Written by Shubhra Gupta | New Delhi | Updated: February 24, 2018 12:42 am Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety movie review: Luv Ranjan’s fourth feature is as simplistic and sexist as it has been right from his first.
Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety movie cast: Kartik Aaryan, Nushrat Bharucha, Sunny Singh, Ishita Sharma, Alok Nath, Deepika Amin, Virendra Saxena
Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety movie director: Luv Ranjan
Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety movie rating: 2 stars
The name of the film may be a bit of a tongue-twister, but there’s nothing complicated in the world according to director Luv Ranjan.
His fourth feature is as simplistic and sexist as it has been right from his first: the guys just wanna get laid, the gals are scheming, conniving and silly, and between a toss-up of ‘dosti’ and ‘ladki’, no prizes for guessing who, or which wins.
No prizes, then, for guessing who laughs the loudest in this comedy, in which Ranjan shows his familiar comedic chops, but ups his game by keeping it fast-paced. BFFs Sonu (Aaryan) and Titu (Singh) are cutting a merry swathe through the ‘chicks’, fully immersed in the dating scene (lots of chatter around Tinder, Facebook profiles etc), pulling back just in time when things threaten to turn serious, until there arrives, in their midst, the perfect Miss Sweety (Bharucha).
Sweety cooes and cooks and organizes ‘mataa ka jagrans’. Titu is mush. So is Titu’s large family, comprising father, mother, grandmother, uncles, retainers etc. Everyone loves Sweety except for Sonu, and right there is your triangle—Sonu ka Titu yaaaaaaaa uski Sweety?
There could have been some fun to be had with this little lot, particularly because the actors, especially Aaryan and Singh, are up for it. The supporting cast is first-rate: for once Saxena gets to laugh, and Alok Nath flips a finger, finally, at his pious goody-two-shoes Hum Aapke Hain Koun image, a film Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety references with glee.
But Ranjan is too busy making low-rent jokes about ‘sex’ and ‘shaadi’ and ‘barbaadi’ (the cuss word which starts with a ‘ch’ is blipped out but is strewn right through, as before). Apart from the ‘hum saath saath hain’ note, a ‘saas-bahu’ thread is bunged in, presumably to attract the ‘family audience’, as opposed to the strictly ‘chhada’ (bachelor boys) army, but the vibe remains the same. The boys-not-men do the same thing; as do the girls. Bharucha is capable of more, but she’s made to narrow her eyes to the exclusion of all other expressions.
Very occasionally, you get a line which is genuinely funny. A girl on the dance floor says: ‘aur main yahaan backless pehen ke naach rahi hoon’, or words to that effect, and you laugh out loud, because there’s a kind of knowingness in it. And only a certain kind of Dilli girl (Sharma, nailing it) would say it.
But soon enough, you are flung right back, drowning in lines which revel in the back-slapping, horny bro-code where the guys are the ones to be rescued, and greedy gals need to be shown their place. Do these boys like each more than red-blooded hetero-sexuals should? The film doesn’t go down that path. Some class-conscious scenes are in poor taste. And yet again, we note with regret, there isn’t one single young woman who is, you know, just nice and regular. And not dying to be bedded or wedded.
So yes, Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety is breezy enough, and provides some laughs, some of which escape involuntarily. But it also leaves you wondering. Can Ranjan grow up his callow characters? Of course he can, because he has the smarts (remember Pyar Ka Punchnama?). Does he really want to? I’m not sure. Sharp comedy of the sexes is the hard stuff. Cheap laughs are easy.
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