Mon, October 12 2026

Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar is a frustratingly illogical police procedural that ruins an engaging premise by burying it under an avalanche of unearned twists. We discuss the film’s baffling disregard for realism, which repeatedly sacrifices basic police procedures just to serve its protagonist. We also talk about how the script bends backwards to transform Parvathy’s rookie character into an infallible mastermind, leading to absurd narrative leaps. Additionally, we point out how underdeveloped the entire cast feels, including the dull characterisation of Vijayaraghavan’s lead investigator.

Tue, September 15 2026

Shahad, who debuted with the forgettable coming-of-age drama ‘Prakashan Parakkatte’ (2022), ups his game here by several notches, aided by a taut screenplay

It may be one of cinema’s greatest tricks that it can twist one’s line of thinking about a person or an incident just with the perspective it chooses to present, the framing, editing choices, or the background score used. Reading a basic news report on the incident of crime at the centre of Shahad’s Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar might make one assume a particular stand on the culprits, knowing the long history of this kind of crime in the country and the stories that can be made up to save them. However, the film frames the incident, the events leading up to it, its aftermath and the people involved in such a way that not once do we wish for the culprits to be caught and punished. Of course, we have Jeethu Joseph’s Drishyam (2013), in which we all collectively stood with those who committed the crime. The film also has quite a few parallels with Drishyam, but this one has very different concerns and approach to the crime.

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Mon, September 14 2026

A quartet of cops orchestrate a cover-up in Shahad Nilambur’s occasionally thrilling ‘Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar’

The first few scenes of Shahad Nilambur’s Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar remind one of Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, in how undramatically we find out about the death of Aleena Abraham’s (Parvathy Thiruvothu) husband on duty. Aleena, with a child and the hopes of her husband’s family pinned on her, takes the police job on offer. There are no theatrics, no sad ballads or wave of sympathy for her, her baby or her situation. Theatrics is for later, but manufacturing sympathy almost never enters the picture, for Aleena is cut from a different cloth. The film then speedruns—a montage covers her training, a split-second encounter with her husband’s former colleague, her posting to a station in Kottayam and getting comfortable with the new workplace and her sufficiently leisurely colleagues, all of them in the lowest rungs of the police hierarchy. We realize that time has passed and the baby is now a toddler.

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Mon, October 12 2026

Busan Film Festival 2026 | In Sandeep Kumar Paul’s sobering debut, a female school teacher faces relentless moral policing as she negotiates her true freedom.

There’s something incredibly acute and sensitive in how Sandeep Kumar Paul’s debut, About An Intimate Matter, cuts through to scan a woman’s sense of self-worth amidst stifling social constraint. It knows the ever-morphing yardsticks foisted upon marginal bodies that are just thrust through one ring of damning perception after another. Financial autonomy preens itself as rescue but social gaping keeps jutting in. The heroine of Paul’s film, Swarna (Sreya Bhattacharya), is a self-possessed schoolteacher in a suburb in Bengal. She lives with her partner, Driti (Shimli Basu). Within the opening stretch, you get an inkling of her mettle, her quiet resolve. Amidst deliberations of her colleagues to petition for better working conditions, she dares to stand out.

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Mon, October 12 2026

Busan Film Festival 2026 | Vishwendra Singh’s debut trails two Nepali half-brothers hemmed between dire survival, vaster hopes and social prejudice.

In Vishwendra Singh’s debut feature, Khoriya, hope is a furtive, elusive thing. For migrants, their journeying is predicated on hope, which gets dashed again and again while they seize on some anchorage for the moment. The lives of such workers are fraught with abiding tension. What if the refuge shatters? The two Nepali half-brothers at Khoriya’s heart are up against India’s iron-grid social hierarchy that directs them to low expectations.

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Sat, October 10 2026

Despite its sharp observations, sincere performances, and noble intentions, ‘Reporting Live’ eventually becomes a safe, lukewarm watch.

At a time when investigative journalism is making news, Reporting Live exposes the high cost of illegal sand mining. The sand mafia has deep roots in the institutional architecture, but its corruption is often exposed by stringers and is buried in the inside pages of newspapers until a journalist is mowed down or a whistleblower is burnt alive. Drawing from real events, the film follows Sandhya Yadav (Parineeti Chopra), a field reporter for the Mumbai-based Hindi news channel Azaad Bharati, hunting for a primetime story. Alongside her pragmatic video journalist, Vinod Sharma (Deven Bhojani), she is dispatched to cover an infrastructure disaster in Visargaon, where the sudden collapse of a bridge claims the lives of school children.

