Pyaar Ka Punchnama Plot: Three bachelor boys fall in love with three girls but soon realise that the affairs are not worth it. Find out what happens next in the full review below.
Business rating: 1/5 stars
Star cast: Kartik Tiwari, Divyendu Sharma, Raayo Bhakhirta, Nushrat Bharucha, Ishita Sharma, Sonali Sehgal.
What’s Good: The comic portions, especially in the first half; some performances; a couple of songs.
What’s Bad: The serious second half; the lack of heroism of the heroes; the way the three heroines have been projected (as vamps).
Verdict: Pyaar Ka Punchnama is for a section of the youth only but that won’t be good enough.
Loo break: Not really.
Watch or not?: Watch it because it is different.
Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Wide Frame Pictures’ Pyaar Ka Punchnama (UA) is the story of three bachelor boys who find three girls whom they fall in love with. But it’s not simple thereafter. Their love stories don’t take the usual route till they get married and live happily ever after. Instead, problems begin soon after they fall in love. And the problems aren’t created by anybody other than the girls themselves.
Rajat (Kartik Tiwari), Nishant alias Liquid (Divyendu Sharma) and Vikrant Chaudhary (Raayo Bhakhirta) are bachelors who live together in a flat. Rajat falls in love with Neha (Nushrat Bharucha). Nishant falls for Charu (Ishita Sharma) who is his colleague. She makes him do a good part of her own work in office and also makes him foot her beauty parlour bills but he is dumb not to understand that she is only using him but doesn’t love him. Charu has a boyfriend, Abhi, but they aren’t on the best of terms. The third guy, Vikrant, loves Riya (Sonali Sehgal) who also can’t get over her boyfriend of many years, Varun.
Rajat leaves the bachelor pad and starts living in with Neha who, as days pass by, becomes more and more demanding and refuses to give him space. He is frustrated but he is so madly in love with her that he tolerates all her tantrums. Nishant is also so blinded by his love for Charu that he can’t see the obvious – that she is a user. Vikrant is aware of Riya’s ex-boyfriend, Varun, and also knows that Riya has not yet called off that relationship but he doesn’t mind waiting because he is besotted by Riya. On her part, Riya keeps assuring him that she will end the relationship but actually ends up sleeping with her ex even while she is dating Vikrant.
Pyaar Ka Punchnama Review – Script Analysis
Luv Ranjan’s script offers a new side to a love story, rather, to three love stories. It explores the love angle and concludes that falling in love may be fine but what happens there- after is not always a bed of roses. Viewed differently, it concludes that girls are always difficult to please, that they use guys, that their love can never be selfless like the love of guys.
The first half is quite interesting because the novelty in the subject is sought to be conveyed in a comic manner. The young guys, especially, would find the love stories of the three friends interesting and entertaining as they are bossed around and used by their girlfriends. Even girls may not mind this half because it’s all humorous. But the film takes quite a serious turn after interval, which is when things start going wrong for the audience. In a way, the very flavour of the film changes and what had started off as a fun-filled comedy turns into a serious, tension-filled drama in which the characters fret, fume, shed tears and stomp out of relationships in frustration.
Although the screenplay talks about three different stories, the similarity in the love stories of Nishant and Vikrant Chaudhary makes it quite repetitive. For, both, Charu (Nishant’s girlfriend) and Riya (Vikrant’s lady love), have their old boyfriends whom they can’t forget. In a way, both the girls are sailing in two boats although it is revealed that Charu never loved Nishant in the first place. Even though there is this basic difference in the two love stories – Charu does not love Nishant whereas Riya is in love with Vikrant – the similarity about both the girls having problems with their earlier boyfriends does make the drama seem repetitive and similar.
But probably the biggest drawback is that girls come across as opportunist vamps even as guys appear to be salivating idiots who cannot see beyond sex and who can take any nonsense from their girlfriends only because of the three-letter word. Such desperadoes cannot be the average Hindi film goer’s idea of heroes just as such shameless and heartless girls cannot be his idea of heroines. There isn’t much heroism of the heroes on display except, perhaps, of Rajat, if at all! Writer Luv Ranjan, in his quest to be different and provide to the audience a side of love not exploited earlier on screen, has made quite a mess of a romantic film. Had the drama remained a love story with a happy ending, in which the girls and guys realised their mistakes and follies, it may still have worked. But the way this drama or these three love stories end, the whole concept of love has been turned on its head. Even this may have been accepted had it either been done in a brilliant and convincing fashion or as an out-and-out laugh riot but not as a half-comedy-half-serious drama.
The scenes showing the tendency of girls to never be satisfied are enjoyable if only because they show how fickle-minded they can be. The scenes between Nishant and Charu as also between Vikrant and Riya don’t appeal as much as the ones between Rajat and Neha because those less-appealing scenes make the heroes look dumb as ever. In other words, the characters of Nishant and Vikrant look rather unbelievable as even besotted lovers can’t be as foolish as they’ve been shown to be.
Pyaar Ka Punchnama Review – Performances & Direction
Kartik Tiwari does an average job in his debut attempt but his scene of outburst in front of Vikrant is very enjoyable, probably because the scene has been very well-written. Divyendu Sharma is supremely natural and is the best actor of the lot. Raayo Bhakhirta makes an ordinary debut. Nushrat Bharucha acts with admirable ease and impresses a lot. Ishita Sharma is also very good in some scenes. Sonali Sehgal does a fair job. Ravjeet (as Abhi) and Padam Bhola (in the role of Varun) look handsome and do what is required of them.
Luv Ranjan’s direction is definitely better than his script. He has handled the comic scenes with as much maturity as the dramatic ones. Music (Clinton Cerejo, Hitesh Sonik, Luv Ranjan and Ad Boys) is good but ought to have been better. The ‘Kutta’ (Luv Ranjan) song is racy. The picturisation of the ‘Baawre’ song is mature. Luv Ranjan and Shammi’s lyrics go well with the film’s mood. Background music is okay. Sudhir K. Chaudhary’s camerawork is fairly good. Akiv Ali’s editing is quite nice.
Pyaar Ka Punchnama Review – Komal Nahta’s Verdict
On the whole, Pyaar Ka Punchnama may be a moderate-budgeted film but its box-office prospects would be limited to a few cinemas in the cities because it is radically different from what the average cinegoer is used to watching. Flop.
