Anu Mallik's comeback is laudable. While 'Moh Moh Ke Dhage' (both Monali Thakur's and Papon's versions) is perhaps his best composition till date, the quirky 'Sundar Susheel... ' (Malini Awasthi, Rahul Ram) sets the mood of the film pretty nicely. The Kumar Sanu fandom has been revived in this film and he brings back the memories of his heyday..

The shots (Manu Anand) of the Rishikesh and Haridwar too are beautiful and one wonders how they found the two towns empty enough to shoot since they are thronged with tourists throughout the year.

This movie is a feel good package and a must watch for those born in the 80s and the 90s simply to relive the decade. For those who are not, go for the performances. It is rare that a Bollywood movie makes you all warm, fuzzy and gooey from the inside – the experience is a must for those who love cinema.