Bharathi Pradhan

Underworld dons have weepy back stories of injustice that turned them into gangster-killers. Political patronage (Saurav Shukla as big daddy Santosh Singh) must figure in the making of a ruthless new Maalik (Rajkummar Rao). The heartlessness has to show up in a couple of scenes like humiliating a cop by making him lick his own spit on the ground before he’s shot dead. Or gunning down a rival gangster before his young son. Maalik will even swagger and confront boastful, offensive encounter specialist SP Prabhu Das (Prosenjit) to warn him to never step into his house again and threaten his parents. Gangster heroes are also family men, don’t mess with their parents or talk to a wife they adore. Recall gangster Vinod Khanna as the soft-as-pulp husband in Haath Ki Safaai (1974).

“When was the last time we had a drink together?” asks an SIT officer. “When was the last time we slept?” shoots back his colleague. It sums up the captivating 90-day hunt that writer-director Nagesh Kukunoor turns into a 7-part show, making the viewer walk in step with the untiring SIT that’s set up to find Rajiv Gandhi’s killers. We know the LTTE did it. We know why they did it. We know the deep hatred the LTTE had for the leader who sent the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) to quell the militant movement in Sri Lanka. We know they wanted him dead before he became the PM again. We know the LTTE, led by Prabhakaran, bombed, killed, tortured people in their fight for a separate Tamil state of Eelam in Sri Lanka. But there’s more.

Agent Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) does it first. “We’ll ketchup with you…” British Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba) later ketchups up with her. “Everything harpoons for a reason,” he says self-consciously after they’ve emerged from a series of set action pieces with multiple weapons. But it’s weapons’ lord Viktor Gradov (Paddy Considine), a Russian arms dealer with more money to burn than the security budgets of the US and UK put together, topped with a personal revenge agenda, who’s set off the action all over. Especially targeting the President of the United States of America Will Derringer (John Cena), a Reagan type actor-turned-politician, and PM Clarke. Director Ilya Naishuller (Russian filmmaker) with writers Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Harrison Query, make a punny, funny, action film where the end’s obvious but the ride is lighthearted.

A shawl. A beard. And traffic-stopping dementia. Perhaps the onset of early dementia. Whatever it is, Kaalidhar (Abhishek Bachchan) is less verbose and a lot more endearing than Nana Patekar was as Deepak Tyagi in Vanvaas last year. The comparison is kosher because the premise is similar. Greedy family members yearning to get their hands on the elderly patient’s property; deserting him in a far-off crowded place where he will neither be recognised nor know how to head home. Tyagi’s children took him to Banaras where an orphan turned conman lavished more care on him than his own family. Traffic-stopping Kaalidhar’s brothers, along with a nasty, foul-mouthed sister-in-law, leave him penniless at the Kumbh Mela. There’s a scene where the sis-in-law even argues that ‘Bhaiya’ has brought home the disease of the rich, “amiron ki bimari”, which they can ill afford.

Holi pukey, it’s Chumki (Sara Ali Khan) who’s had a bit too much of festival revelry. She’s staggered into somebody else’s apartment and caught its resident Parth (Aditya Roy Kapur) in the shower. Misunderstandings ensue with her boyfriend/fiancé. Director Anurag Basu along with co-writers Samat Chakraborty and Sandeep Shrivastava zooms into the lives of four couples for an update on their status. Chumki’s sister Kajol (Konkona Sen Sharma) has stumbled upon a secret interest that husband Monty (Pankaj Tripathi) indulges in – cosy chats with other women. Not quite leading up to a full-bodied extra-marital affair, Monty’s forbidden forays are most amusing. Chunki and Kajol’s parents, Shivani (Neena Gupta) and Sanjeev (Saswata Chatterjee) have settled down in domestic comfort, the wife clearly under husband’s thumb. A class reunion that she’s been invited to will be her break-free moment especially when she steps into the life of old friend Parimal (Anupam Kher) to help him sort out a rather unusual problem he has with his widowed daughter-in-law.

It takes off with the right atmospherics for horror with masks, frenzied dancing, a sprawling haveli and monstrous trees. Topped with the chilling sacrifice of a newborn female infant. Written by Ajit Jagtap, Aamil Keeyan Khan and Saiwyn Quadras, director Vishal Furia sets the supernatural horror in Chandrapur, a village in Bengal. And packs it with actors who are snug in a Bengali setting. Ambika (Kajol) and Shuvankar (Indraneil Sengupta) have studiously avoided visiting or even mentioning the horrific secrets of his birthplace to 12-year-old daughter Shweta (Kherin Sharma). But when Shuvankar gets a call that his father has passed away, he has to revisit the eerie family home. With it, the horrors are unleashed. Beginning with Shuvankar’s unnatural death. And, a few months later, Ambika and Shweta being forced to drive down to dispose of the property. Trees with faces, trees with octopus-like limbs that reach out, strangle and suspend victims in mid-air.

The tough part about the fourth season of a popular series is the fear of ambience fatigue defeating the charm of what began five years ago. Additionally, it’s election time in Phulera, the village where government official Abhishek Tripathi (Jitendra Kumar) has settled down comfortably as the Sachivji (panchayat secretary). It’s therefore daunting for directors Deepak Kumar Mishra and Akshat Vijaywargiya and writer Chandan Kumar to keep the appeal alive especially when politics at any level is awash with the familiar. Between Pradhanji Brijbhushan Dubey (Raghubir Yadav) alongside wife Manjudevi (Neena Gupta) and the rival camp led by Bhushan (Durgesh Kumar) with his wife Krantidevi (Sunita Rajwar), the campaign gets ugly. One-upmanship over cleaning campaigns, restoring electricity, trading seva-meva charges and ego tiffs over laddoos and kachoris are strewn all over the campaign trail. In the fray are also political godfathers, coteries of loyalists and regime change upsets. Sympathy votes and politicising a son’s death are disturbing realities. “But it’s all a part of politics,” Pradhanji periodically reminds everyone.

Sometimes, what a story says is more important than how flawlessly it is narrated. Director RS Prasanna and writer Divy Nidhi Sharma’s Indianisation of the Spanish film Champions (2007) exemplifies the significance of what a film ultimately delivers. Swag and insolence combine to have assistant basketball coach Gulshan Arora (Aamir Khan) suspended while reckless, drunken driving has him hauled up before a judge. He gets three months of community service as punishment, as basketball coach to a team of intellectually challenged people. “And ready them for a national championship,” adds Kartar Singh (Gurpal Singh), the man in charge of the association where Gulshan has to report as coach. His initial dismissal of the special people as ‘pagal’ which has the judge raising his fine every time he utters the word, sets the tone for comedy that tickles the funny bone and unmissable messages that reach the heart.