Chaitanya Rao, Hebah Patel starrer is a vulgar soft-porn film in the guise of a rom-com, writes Srivathsan Nadadhur
Story:
Eshan and Sonali are a bickering couple going through troubled times six months into their marriage. While it was love that brought them together, unrealistic expectations from one another drift them apart. After counselling proves to be a futile exercise, they bump into an elderly couple – Bala and Tripura Sundari – who try to revive their relationship through a honeymoon package.
Review:
Honeymoon Express has a basic but effective premise – a couple in the middle of a troubled marriage making a last-ditch effort to revive their relationship – if only the intent behind the story matched the filmmaker’s execution. Director Bala Rajasekharuni’s debut is an excuse of a film exploiting perverse pleasures and fantasises while pretending to tell a story.
More than a bickering couple, Eshan and Sonali come across as sexually repressed individuals who’re horny in the middle of a resort. The film has a fantasy spin and a strange multiverse dimension that adds insult to injury. The story is all about the protagonists coming to terms with one another while meeting various versions of themselves across multiple timelines.
Every sequence in Honeymoon Express reeks of eroticism – Hebah Patel’s thighs and suggestive costumes have a better character graph than the couple. A marriage counsellor named ‘Bhangima’ Bhaskar advises them in positions where they could make love. An elderly couple, dressed in marriage costumes, giggles while discussing their first night. Sonali is obsessed with a ‘tantric sex’ workshop.
A honeymoon package is in place to chart the transformation of the protagonists. Still, all you see are erotic portraits on the walls, protagonists finding an excuse to get wet and fight over trivial issues. In brief stretches, the director tries to put his point across – how the marriage could be salvaged if Eshan and Sonali attempted to understand each other and rise above their differences.
If the idea of an alternate reality wasn’t confusing enough, Honeymoon Express makes a mess of its screenplay, going back and forth between the couple’s past and present. The subplot around Rahul, Sonali’s ex, is another joke that adds little value to the proceedings. The film works better as an unintentional comedy, which keeps finding newer excuses to embarrass itself.
Chaitanya Rao is doing a great disservice to his budding career with flimsy projects that neither offer him visibility nor a scope to prove himself. It’s equally unfortunate how Hebah Patel’s graph has taken a turn for the worse in recent years and the film misuses her presence for all the wrong reasons. The likes of Arvind Krishna, Surekha Vani and Ali are wasted in meaningless roles.
One wonders what were Tanikella Bharani and Suhasini upto. It takes some directorial ‘mettle’ to cast such credible performers and make them look like buffoons. Composer Kalyani Malik is yet again trapped in a film that doesn’t merit his presence. In the middle of the chaos, the only source of respite is a song Nijama, beautifully sung by Malik himself in the august company of Sunitha.
The film would’ve been slightly tolerable without the patchy animation and CGI portions that make 90s films Aditya 369 and Ammoru look like futuristic Hollywood sagas in comparison.
Verdict:
Honeymoon Express is an abomination in the name of cinema, it’s something you wouldn’t want even your worst enemy to endure.
Rating: 1/5
