Akhil Arora

Jigra, the new film by Vasan Bala, combines his trademark cine-literate sensibilities with mainstream Bollywood tropes. The odd combination makes for an interesting discourse about the film’s broad sentimentality, its genre credentials, and storytelling that is both contrived and confident. We discuss Bala’s balancing act and whether it works. Along the way, we talk about Alia Bhatt’s strong central performance, the action set-pieces, and the film’s emotional core.

Deadpool & Wolverine, the only Marvel Cinematic Universe movie this year, levels up in terms of budget but isn’t bothered about evolving emotionally. We discuss the film’s relentless humour, the ugly CGI, and the confusingly complicated plot. There’s time for self-reference, but not for self-reflection in the Deadpool films, as Ryan Reynolds continues to overwhelm every aspect of them. We also talk about where the film stands in the ever-expanding MCU, and whether it would even work five years down the line.

Stree 2 is an overlong, unfunny, and ultimately unnecessary sequel that has no idea how to deliver scares or laughs. Every scene in the film goes on for too long, the jokes are repeated to the point of redundancy, and some of the diversions are baffling to behold. Why is Akshay Kumar in this? How old is Tamannaah Bhatia’s character? Why are there no rules to this universe? We discuss the film’s flawed feminism, its boring tone, and that CGI-fuelled climax that goes on forever.

Vikramaditya Motwane’s fascination with genre cinema continues. But his latest film, CTRL, isn’t exactly going to win him any new fans. We discuss the film’s mess of a script, which tries to cram in way too many ideas than it needed to. We also talk about its elaborate conspiracy thriller section and its melancholic third act. Along the way, we praise Ananya Panday for bringing nuance to a string of performances that could be misinterpreted as belonging to the same category.

Kottukkaali, writer-director P.S. Vinothraj’s follow-up to the acclaimed Koozhangal, divided us down the middle. We speak about the techniques Vinothraj uses to tell an ever-evolving, odyssey-like story about a group of people accompanying a young woman to her exorcism. We discuss the brief bursts of horror and comedy and talk about the larger points that Vinothraj is trying to make about a deeply rotten society. We also debate the film’s ambiguous ending and wonder why the filmmaker wants to put us in the shoes of a monstrous male character.

Sector 36 is a gratuitously grisly dramatisation of the gruesome Nithari serial murders from around two decades ago. But because it unfolds with zero nuance, the movie mines cheap thrills out of a real-life horror story. We talk about the strange arcs that Vikrant Massey and Deepak Dobriyal’s characters have been given, the haphazard narrative structure, and seemingly missing sequences that could’ve helped make the story smoother. We also talk about Massey’s performance in the interrogation scene and the filmmakers’ odd decision to set the movie in Delhi and not Noida, where the actual crimes took place.