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Sat, October 10 2026

Good intentions alright, but tepid treatment saps whatever advantages the concept might have had on paper

As this review appears in a newspaper which has actively led a crusade against illegal mining, there is no denying the relevance of the subject. Or the significant role played by the media in unmasking it. Straight up, ‘Reporting Live’ takes us to a pressing concern: the eviction of fishermen from their ancestral land. In its place, a mall by a builder has been proposed. Reporting the protest and new development plan are journalist Sandhya (Parineeti Chopra) and photographer Vinod (Deven Bhojani) from television channel Azad Bharti. Those clued in on the affairs of television journalism know all too well, it’s anything but azad. Free press is fast becoming a chimera.

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Sat, October 10 2026

This Parineeti Chopra outing coming so soon after the disappointing Shaque should have given us a chance to forget that one. But Chopra is, yet again, single-note here.

Illegal sand-mining continues to be the flavour of the season. Anil Kapoor’s ex-Armyman went up against the ruthless mafia controlling operations in the sepia-tinted hinterlands in Subedaar earlier this year. Now come Parineeti Chopra and Deven Bhojani as the intrepid reporter-camera duo from a TRP-hungry TV network (are there any other kinds?) who confront the bad guys. The nearly two-hour long duration is spent in watching Sandhya Yadav (Parineeti Chopra) and Vinod Sharma (Deven Bhojani) tracking the act itself on the banks of a river, being threatened both outside and inside the workplace, running the gamut of supportive types and unhelpful seniors, going sleuthing in tall unfinished buildings, and other dangerous places.

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Sat, October 10 2026

It is passable. It could have been, nay, should have been, much, much more.

A crackling whistleblower drama that excoriates the algorithm-driven world of Facebook/Meta/Instagram for the way it imperils nations, societies, communities and individuals struggling with disaffection and disinformation, The Social Reckoning sees writer Aaron Sorkin return (this time with directorial responsibility added on) to the turf that he trod in The Social Network (2010). He hits his target hard enough when the darts land right. When they don’t, this standalone follow-up, which rests to a great extent on the shoulders of Jeremy Strong stepping in for Jesse Eisenberg in the role of Mark Zuckerberg, is projected as a sort of cold-hearted corporate scalawag chasing revenues no matter what the price of the pursuit is.

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Sat, October 10 2026

Aaron Sorkin film is less about Mark Zuckerberg and more about The Wall Street Journal story that caused a rip in the veil cloaking the company.

Explaining the theory on which Facebook’s News Feed is based, Mark Zuckerberg once said: “A squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.” What he didn’t say was that Facebook algorithm could well determine what seems closer – your front yard or Africa. ‘We’re way past making friends,’ as The Social Reckoning’s tagline says. Way past, that is, The Social Network, whose Zuckerberg was about to found Facebook, and who was this mesmeric awkward, brash, nervous genius who may not have got many likes, but whom you could not scroll past.

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Sat, October 10 2026

Aaron’s Sorkin’s standalone sequel to ‘The Social Network’ features a data scientist and a reporter who team up to expose Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook.

Imagine being such a distinct storyteller that your last name is synonymous with a whole language of film-making. It’s a privilege reserved exclusively for directors: Tarantino-esque, Spielbergian, Lynchian. But Aaron Sorkin is a screenwriter solely responsible for the cinema of ‘Sorkinisms’: a style of dialogue and atmosphere where humans speak faster than they think, flaunt intellectual credibility, exchange smug repartee without a single stutter, do deadpan jokes in a hurry, react without listening, unleash crowd-pleasing one-liners, and demonstrate robotic comfort with one another.

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Sat, October 10 2026

It’s hard to comprehend why Jessica Chastain agreed to this, though it’s easy to see the filmmakers saw her sharp, gaunt, porcelain-white face as perfect to seamlessly transition into something horrific and terrifying.

