Hunterrr review – half-hearted look at India's evolving sexual mores

Mandar Ponkshe (Gulshan Devaiah), this sex comedy’s eponymous hunter (with extra Rs thrown in for the sheer joy of rolling them off one’s tongue), is single and pushing 40, and much to the consternation of his largely married friends, takes the opportunity to have sex wherever he finds it. Entirely unremarkable in the looks and charm department and employing a scattershot approach to seduction, Mandar is less Don Juan and more Woody Allen. But while Allen’s persona made himself endearing by botching things, Mandar makes us wince. And by being 20 years his targets’ senior by the end of the film, he’s a fully fledged creep. But creeps have feelings too. This is Harshavardhan Kulkarni’s feature debut and even with its flaws, it’s an impressive trick to make us genuinely care about a lech. The film’s non-linear narrative means that things often go back a year, or several years, and then lurch forward again. As Mandar goes from 40 to 14, it’s fine to begin with, but by the end one begins to feel a bit carsick. At one point, a policeman catches him watching an X-rated movie and shaves half his head to shame him. It’s one of many instances in Hunterrr where sexual pleasure and shame are intimately connected. Back in his late 30s, he begins to consider marriage after his advances lead to him being beaten up and chased out of a bar. We see him sweating and panting, running as far from the mob as he can without collapsing, proving Oscar Wilde’s maxim that men marry because they are tired. Mandar opts for an arranged marriage and starts to meet prospective brides. He meets Trupti (Radhika Apte), ravishing and self-possessed to the point of being a little terrifying. Finding himself increasingly drawn to her, possibly because she won’t fall into bed with him, Mandar must change his ways. But there is something about their romance that just doesn’t click: they appear to have little in common and no chemistry, nor does the denouement ring true. Hunterrr is more comfortable being a buddy movie than a romance: Mandar’s childhood friend Dilip (Sagar Deshmukh) is his real soulmate, and their on-screen exchanges are more pleasurable and real than his romantic entanglements. Made on a low budget with no big names, the film succeeds in moving away from this genre’s crassly misogynistic, innuendo-laden formula and presents us instead with a reasonably faithful portrait of the middle-class urban Indian milieu. Part of it nobly wants to discuss changing sexual mores, especially among independent professional women suchas Trupti, but doesn’t allow itself enough time to properly examine them or her. Sex comedies are so difficult to get right, and it’s unfortunate that after doing a decent job of the rude bits, the transition to romcom is the real letdown. Hunterrr is on release in India now.