Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety Movie Review: Kartik Aaryan-Nushrat Bharucha's Romcom Borrows The Spirit From Pyaar Ka Punchnama But Not The Flair

Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety is the latest romcom (or anti-romcom, if we go into details) directed by Luv Ranjan who gave us the Pyaar Ka Punchnama series (and also the underrated but lovely Akaash Vani). The movie stars Kartik Aaryan, Nushrat Bharucha and Sunny Singh in the lead. The trailers and the songs were very colourful and gave out a fun vibe. Now we have to see if the movie lives up to the comic element of the first Pyaar Ka Punchnama movie. Here's our review of Sonu Ke Titu Ke Sweety,

Sonu (Kartik Aaryan) is Titu's (Sunny Singh) bestie from nursery and his shoulder to cry on, whenever his girlfriends give him a hard time. In fact it is Sonu who motivates Titu to dump a girl if the latter is taking advantage of him. In their happy-go-lucky lives, enter Sweety (Nushrat Bharucha), a seemingly sweet NGO activist who Titu meets through an arranged marriage alliance. While Titu is fully smitten with her charm, Sonu seems to think he can smell a rat in all her fragrance. Whether it is his bromantic jealousy signalling or is she really a gold-digger, is what the rest of the movie is all about.

Just like the trailers told us, Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety is a retread of Pyaar Ka Punchnama in spirit, mainly in the characterisation of the protagonists. And definitely the skewered way it treats its female protagonists. I admit I am one of the guys who laughed the whole time during the first PKP movie, but I do have this funny feeling that some girl really gave the director a hard time that he continues to make his movies so anti-women.

At least the PKP had the male leads all fluffy and innocent, making the sympathy tilt to their side. Alas, I cannot say the same for Sonu's character in SKTKS as he is much of an a-hole as the opponent he is fighting against. There might no long monologues here, but at one point Sonu does say that nice girls are never made. Dude, did you even give a chance to the fairer sex?

There are some fun moments in Sonu and Sweety's fight to get control over Titu; the whole bromance vs romance is an interesting premise. The humour also sparkles at some moments and dialogues. This is more evident in the scenes that involve Titu's family, including an uncharacteristically uncouth Alok Nath, who is on a roll here. His character was just too funny, but the writers, unfortunately couldn't do much with him. We also never understand his lackadaisical attitude towards his grandson's wedding, even when he has his doubts about the girl.

That's the issue with nearly all the characters in the movie; we never understand their motivations behind their actions. We don't know why Sonu is so protective of Titu that he won't give any girl a chance (making them a gay couple would be a right step to progression; but certainly can't expect such subversions from a movie intent showing a skewered side of females). We don't know why Titu doesn't have any goddamn say in his whole life. We don't know why Sweety acts the way she does post-interval twist. We also don't know Titu's family ate chicken for years without knowing how they are butchered. All we know that nearly everyone character acts juvenile and we have to bear them throughout the two hour twenty minutes runtime

The movie also draws inspirations from every romcom trope there is in Bollywood. The main thread of inspiration is definitely De Taali, starring Riteish Deshmukh and Aftab Shivdasani, but SKTKS also borrows ideas from Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai, My Brother Ki Dulhan and even Tanu Weds Manu Returns (just replace Kangana with Kartik in the climax...oops SPOILER ALERT!). While Luv Ranjan shines with his dialogues in the first movie, here they lack the freshness; though some of them did manage to elicit a guffaw here and there. The editing was too haphazard with some scenes dragging on an on. The whole servant sequence should have been cut, and the Amsterdam scene just meandered on. The needless inclusion of so many songs slackened the pace further. There are so much whisky daaru songs one can bear in a single movie. The climax is quite unnecessarily melodramatic.

However, the saving grace of the movie is definitely the performances. All the Luv Ranjan regulars here managed to give their best, though the director makes them borrow the same motions and expressions they went through in their previous collaborations. Kartik and Nushrat do add a lot of weight to the proceedings, and it is their enthusiastic acts that make us give the movie a chance. Sunny Singh is a fine actor with loads of promise; just check out his intro scene where he sheds bucket loads of tears while dumping laddoo in his mouth. Or that scene in the climax where he explains why he has a soft corner for his best. Unfortunately he often gets relegated to the background. Ishita Raj has a couple of moments to shine, but her subplot only added to the tedium in the proceedings.

As for the director, Luv Ranjan is definitely a capable film-maker who, with the right material, has the potential to give us something worthy of a Chashme Baddoor. But Sonu Ke Titu Ke Sweety is far from being that - it lacks neither the innocence of the Sai Paranjpe movie, not the guilty charm of his own Pyaar ka Punchnama series.

Yay!

- The performances

- Alok Nath

- Some humour works (especially the family sequences)

- The colourful frames (though I wish the camera would have been less voyeuristic when it comes to capturing the females, ah...err...curves)

Nay!

- The unoriginal plot

- The skewered portrayal of females

- Lack of any explanation in character motivations

- Tedious screenplay

- Too many songs

- Too many beeps too (I don't know whom to blame here - the Censor Board for beeping them out, or the makers for putting them in, knowing that they will be beeped out)

- An overdrawn, melodramatic climax

Final Thoughts

Sonu Ke Titu Ke Sweety lacks the fun quotient of the director's previous ventures. However some of the jokes work, and the actors give their best, so in the end, the movie might work well as a just-about decent one-time watch.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 22, 2018 09:16 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).