'Hunterrr' Review: A film in which stereotypes mar fantastic performances

Director: Harsvardhan Kulkarni
Cast: Gulshan Devaiah, Radhika Apte, Sai Tamhankar, Veera Saxena, Sagar Deshmukh
Rating: **

What it's about: Mandar Ponkshe (Gulshan Devaiah)  is an average looking guy, who is sort of addicted to sex. It started in his teens, and while all his friends get married, he refuses to settle down.  An ugly incident at a nightclub makes him realize that he is probably too old to continue to play the field  He decides to go the arranged marriage way and then meets someone whom he falls in love with. What happens next is Mandar grappling with who he was and who he wants to be 

What's good: The performances for one. All the actors pour themselves into the roles and become the characters. Kulkarni has set the film in Mumbai and Pune, in middle-class Maharastrian settings. This the stuff he gets right—  the neighbors of Mandar's parents, the childhood vacations to the village, the house parties, the boy gang antics as they are growing up. You will chuckle every now and then. Like the scene where the boys get their head shaved or the scenes where his parents have conversations with him.  

What's not: The film takes you back and forth from 1989 to 2015 so many times, it will make your head spin. You wish that Mandar would finally figure out what he wants. The premise that all boys change after they fall in love is too thin and predictable to keep you hooked for the two hours and twenty minutes the film runs. Also the film stereotypes all married women as frustrated and willing to jump into bed with the first single eligible men. Mandar and his friend somehow continue to find single women with whom they have casual sex in his bachelor pad when they have nothing going for them. It all seems set in some fantastical space, one you just don't buy in the end. 

What to do: Watch Balak Palak instead.