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29 March 2024

‘Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana’ a dish tad insipid

Kunal Kapoor, Huma Qureshi promoting 'Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana'. (AFP)

Published
By Sneha May Francis

Despite landing a perfect recipe for an endearing tale, one-movie-old director Sameer Sharma is unable to stir it into something finger-licking good.

Instead, he leaves it to simmer on the burner for long...way too long.

It’s a movie about a glorious chicken dish, yet Sameer is unable to spice it up, never once allowing us to relish its heady flavour.

Barring a handful of shots of an orange gravy soaking in chunks of chicken or a pot full of chicken pieces being dressed in a fiery, reddish marinade, there’s very little spotlight on the cooking.

Sameer doesn’t lend any appetizing action to young Omi Khurana’s pursuit in reinventing his granddad’s legendary chicken dish, one that had once brought fame and fortune to his family. And, one that might bail him out of a massive debt trap.

It’s only towards the second half of the two-and-a-half-hour reel time that the filmmaker collects a random bunch of loyal customers who ramble out a list of numerous Indian spices, which might be crucial to lending the mesmerizing flavour to the iconic dish.

There are late-night, secret cooking experiments to unearth the magic ingredient and even a quick flashback into its origin, but Omi is const-*antly surrounded by way too many distractions to give Chicken Khurana his undivided attention.

‘Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana’ is delightful, no doubt, but one that merited more time on the fire, and less on everything else.

It plods along about orphaned Omi’s struggles to make it in life, and how he’s forced to return to the village he had once abandoned to pursue his dreams.

While his family is willing to forgive and forget, and believes Omi’s cooked up stories of his success in London, his ex-flame Harman is unwilling to let go of the past, just yet.

Kunal Kapoor’s earnest in trying to etch the complexities and sinfulness of Omi, who’d stop at nothing just to make it big, but he’s unable to shoulder the entire movie on his own. Blame it on the sluggish narrative or bad casting, or the ineptness on story writers Sumit Batheja and Sameer to lend Omi more credibility, but Kunal just doesn’t make the cut.

On the other hand, Huma Qureshi is ideal as Omi’s unforgiving childhood lover Harman, who shows her defiance by locking eyes with him. But, unlike her projected rigid personality, Harman’s an obedient girl who doesn’t resist getting married to Omi’s cousin Jeet even when she skips a heart beat for her childhood crush.

It is, however, the supporting cast that lends a unique charm to ‘Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana’. Rajesh Sharma takes on the boisterous, pot-bellied Titu mama, who poses being mentally ill only to evade responsibility, with gusto. It’s his hunger for Chicken Khurana that’s the most tempting.

Veteran actor from the ‘Hum Log’ era Vinod Nagpal lends a rustic charm to Omi’s grandpa, who apart from being a master chef also strangely believes that passing gas in front of the family makes them grow fonder. Dolly Ahluwalia as Omi’s bubbly aunt and Rahul Bagga as his one-eyed, trusted cousin, are faultless.

Amit Trivedi spins some wicked tunes that double as the ideal garnish.

On the whole, this Khurana curry isn’t as delectable as we wanted it to be, but it’s tolerable for a  later snack. What can we say, we’ve tasted better.