Luka Chuppi: Happily never after

Hindi (U/A)

Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon

Director: Laxman Utekar

Rating: **

Who’ll clean the toilet? Who’ll chop the onions?

Tackle these domestic lemons, and Kartik Aaryan and Kriti Sanon believe their live-in will soon turn into a happily-ever-after. Only that the two have to battle an army of clowns (read cultural custodians) who greet lovers with brooms and black paint.

Luka Chuppi takes the moral police by the horns. It makes a pulp of the ‘sanskari’ tribe lurking in every corner. But, by the time the guardians of culture get a piece of the cupid’s mind, our lovers would have changed their minds a thousand times, rendering this hide-and-seek an awfully cold play.

The villain here is the ‘Sanskriti Raksha Manch’, an organisation whose traditional torch is carried by Kriti’s politician father (a sharp Vinay Pathak, fishing for votes with nationalism as bait).

Pathak and cronies scout for unmarried couples engaging in whatever little PDA they can afford in an easily-scandalised Mathura.

His daughter clearly has other ideas. Back from Delhi after journalism studies, she falls for Kartik Aaryan, a star reporter with the local news channel. The two then decide to test compatibility by living in before they walk down the aisle. Which brings in some action between the sheets and some banal “protection” talk.

Aaryan’s family soon gets wind of the unholy alliance and all Bollywood hell breaks loose. Now, it’s up to the hero’s Muslim friend (Aparshakti Khurrana) to keep the show sane. And he does a decent job, driving some sense into the religious bigots (“I’m a Muslim, not an alien”). Meanwhile, a powerhouse Pankaj Tripathi is made to loiter around in red trousers with a roving eye.

Yes, Luka Chuppi takes a progressive step, but comes across as shallow entertainment.