Bharathi Pradhan

The setting is lavish. But murders aboard a cruise are not novel. Nor is the mystery over who’s Jolly, the true successor of a dead billionaire. In this case, 100-year-old birthday boy Ranjeet (played by villain Ranjeet) who’s succumbed to a heart attack. As the trailer suggests, Jalabuddin alias Jolly (Riteish Deshmukh), Jalbhushan alias Jolly (Abhishek A Bachchan) and Julius alias Jolly (Akshay Kumar) turn up, each claiming to be the real inheritor. An Amar, Akbar, Anthony trio, in case you’ve missed the point. Producer Sajid Nadiadwala who credits himself with the story and screenplay with help from Farhad Samji for screenplay and dialogue, attempts Priyadarshan style mayhem. The doctor aboard (Akashdeep Sabir) who can test their DNAs and find the real Jolly is killed. A couple of crew members who are suspect are also bumped off.

The spiel amounts to thuggery: director Mani Ratnam and actor Kamal Hassan took 38 years to come together again after Nayakan (1987) because it took them that long to find a subject that would match the class of their iconic outing. Additionally, there’s a tale about how many decades Kamal took to write one of his favourite stories which was put on the backburner until Mani and he collaborated on it. Mani rewrote and polished it, the two cinematic geniuses from Tamil Nadu put their heads together and finally pooled their names to produce their next ‘gem’. It was to be titled Kamal Haasan 234 as it would be his landmark 234th film. But voila, it became Thug Life and here it is. But you wish they’d prolonged the 38 years of separation by never coming together again if the weary story of a Yama-defying gangster is all they could come up with.

The centipede is a multi-legged, predatory anthropod. Writer-director Chandan Arora substitutes Israeli title Magpie (prisoner-turned-police informant) with the Hindi word for centipede to narrate an Indianised version of the drama series. Set in Goa, Ashu Gaonkar (Roshan Mathew) is the bechara of the party where he’s out of jail after serving a sentence for murder while older brother Max (Mohit Raina with dimples) is well settled with pretty wife Nisha (Sarah Jane Dias), daughter Ira (Kurangi Vijayshri Nagraj) and friends-turned-colleagues Shardul (Mahesh Shetty) and Pedro (Ninad Kamat). Max and co have just landed the biggest construction contract of their lives which will change the landscape of Goa. Ashu weakly attempts to re-enter their lives but Max shuts the door on him. Here’s some money, stay out, lead your own life. Before you can begin to feel sorry for Ashu, his twisted, manipulative mind which is not beyond sudden spurts of violence, gives him a dangerous dimension. Using his seeming innocence to prise a confession or two from prime suspects is DSP Leena Naik (Heeba Shah).

It’s a cosy situation for surgeon Dr Raj Nagpal (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) with separated wife Anju (Surveen Chawla) in the apartment across the floor and girlfriend-cum-nurse Roshni Saluja (Asha Negi) in his house to take care of fragile daughter Ira who suffers from Aspergers Syndrome. His mom Gurmeet (Sohaila Kapur) is around too, happy to go along with Raj’s unconventional arrangement. After an eventful 13th birthday party for Ira, the idyllic world is shattered when the housemaid walks in to find Raj holding the bloodied dead body of Roshni in his arms. One scream from the maid and Anju from across the floor comes rushing in. Whodunnit and why?

Cacophony establishes the families and friendships of Titli Mishra (Wamiqa Gabbi) and Ranjan (Rajkummar Rao) as a botched elopement lands them all at the police station. “Papa” (Zakir Hussain), petulantly uttered by Titli, won’t allow her to marry the unemployed Ranjan until he gets a sarkari job. Writer-director Karan Sharma gets the decibel right (loud, louder, loudest) with Banaras as the backdrop for his entertainment whirl that winds up on a noble note. Ranjan’s arc that goes from personal pursuits (naukri, chokri, shaadi) to discovering what the gods intended him to do and thereby understanding what life should revolve around, is a potent plot for a joyride with a social message. Add to it Rajkummar Rao who can switch from fun and frolic to sober-serious without losing a beat. It’s the ideal playground for Karan to have the viewer rollicking with amusement before slipping the conscience into the fray. There are plenty of situations too for dance, song and merriment (romance, pre-wedding ceremonies, comic moments, drama, Shiv mandir, masjid and Allah too).

The Moghuls are bad, they wear black. The Hindus are brave, they’re covered in saffron. The screen is red – with blood. “I wanted it to be green,” sneers Zafar (Vivek Anand Oberoi) who wears kohl in his eyes, eyes the throne in Delhi, dreams of being called Sultan and targets Somnath Mandir where the faith of the kaafir resides. Weaned on unwavering belief in ‘Har Har Mahadev’, Hamirji Gohil (Sooraj Pancholi) is courageous and chivalrous. It wins him the admiration of tigress Rajal (Akanksha Sharma) and her father Raja Vegdaji Bhil (Suniel Shetty), a devout Shiv bhakt. Together, Hamirji and the Bhils will guard Somnath against the wicked Zafar Khan. The battlelines between noble believer and cruel plunderer are so clearly drawn that Kanu Chauhan’s story and screenplay begins and ends there.

It’s Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) who saves the world from The Entity, a disastrous AI creation that’s about to fall into the dirty hands of Gabriel (Esai Morales). On screen, it’s Tom Cruise, all by himself, who saves director Christopher McQuarrie’s story-less adventure from nosediving like his planes do in an action sequence. Cruise is still watchable at 60+ especially since performing his own stunts continues to be one of the main attractions of the franchise. Mid-air heroics as Ethan grasps to hold on to a plane or two and aqua thrills as he gasps for breath underwater, are the two adrenaline pumpers of writers Bruce Geller, Erik Jendresen and McQuarrie’s rudderless tale. An acceptable add-on is a finale that runs on four high-drama parallel tracks. Hunt chasing planes and Gabriel is intercut with a seriously wounded Simon (Benji Dunn) as he instructs Grace (Hayley Atwell) and team to simultaneously patch him up and detonate a bomb. On the third line is another team taking care of another blast-ready part of The Entity and the fourth is at the White House where Madam President (Angela Bassett) plays the great American fantasy of a woman, that too black, showing who’s the boss taking the right decisions in the nick of time. To save humanity, of course.

It’s laughable at first, like the main actors are caricatures. Curiously named Sophia Kanmani Shekhar (Bhumi Pednekar), the award-winning entrepreneur shows the middle finger to VIPs. Especially those that come riding a horse shirtless on a Sri Lankan beach. The Shirtless Sultan as Aviraaj (Ishaan Khatter) is later crowned, show creator Neha Sharma and directors Priyanka Ghose and Nupur Asthana labour at taking his shirt off to show a royal six-pack in swimming pools, during photo shoots and atop a horse. There’s equal effort put in to have Sophia-Aviraaj grab each other, smooch, grope, grow apart, a dozen times. VIP-hating Sophia, as confused as her name, has conceived Royal B & B, her own genius business model to have blue blood mingle with hoi polloi. An early taste of she-doesn’t-know-where-she’s-at: an encounter with same middle finger VIP at a bar. The next moment, they’re smooching in a room, ready for action. Only to end up calling each other names and to pull out saying, it was a mistake.