Bharathi Pradhan

Director Vibhu Puri with co-writer Prasshant Jha deftly creates the charm of an old world where men and women battle not with swords but with words, some of it poetic. It is delightful most of the way as Nawabuddin Saifuddin Rehman alias Babban (Vijay Varma) goes out of Old Delhi in search of poet Aziz (Naseeruddin Shah), retired and keen on keeping his passion private. Publishing Aziz will perhaps revive Rehman’s father’s dying printing press, the son on a mission to get that rare writing and turn it into a book.

It’s heart piercing when sole survivor Sepoy Ramlal Yadav (Ankit Siwach) makes it back to camp. But debriefing will be made credible only when the weather clears for facts to be verified. There are certain stories of valour that must be documented and the martyrdom of Major Shaitan Singh (Farhan Akhtar) who defended and saved India’s Chushul airfield from the Chinese, falls into this category. A cinematically unchronicled victory on the 1962 war with China, 120 soldiers put their lives on the line against a 3,000 strong enemy bent upon dining at Chushul the next evening.

Some cases are timeless. The Supreme Court ruling that favoured maintenance for Shah Banoo, a Muslim wife and her kids in 1985, resonates even today, nothing outdated about it. In fact, give it to director Suparn Varma and his writer Reshu Nath for making Shazia Banoo (Yami Gautam Dhar) so relevant that her fight for justice transcends religious boundaries.

With director Aditya Sarpotdar (of Munjya fame) at the helm and proven names Dinesh Vijan and Amar Kaushik in the credits as producers, a rib-tickling horror thriller is the big expectation. This time, they also mix in romance and smooches. Between Taadka (Rashmika Mandanna), a fang-bearing betaal (vampire) who rescues smooth-talking, adventure-seeking, reel-making journo Alok Goyal (Ayushmann Khurrana) from a bear in the jungle. Dil ki dhadkan as a synonym for love is tossed out as pyaar conquers all even when the heart has stopped ticking.

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.