Loukyam Review

Picture this - our heroine is the leader of a gang of girls who rag guys in the college. Our hero pretends to be a police officer, rounds up the heroine and her gang, and takes them to the college library. Here, he asks one of the heroine's friends for her hobbies - pat comes the reply, listening music and dancing. He then asks her to dance. The girl says she's shy, and the hero tells her to dance like she would if no one were watching.

The girl immediately proceeds to strip off her salwar kameez to reveal a vest and hot shorts, dances to Poovai Poovai from Dookudu in an extremely suggestive manner, and ends by straddling one of the other college students. The scene ends there and the friend never makes an appearance on the scene again. For what joy was this scene inserted into the movie? We will never find out.

Now picture this - the heroine figures out that the hero is not a police officer and was only teasing her. She then starts pushing him and tells him to apologise to her. Our hero slaps her and tells her that a girl is beautiful when subdued. The heroine quietly walks away. Why was this scene in the movie? We will never find out, again.

And now picture this - the hero tells the heroine (after the slapping incident) that she should spend a day with him and he will convince her that she's already fallen for him. The heroine agrees and calls the hero to a temple which is at the top of a hillock with around 100 steps. The hero reaches - all this is early morning. She then pretends to slip and says she cannot climb the steps by herself.

The hero picks her up and carries her up the stairs. He reaches the top in a few minutes, but by the time he crosses the threshold of the temple it is suddenly evening. He then drops her home and tells her that since she's not developed any feelings for him, he'll never see her again. The heroine goes home, gets into a towel, lies on her bed, and sends out a text message to the hero saying "Hi". He immediately returns to her house and voila - the two are in love and there's a song.

All the scenes above happen in the first half hour of Loukyam. If you wish to see more such illogical sequences threaded together in a movie with the same story as Gopichand's first and several subsequent movies, you can go see this film.

Loukyam has Gopichand as a happy-go-lucky and fearless guy who falls in love with a girl who's the sister of a don. The rest of the movie is about how Gopichand cons everyone until the end and then beats up some and convinces some others and ends up with a happily ever after.

The movie and all its characters are so routine and monotonous that the biggest applause is reserved for 30-Years Prithvi and his spoof of Legend. The entire film is filled with clichés so archaic that you would require carbon dating to find out their exact age.

The songs by Anup Rubens are a welcome change from the Thaman variety of music that we've been subjected to in the last couple of years. They are, however, shot in the most routine manner possible - three in Switzerland and two on sets - and take the induced boredom to higher levels.

Loukyam is a repackaged version of several of Gopichand's films - to use a cliché, it is old wine in a new bottle, the problem being that the bottle is broken at several places. The closest meaning of Loukyam in English is common-sense, and the movie lacks just that.