Cult Productions and Dibakar Banerjee Productions LLP’s Love Sex Aur Dhoka 2 (A) is a film in three parts — love, sex and dhokha. It is the second film in the Love Sex Aur Dhokha series.
The first part deals with a reality show — Truth Or Naach — being judged by three judges (played by Tusshar Kapoor, Sophie Choudry and Anu Malik). Noor (Paritosh Tiwari) is transgender. Noor’s mother (Swaroopa Ghosh) is also brought in into the reality show. Emotions are ignited when Noor and her closest competitor are neck-to-neck in points. There comes a stage when Noor slaps her mother on the show.
The second part of the film deals with sex. Kulu (Bonita Rajpurohit), a transgender, is raped by a man. The police complaint opens a can of worms as it is revealed that Kulu was actually raped by several men in one night. Was it rape or was Kulu into prostitution? Kulu’s husband, Ajmal (Piyush Kumar), is arrested by the police. Kulu’s supervisor, Lovina (Swastika Mukherjee), realises that she has a terrible case in front of her and it will not be easy to tackle it.
The third part deals with cheating. Gamepaapi (Abhinav Singh) exists in the Metaverse. He entertains his followers whose number is huge. He will do anything to increase his followers. A fake video of his showing him indulging in homosexual acts goes viral. His parents are perturbed. Or are they”
All the three parts of the film deal with complexities of modern relationships and self-discovery in the age of social media and reality shows.
Prateek Vats, Shubham and Dibakar Banerjee have written three stories which will appeal only to a thin section of the youth as they may not even be understood by the majority of the audience. Their screenplay does justice to their story and underlines how our lives these days tend to be ruled by the template of like, follow and subscribe. While the dramas in all the three parts have shock value, the entertainment value in the traditional sense of the term is very limited. Dialogues, penned by the trio, are in synch with the mood of the film.
Paritosh Tiwari acts well as Noor. Bonita Rajpurohit is good in the role of Kulu. Abhinav Singh is very confident and pretty impressive as Gamepaapi. Swaroopa Ghosh is natural in the role of Noor’s mother. Swastika Mukherjee gives a good account of herself as Kulu’s supervisor, Lovina. Shubham is lovely as Monty. Piyush Kumar leaves a mark as Ajmal. Mouni Roy is impactful as TV anchor Soni. Tusshar Kapoor, Sophie Choudry and Anu Malik lend nice support as judges of the TV reality show. Rahul Raj C. (as Prakash), Tanvika Parlikar (as Yashika), Sachin Modakwar (as Shivi), Jayashree Venketaramanan (as Asifa), Pavneet Singh (as Sandy), Sarun Nair (as Shravan), Ankit Lohra (as Neetu Kamaniyawala), Anjali Gaharana and Akshita Tiwari (both as female contestants), Yash Malhotra and Anshul Gupta (both as male contestants), Tejas Arora (as Nimish), Shivani Dubey (as Kiran), Muzaffar Khan (as the investigating officer), Bella Sharma (as Roshini), Kanchan Chandrakant Gawand (as Rani), Shaurya Shanker (as Martin), Raajeshwari Arora (as Gamepaapi’s mother), Vijay Kumar Dogra (as Gamepaapi’s father), Subhra Sourav Das (as Maddy), Anusha Sharma (as Kanika), Urfi Javed (as Chikni Choopdi), Hardeep Gupta (as the principal), Anuprabha Das Mazumder (as the woman cop), Khushie Parghi (as Amanpreet), Arshi Ghosh (as Meow Meow girl), Sarthak Sharma (as Rohan Rawat), Gurleen Kaur (as the news anchor), Michael Naidu (as Gamepaapi’s friend, Selfie), Surekha Patil (as the Metaverse old lady), Rajendra Mohite (as the superfan uncle), and the others lend the desired support.
Dibakar Banerjee’s direction caters to the ultra-cool youngsters who are conversant with the Metaverse and social media functioning, terminology and technicalities. Music (Sneha Khanwalkar, Dibakar Banerjee, Tanmay Bhattacharjee, Nirmit Shah, Tony Kakkar, Meet Bros., Ishq Bector) is quite nice. A couple of songs are very well tuned. Lyrics (Dibakar Banerjee, Tony Kakkar, Kumaar, Sony Ravan, Rap D Evil) are okay. Mudassar Khan’s choreography is so-so. Background music (Dibakar Banerjee, Tanmay Bhattacharjee and Nirmit Shah) could’ve been better. Anand Bansal and Riju Das’ cinematography is good. Production designing (Tiya Tejpal) is alright. Paramita Ghosh’s editing is sharp.
On the whole, Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2 has such limited appeal that it will turn out to be a box-office debacle.
Released on 19-4-’24 at Inox (daily 4 shows) and other cinemas of Bombay thru PEN Marudhar Cine Entertainment. Publicity & opening: poor. …….Also released all over. Opening was below the mark everywhere despite the Love Sex Aur Dhokha brand value.