A busy mother who is “always late from work” now doesn’t have to bear just guilt and a disgruntled husband. Other Mommy tells us her dispirited child could also invite into their home “a corrupted energy looking for a host from another plane” to fill the “gap” in her heart. That’s one way of describing the creature that is haunting the Martins, comprising daughter Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark), Mommy (Jessica Chastain) and “Daddo” (Jay Duplass). Though they act like no other normal people haunted before perhaps have, such as coolly stopping by for burgers at a strip mall as they discuss how to “kill it” in front of their child, after having just seen one of their closest friends (Arian Moayed) ripped apart by the “thing”.

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Sat, October 10 2026

Gary Oldman show returns with its consistent mix of silliness and sharpness, making us care for its characters, while taking care to spice up the things with smart new adversaries.

When this sixth season of Slow Horses showed up amongst much excitement, there was this automatic question in our heads: would the change in writers — series creator and lead writer Will Smith handed over the reins to Gaby Chiappe — impact the show, which nestles comfortably in my list of best spy thrillers currently streaming. The answer is a resounding no. I have to confess I was a little sceptical when this new season began, but the way it has forged ahead, turning a show that spent a lot of time brooding in dank rooms, sending its gaggle of gabby, dank spies, on a breathless chase involving our favourite slow horses and a Russian hit-couple, I’ve barely had time to breathe.

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Wed, September 16 2026

The Emmy-nominated British espionage drama is back with its sixth season in six years, and the tension remains at an all-time high

Apple TV’s Slow Horses has never shied away from death. In the past five seasons, Slough House has lost several agents, and this season, the count is about to get higher. Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb must figure out who is targeting his agents and why. Based on the books of Mick Herron, the MI5 agents of Slough House have endured a lot, but this season, they’re truly on the run as sitting targets in a mission that’s out to get them. Led by Oldman and Jack Lowden, the darkly humorous spy thriller just improves with every season, as the writing, characterisation and direction just get sharper and hit that much harder.

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Wed, October 7 2026

Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, the new Malayalam film starring Nivin Pauly, is a brilliantly localised, laugh-out-loud rom-com that has become the highest-grossing Malayalam movie of all time. We discuss the film’s respectfully handled age-gap romance, praising how the narrative gives Mamitha’s character the agency to initiate the relationship. We also dive into director Girish A.D.’s masterful visual storytelling, Nivin Pauly’s triumphant return to his “boy-next-door” roots, and the highly specific cultural context of Angamaly church units that grounds the humour. Along the way, we highlight the film’s hilarious reliance on Kerala meme culture—including the brilliant meta-casting of the “Convincing Star”—and applaud the genius marketing stunt where the film was jokingly promoted as the “behind-the-scenes footage” for a short released on YouTube.

Fri, September 4 2026

Nivin Pauly and a supremely charming Mamitha Baiju star in Girish AD's comedy about an age-gap romance in a small Kerala town

‘Illey Illa’, the first song in Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, has a line that translates to “your novenas have finally come true”. The word was unfamiliar to me—I later found it’s a Catholic term for prayers offered for nine successive days, or weeks. It’s one little detail among dozens in the series of vignettes that make up the musical sequence: a busload of passengers held up by a short film shoot; a bowler running out a wandering non-striker, resulting in a brawl; father and son cooking pork curry; a young woman, friendless in a new town, watching her farewell video on her phone at bedtime; a grown man proudly clutching stuffed toys won from a claw machine.

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Thu, August 27 2026

Wed, October 7 2026

Mon, October 5 2026

Impressive performances, music and cinematography lend respectability to the Ramesh Bandreddi-directed Telugu film, which has its fair share of problems

Thella Kaagitham — a blank piece of paper — is a fitting title for a story dealing with two impressionable adolescents. The success of films like Courtand Little Heartshas thrown the ball open for filmmakers to dabble with tender love, bringing a much-needed innocence to storytelling in an industry caught between testosterone-heavy actioners, cushy romances and far-fetched comedies. Intermediate students Ramu (Harsh Roshan) and Asha (Nakshatra) are 16, neither children nor adults, curiously opening up to a world full of infinite possibilities. It is a sleepy small town in late-2000s Andhra Pradesh, where landlines are commonplace, and internet penetration is minimal. Their parents have tall dreams and lead modest lives, making small sacrifices to fund their education and putting their problems aside.

