Bharathi Pradhan

Cough, cough. Saba Shergill (Shanaya Kapoor) has blindfolded herself on the train to Mussoorie to prep for an audition to play a visually challenged girl. For no apparent reason, Jahan (Vikrant Massey) gets a slap from her as an introduction. But, cough, cough, he’s a musician, he should understand another artiste. The cough disappears, inexplicably. She’s stranded in Mussoorie, inexplicably. She clings to the stranger on the train, inexplicably. Even moves into his hotel room. “Come, I’ll show you around my house,” he says, inexplicably. When did a hotel room turn into a house? Jahan has an assistant-cum-driver, a general factotum. Who talks of a chidiya (sparrow) that talks (everybody laugh, Saba and Jahan do) and tells them a ghost story (everybody shiver, Saba and Jahan do, she even moves into his bed).

He is 42. Single. Still a virgin. He is Shrirenu Tripathi (R Madhavan), he teaches Sanskrit in Jamshedpur. Even his students tease him about virginal bachelorhood. She is Madhu Bose (Fatima Sana Shaikh), she teaches French in Kolkata. She’s dumped Namit (Karan Wahi), her ex, after he checked out if she’s a virgin. Shrirenu chats on Aap Jaisa Koi, an app for cosy, sexual conversations between strangers. The voice on the other end of the app tells him he’s a cross between Gulzar and George Clooney. He goes all moony-eyed. With a forgettable song in the background. Until Srirenu meets Madhu. The sparks are perfect. They like the same sort of tea with milk and elaichi. She even preferred Ashok Kumar to Kishore Kumar. Oldies are just fine for her. He is old-fashioned, still believes in flowers pressed into books. And he talks to a mouse in a trap.

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.