Luv Ka The End

'The End' never seemed more welcome

Director: Bumpy
Starring: Shraddha Kapoor, Taaha Shah, Jannat Zubair Rahmani, Shenaz Treasurywala
Rating: *



Yash Raj, at their worst can be accused of manufacturing shallow, synthetic, lame films, but they've never been one for crudity. There is a minimum quality control that goes into their ventures and occasionally they do surprise with a particularly fine film - like Band Baaja Baarat last year. It did look like the banner was on redemption path, and perhaps spurred by the success of the Anushka-Ranveer rom com - Yash Raj decided to peddle Y Films that would make youth-centric films with newcomers. The beginning couldn't have been more inauspicious, because Luv Ka The End is horrendously vulgar and puerile.

If this is what the youth wants, it is indeed very disconcerting. The film's story and screenplay is by none other than model-actress Shenaz Trasurywala, who mentioned in some interview that the theme was inspired by one of her own break-ups. She happily assumes all the stereotypes associated with the multiplex youth audiene - shallow, materialistic and frivolous - and together with director Bumpy, they end up making a film that is trivial and embarassing to the extreme.

The only area where it manages to be revealing in some socio-cultural sense (and this is again entirely unintentional, so credit is due to the makers), is in fricing home the point about how much today's youth and their world is driven by technology. It's all about texting, Facebook, and other technology-related social networking that has completely changed the way we communicate.
This transformation itself holds immense possibilities for stories, so starting a wing just for youth-related subjects is not such a bad idea per se. It's just that Luv Ka The End is plain obnoxious for most part, and is a definite error of judgement from YRF.

The story is painfully predictable, and its self-conscious swagger and fake boldness make it altogether unappealing. Rhea (Shraddha Kapoor) is a lovely teenage girl, madly in love with her boyfriend, Luv Nanda (Taaha Shah). Just as she's about to celebrate her 18th birthday, she overhears Luv's friends at a mall who boast about the former's Casanova image - chattering away about his two-timing ways, with location details and so forth (this is the kinbd of convenient screenplay you will see.

In a bizarre plot plot, Rhea discovers that Luv has merely been using her to win an online contest, which has rich boys uploading lusty vieos. Rhea and her two close girl friends swear to take revende and come up with totally ridiculous ways of getting back. This track is again lifted from She Devil. Rhea plans to strip him of his car, his money and his chamchas. So in one nioght, they smash his bar, steal his credit cards, spray itching powder on his panties (all this while I was curious to know which shop sells itching powder or which factory makes it?), make muffin cakes with laxatives, and send suggestive messages to his friends from his cell, indicating he might be gay.

Oh of course, Rhea's parents are conveniently away to see an ailing relative in another city. It's all set up in an artificial manner and gets progressively dumber.
Also, director Bumpy has an extremely crass sensibility, which makes this further unbearable to watch. The scenes are stagey, with loud acting all round.
The only bright spot is Shraddha Kapoor, who has natural charm and definite screen presence. For the rest, highly avoidable.