Director Sanjay S Jadhav's film is an over-the-top but entertaining comedy of errors.
Luckee review: Madcap comedy with cleverly disguised message on love and lust
Cinestaan Rating
Release Date: 07 Feb 2019 / Rated: U/A / 01hr 56min
Suparna Thombare | Mumbai, 07 Feb 2019 18:31 IST
Luckee is a situational slapstick comedy, but one with an important message for the youth.
It is the story of the confusion between love and lust for a young man battling raging hormones and true feelings.
A bet with a friend to have sex with the most fiesty, talented and popular girl in college, on whom he has a crush, sends Luckee (Abhay Mahajan) on a mad goose chase for a condom in Goa amidst a political agitation and a general strike.
It all begins when Luckee gets slapped by Jia (Deepti Sati) for staring at her. His Casanova friend (Mayur More) places a bet with Luckee's best friend Shruti that Luckee would sleep with Jia in a month or else he and Luckee would parade around the college in their underwear.
We have seen similar plots in Hindi films like Dil (1990) and Tezaab (1988), but the motto and treatment here are very different.
In the beginning, Luckee comes across as a frivolous attempt to objectify and gratify the male gaze. But as the narrative progresses you begin to see the director Sanjay S Jadhav's perspective.
Luckee is established as an unlucky young man who is brought up by his biological parents but also has a godfather in a small-time gangster.
Notwithstanding his name, Luckee is unlucky, especially in matters of the heart. Things always seem to go wrong for him. His adventure in pursuit of a condom brings him closer to knowing who he really is — a coming-of-age story.
While his friend (More) turns into the devil's voice urging him to be a 'venomous snake' and sleep with the girl at every juncture, the people he meets during his day of adventure point him in the opposite direction.
The constant tussle between his heart, which tells him to focus on love, and his mind, or his hormones, egging him on to be a badass comes through, thanks to the clever screenplay by director Jadhav and writer Arvind Jagtap.
The writers lose their grip as the laughs dry up somewhat during the period right after the interval, but some interesting characters make up for this.
Every character Luckee meets on his day's journey is memorable. From the stereotypical gay paanwala played by Atul Todankar to the innocent store-owner, the crane operator (Shashank Shende) to the ageing hawaldar (Chetan Dalvi), all of them leave a mark.
Newcomer Deepti Sati and Abhay Mahajan show great promise. Mahajan totally sells the good-lad-trying-to-go-bad act.
The treatment of this comedy of errors is loud and over the top, witty at times, but the film does give the impression that it is trying hard to be funny.
The background score is cartoonish and loud. The constant audio cues, while funny in places, get overbearing over time.
The larger message, however, is about the confusion of young adults and the need for dialogue between them and those who are older and more experienced in such matters.
The film also comments on the taboo around sex and condoms, and the need for parents to have open conversations with their kids on these topics.
Director Sanjay Jadhav disguises the message and presents it in the form of a silly situational comedy that overpowers the potential in the writing. Yet, it is entertaining for the most part.