Lucky - 2012 DD 5.1 DVD $14.99

Lucky (Kannada)

Starring: Yash, Ramya, Sharan, Sadhu Kokila, Sharan, Biradar, Padma Kumuta, Shanker Bhat, Vijay Chendur,
M.S. Umesh, M.N. Lakshmi Devi, Tabla Nani
Director: Dr. Suri
Producer: Radhika Kumaraswamy
Music Dir: Arjun Janya
Lyricist: Jayanth Kaikin
Singers: Baba Sehgal, Arjun Janya, Sonu Nigam, Shreya Ghoshal, Priya Himesh, Ravi Bansare
Distributor: Shamika Productions
Genre: Comedy, Romance

Synopsis
The story-line is light-hearted and revolves around Vikram Kumar alias Lucky (Yash) who is in love with a television anchor Gauramma, Gowri for short (Ramya). She has a Pug dog, called Zoozoo, whom she adores, and who is the most important part of her life. Lucky is terrified of Zoozoo.
She hosts a program called “Keli premigalige” (“Ask the lovers”) on Love TV. She is pestered by “Lucky” who calls her regularly to tell her he loves her, both on air, on her cell-phone at the hairdressers. He keeps meeting her on the street, telling her he loves her, giving her flowers. Then one day, a friend who is looking after Zoozoo tells her that the dog is ill. She insists on leaving in the middle of her program, and as a result loses her job at the TV station.
Lucky lives with his best friend, Anand, known as *“420” (Sharan), who can’t get a job – and another friend, Hanumatha, known as Hans, whose girlfriend, Rita, is going to live in the US, and who wants him to come with her. Hans works, so the other two don’t need to work, and they leave Hans to pay the bills. Then Hans decides to go to the US with Rita, so Lucky realises he has to get a job. “420” shows him a job-advert for an advertising agency: he goes, only to find that Gowri is the new advertising manager of the company, and that it is she who will interview him. So he has to tidy himself up. “420” tells him to go under his real name, Vikram Kumar, Vicky instead of Lucky. He gets a haircut, dresses like a business-man – he has a completely new look, and he behaves accordingly.
Sadhu Kokila keeps turning up – he is the Studio Cameraman, an onlooker in the street and Sadhu the hairdresser, who has just cut his hair!
He goes for the interview, with the necessary University qualification, in the name of Vikram Kumar, and is given a project – he is told that if they like the project, he will get the job. However, Gowri is mystified, believing him to be Lucky. They like his project, and so he gets the job, and he is told that he will work with Gowri. In the course of their work, they become friendly, and Vicky thinks that maybe she will fall in love with him. He does everything he can to impress Gowri.
**In one scene, (102 minutes, ten seconds from the start) he suggests that a group of children setting off firecrackers would have more fun if they tied them to a dog’s tail. We then see a terrified Zoozoo, running about with the firecrackers exploding from the tail, to be rescued by Vicky.
However, when he broaches the subject of love, she tells him that she was in love with Lucky. So he leaves his job, disappears, re-grows his beard and his hair, and becomes Lucky again.
He comes back as Lucky, six months later. However, he is not so lucky, because when he meets her she tells him that he is totally irresponsible, and that it is Vicky with whom she is in love....
Who will be successful in getting Gowri’s love, Vicky or Lucky - or neither?

Songs:
1. Chennagidiyalle
2. Naa En Madli
3. Gowramma Baramma
4. Hoovina Santhege
5. Mandyadinda

* “420” is the number of the section of the Indian Penal Code relating to Fraud. The Hindi term “Char So Bis” is therefore often used to refer to someone or something as a fraud. I have only once heard the term used in English, “Four twenty” as here, but otherwise only in Hindi.
** This is the first time I have seen a scene of animal cruelty in any Indian film.

Released Year: 2012
Running Time: 146 minutes/Colour/Kannada

Review
I would like to give this film a high rating, because it has not received good reviews, which it deserved. However, I cannot recommend this film to anybody to watch, because of a scene of animal cruelty, in which children have been told that they would have fun letting off firecrackers if they tied them to a dog’s tail, and we see the terrified dog running about. I am surprised that the Director put in such a scene, and also that the Indian Censors allowed such a scene (I have discussed this matter with Indian friends who take the same view). I know that if anyone in the United Kingdom or the US bought such a film, that they would never buy another Indian (or Kannada film) again. I sincerely hope, for the sake of the dog, that the scene used computer graphics. However that does not excuse the inclusion of the scene – because it will encourage children to do the same. I would therefore give this film a zero rating. Take this scene out, and I would give it 5 stars.

Apart from the offensive scene, this is an excellent film. It has been long awaited, since someone put the song “Naa En Madli” on You Tube in October 2012, under the name “Dog Song Arjun”. The rest of the songs are excellent, lovely music, lyrics, picturisation and choreography in them all. One song deserves particular mention, and that is “Hoovina Santhege”, where the song is first shot with the background and clothes in shades of orange, then the background and clothes are blue. The only other time I have seen such a thing is in the song, “Tumhi dekho naa” from the Hindi film “Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna”, where the background colours start blue, then yellow, then orange, then deep fuchsia, then red, then green and orangey-red. All the songs in “Lucky” are highly colouful.

The story of the film is rather novel. Lucky, a university graduate, who is a bit of a wastrel, not working, woos a beautiful girl. She rejects him, he cleans up his act, goes to work as Vicky (in a company of which she is the advertising manager) with her, she rejects him because she liked Lucky. He comes back as Lucky, and finds she preferred Vicky. You can’t win, or can you?

It is a light frothy entertainer, the sort of film we all need to watch at times – but with the dog cruelty scene deleted. Zero stars as it is, 5 stars with that scene deleted. Wake up, Mr. Censor!

Zero rating.

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