Bharathi Pradhan

What are the items you would look for in a new Shashank Khaitan film? Let’s tick them off.

A story like a ray of sunshine: X

If only Khaitan and company had a plot as long as their title, there might’ve been a smidgeon of a story out there. But Sunny Sanskari (Varun Dhawan) and Tulsi Kumari (Janhvi Kapoor) teaming up and self-inviting themselves to the wedding of their respective former lovers is about as garden fresh as a joint family in a Barjatya movie.

When spanking new director Aryan Khan ends the first episode with an enforced raid sequence that signs off with ‘Say no to drugs’, you groan and wonder if he’s made this a childishly personal show.But as Aasmaan Singh (Lakshya), the boy from Delhi, rises, stumbles and bumbles around Mumbai – like desperately signing a 3-film contract with pompous producer Freddy Sodawallah (Manish Chaudhari) that soon has his career in knots – Aryan hooks you until he delivers a knockout punch at the end. It goes far beyond a glamorous parade of stars who keep popping up, a Ranbir Kapoor appearance most unexpected, Salman Khan turning up at a birthday party and Aamir-SS Rajamouli in a ‘serious debate’. Shah Rukh Khan is served as the cherry on top.

A dozen years after Gangs of Wasseypur, Anurag Kashyap springs a surprise. A gangster film so engaging that despite juggling with different time zones requiring different looks and general chaos with daddies getting killed, there’s clarity in the characters, situations and stories. Along with co-writers Ranjan Chandel and Prasoon Mishra, Anurag threads them with professional efficiency into a neat narrative. Aided with some of the wackiest numbers and freshest, peppiest background scores heard in a long time. Musicians Manan Bhardwaj, Dhruv Ghanekar, Anurag Saikia, Aaishvary Thackeray, Nishikar Chhibber and Piyush Mishra may take a bow. Early morning Kanpur in 2006. A punctual “manager babu” buys his customary channa-poori at 7.30am. A guard outside a bank gets chatty with a customer who’s come in before opening hours. Soon, a botched-up bank robbery.

The weak-spined rivalry between Jagdish Tyagi (Arshad Warsi) and “client-chor” Jagdishwar Mishra (Akshay Kumar) evokes barely a smile. The ‘you-take-her’ volleying between them when a penniless Janki Amma (Seema Biswas) comes to them to file a petition against land-grabbing industrialist Haribhai Khaitan (Gajraj Rao) has no humour. Mishra’s banter with wife Pushpa (Huma Qureshi) which had such a spark in 2017 has fizzled out in the intervening years. The gymming, the dating app antics and tearing his hair in the courtroom don’t make Judge Sunder Lal Tripathi (Saurav Shukla) endearing at any point. A Valentine’s Day outing with lady cop Chanchal Chautala (Shilpa Shukla) might’ve been funny if it had ended with Judge Tripathi getting a long bill. But writer-director Subhash Kapoor must stretch it and explain that the Jollys had ‘topi pehnaoed’ him.

This time around, there’s no sex scandal rocking the Senguptas who’ve settled down in Mumbai. In fact, there is only the past that keeps popping up like a bad penny. But there is the addition of Narayani (Sonali Kulkarni), a true-blue Maharashtrian lady politician. Throwing the outsider card at opponent Rajiv Sengupta (Jisshu Sengupta), shaming him for his gay brother-in-law’s part at a Gay Pride gathering and enjoying a concert while her raid squads create a half-hearted upheaval at the Sengupta residence, Narayani is the clear vamp of electoral rivalry. It’s good old dirty politics (nothing new out there) that overtakes shame and scandal in the family.

There is a lot going for writer-director Umesh Shukla’s new film that strikes a quirky equation between Mamta Mishra (Divya Khossla Kumar) from the slums and suited-booted Abhishek Verma (Neil Nitin Mukesh). And take it from us, there’s nothing romantic going on between them. But what Mamta is all about doesn’t add up. She’s got a kid and a mother-in-law (Chhaya Kadam) who hits the bottle all the time. She’s got a job at the railways and moonlights as a waiter. And the three stay in a locked up little flat, leading the landlord on a merry chase. Along with writers Siddharth Goel, Jay Master, Deepak Nirman and Himanshu Tripathi, Umesh Shukla’s feel for comedy strikes from the first note. But the story really gets going when suave but sleazy Abhishek Verma who’s late for a meeting with a politician (Zakir Hussain), dumps his car that’s stuck in a traffic snarl, jumps into the metro and loses his mobile phone.

Mirai is no ordinary stick. It’s a divine staff, the use of which baffles rudderless young Super Yodha (Teja Sajja) who must dedicate his life to a mission where the Mirai will work its miracles and help him succeed. Writer-director-cinematographer Karthik Gattamneni goes time-trotting and globe-trotting. Hark back to the times of Emperor Ashoka, glimpse at Lord Rama and Hanuman. Also go futuristic with set action pieces overloaded with VFX. Move from the Himalayas, Varanasi, Morocco, Hyderabad and Japan to hidden temples, the Kumb Mela and faraway islands. The target is simple: Super Yodha must save the nine granths or scriptures from falling into the hands of Mahabir, a dark force (Manchu Manoj who must wear black). He has already misused his tantrik powers and gained even more strength from eight granths. Super Yodha must save the ninth.

Sequences that stun and performances that force a watch: The humiliation of CBI officer Shiva Pandit (Darshan Kumar) in Husseini House, on the orders of a weak-kneed senior (Puneet Issar). Contrast it with an earlier Zanjeer moment when Shiva crisply tells off Husseini’s goon that he hasn’t been given permission to sit. The dining table cool of criminal Sardar Husseini (Saswata Chatterjee) with elegant wife (Madalsa Sharma) playing gracious hostess, the underlying menace palpable. The goonga pagal (Mithun Chakraborty) as his story seeps out, a piercing moment when he helplessly tells Shiva that he can’t talk. Tongue cut off, castrated, yet the fire burns The public lynching of Gandhian Judge Banerjee (Priyanshu Chatterjee) even as he defines equality and justice while Ghulam (Namashi Chakraborty) kicks on mercilessly. The undying spirit of Chaudhry Kaku (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) in his guillotine moment at Noakhali when Ghulam demands, “Bol, Pakistan zindabad”.