Critics’ Verdict: Sonu Ke Titu...Recycles Cliches With Few Laughs

Critics’ Verdict: The film elicits some laughs but relies on the same old sexist cliches.

Film: Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety
Director: Luv Ranjan
Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Nushrat Bharucha, Sunny Singh and Ishita Raj

Excerpts from reviews of Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety

There could have been some fun to be had with this little lot, particularly because the actors, especially Aaryan and Singh, are up for it. The supporting cast is first-rate: for once Saxena gets to laugh, and Alok Nath flips a finger, finally, at his pious goody-two-shoes Hum Aapke Hain Koun image, a film Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety references with glee. But Ranjan is too busy making low-rent jokes about ‘sex’ and ‘shaadi’ and ‘barbaadi’ (the cuss word which starts with a ‘ch’ is blipped out but is strewn right through). Bharucha is capable of more, but she’s made to narrow her eyes, to the exclusion of all other expressions...So yes, Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety provides some laughs, some of which escape involuntarily. But it also leaves you wondering. Can Ranjan grow up his callow characters? Of course, he can, because he has the smarts (remember Pyar Ka Punchnama?). Does he really want to? I’m not sure. Sharp comedy of the sexes is the hard stuff. Cheap laughs are easy.

Shubhra Gupta, The Indian Express

Ranjan’s calling card so far remains the sleeper hit Pyaar Ka Punchnama (2011), which was about three hapless, innocent young men embroiled in abusive relationships each with an all-out evil manipulative, calculating she-devil. He briefly flirted with sensitivity in Akaash Vani (2013), a film on marital rape, but returned with a second woman-hate-fest in the form of in 2015, Pyaar Ka Punchnama a near carbon copy of the first with a marginally different cast...The unfortunate part of Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety is that in small patches – especially in a scene in which Ishita Raj’s character Pihu is re-acquainted with Titu’s family – it shows a penchant for humour and good timing. Mostly though, this is a tacky, trite recycling of a recipe that has brought box-office success twice to this director.

Anna MM Vetticad, FirstPost

The caustic screenplay by Ranjan and Rahul Mody mines its humour from Sonu’s mounting exasperation at Titu’s willing seduction. Sonu wants his bromance with Titu to retain its innocence and purity. He wants to grow old with Titu, like Titu’s grandfather Ghasitaram (Alok Nath) and his best friend Lalu (Virendra Saxena). The movie’s best scenes revolve around these three men who are shown to be the only ones to have retained their sanity around women. Alok Nath, cast against type as a profanity-spouting gent who loves his whisky and kebabs, is especially good in his cynicism about Sonu’s success rate...Sonu’s cynicism about marriage and family values is a welcome antidote to the syrupiness of the conventional Bollywood romance, but it is telling, and typical, that the poison is administered by a woman.

Nandini Ramnath, The Reel

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