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Mon, October 5 2026

Dhadakpur erupts when a mobile tower is set to be built on Banwari’s field, sparking panic. His son Bhugol grows popular as an influencer, while his daughter Roshni feels the pressure ahead of the gruelling SSC exam, just a week away. Her ex Amavas offers her a shortcut with pure intentions, while local inspector Mithlesh investigates a scam. The performances are decent, though the characters don’t make much progress. The pivotal cast – Gajraj Rao, Renuka Shahane, Sparsh Shrivastava and Shivani Raghuvanshi – do the needful, but aren’t quite tested and their portrayals hardly offer anything new. Yashpal Sharma’s cop act deserved better writing. Bhuvan Arora is strictly okay. Anjuman Saxena’s presence offers rare instances of warmth.

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Fri, October 2 2026

The laidback rural satire improves upon a scattered first season, introducing stakes and problems that echo in the real world

Dupahiya is a homegrown series that’s difficult to write about. Not because it’s mediocre or anything, but because it’s the kind of low-stakes, minor-key and watchable satire that strives to be forgotten the second it ends. It’s almost too easy to engage with as ambient and family-friendly entertainment; the cast is likeable; the craft is playful; everyone gets a track (read this in Oprah’s “everyone gets a car” voice); the setting is familiar. Season 1 revolved around a stolen dowry motorbike in the crime-free village of Dhadakpur. The Panchayat hangover was strong, despite a broad storyline connecting its several characters. But Season 2 sheds the hangover — ironically, Panchayat itself has mutated into its own imposter — by being more thematically distinct. Besides the dramedy, it grows up a bit and stays tethered to the India of today. I’ll remember it more than the first season because it’s not as…content. Pun unintended.

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Fri, October 2 2026

The second season of Sparsh Srivastava-Gajraj Rao suffers from a plot which doesn’t thicken till way past the halfway mark, even though it feels timely -- the leaking of exam papers.

One of the reasons that Dupahiya worked was its cheerful focus on the importance of the two-wheeler—its ‘whereof’ and ‘whyfor’. A potential groom demands a dupahiya to marry an excited girl who has fallen, not for his brash charms, but for the promise of getting away from here to there, a fictional Dhadakpur to a real-life Mumbai. It became the dhuri (fulcrum) around which the series revolves, telling the story of a gaon, its people and its politics in a spry and enjoyable way. The second season suffers from a plot which doesn’t thicken till way past the halfway mark, even though it feels timely: the leaking of exam papers is a fraught issue, whose fire has caused unimaginable turmoil.

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Mon, October 5 2026

An old-fashioned family drama dressed up as a new-age entertainer, ‘Avaraachan and Sons’ relies heavily on Biju Menon’s charm to compensate for its flat writing

Aspirations to be a new-age family entertainer are evident in Avaraachan and Sons, especially in the soundtrack, which contains liberal doses of not-so-great rap lyrics. But at its heart and in its somewhat dated approach, the Thamby-directed film remains an old-fashioned feel-good film, which serves up exciting bits only once in a while. Much of the film banks on Biju Menon’s lazy charm, which easily fits the protagonist Avaraachan, who doesn’t take life seriously, even as he expects a grandchild. A widower with two grown-up sons (Sreenath Bhasi and Ganapathy), he is unable to wean himself off the liquor bottle. Added to this is his propensity to get into trouble quite often. After one such episode, the family decides to pack him off from their coastal abode to the high ranges, where his sister resides.

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Fri, October 2 2026

Biju Menon brings warmth and emotional heft to Avaraachan and Sons, which works better as a coming-of-age story of a flawed adult than as a family drama

Biju Menon has a peculiar penchant for humour. After starting with serious, mostly villainous roles, the actor reinvented himself in the 2010s, mainly with his flair for comedy. Marykkundoru Kunjaadu, Seniors, Ordinary, Vellimoonga, Kunjiramayanam, Padayottam, Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu… the actor was on quite a roll before he applied the brakes — either to avoid repetition or evade typecasting. In the last few years, he has largely stayed away from such roles, yet again focusing on intense roles, which he was always good at. That is why Avaraachan and Sons comes as a whiff of fresh air, beautifully balancing the veteran’s strengths. It has Biju Menon operating largely in his delightful ‘Maamachan zone’, but with much more emotional heft. As the titular character Avaraachan, Biju Menon is the anchor to this rocky boat that braves a few dips before reaching shore smoothly.

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