Ishita Sengupta

Jewel Thief has an Abbas–Mustan–shaped hole in it. The specifics are difficult to convey, but the outcome is easy to see. Here are some pointers: there is no plot, only plot twists. Plot twists have twists, and the twists are twisted for more twists. All characters are uniformly smug, and each is afforded a minimum of five backstories. Everyone is outwitting everyone else, and by the time the second round of outwitting begins, logic takes a backseat and having pulpy fun is the goal.

The only shortcoming about great lives is that stories about them can be told only once. It is not so much the arc being familiar as it is the effect getting diffused. It is not so much the details being reiterated as the ingenuity of the biopic getting lost. This is a standing problem with Ananth Mahadevan’s Phule, a rare Hindi film about Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule. It had one chance to convey the incredible journey of the social reformists, and it squanders it. On paper, it is an almost impossible task. Even a cursory research about both their lives will outline a scalding revolution that most Hindi films lately work overtime to generate from uninspiring stories. The heroism is so in-built in the narrative that it seeps even without a rousing background score and sweeping monologues. The commentary is so entrenched in the way they conducted themselves that it requires none of the crutches of embellishment that most biopics are prone to lean on.

Karan Singh Yyagi’s Kesari Chapter 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh is based on a book that is based on a 1924 defamation case filed by a former British Lieutenant Governor of Punjab against an Indian lawyer. The film, however, unfolds as a series of court proceedings that purports that the Indian lawyer had sued the Crown. This flip in premise is slight but definite, pointing to Hindi films’ increasing tendency of revisiting the past only to champion a hero, even at the cost of altering it. Kesari Chapter 2, the spiritual sequel to Anurag Singh’s Kesari (2019), deals with the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre where over 1000 people were shot dead at a peaceful gathering in Amritsar by the British military officer Reginald Dyer. Although this forms the centerpiece, the film concerns itself with the premeditated way the British assembled the crowd on April 13, and conveys it through speculative rendering of a court case.

Babil Khan is notorious for being nice. Social media is filled with videos of the actor profusely apologising for doing something as slight as stepping in front of someone, or striking up heartfelt conversations with paparazzi about his mother. The earnestness is palpable and can be — and is often — adjudged to be people-pleasing, as if his life depends on being liked. In Amit Golani’s Logout, Khan plays Pratyush Dua, a young man desperate to be liked. In other words, he is an influencer. The self-reflexivity of the casting does wonders. Khan is tremendously effective as Pratyush, who spends hours holding his phone to keep a tab on his followers. It is not exactly a physical role, but the actor, with the camera tightly framing his face, remains attuned to the tiniest of gestures. A faint smile hovers over his lips when his following surges, a hint of panic when a rival influencer seems primed to hit 10 million followers before him.

If there is a perfect audience for a horror film, I’d like to believe it is me. This is not false bravado but an honest confession. Bring in someone with green eyes, throw in a jump scare, pull someone from under the bed, and you will see me scream my lungs out. I am always scared and always jumpy. I am the reason that other people, those not scared in the least, are rattled because I make my fear everyone’s business. And yet, Vishal Furia’s Chhorii 2, Vishal Furia’s sequel to his 2021 film, left me disinterested, unscared and, worse, bored. In the last couple of years, there has been a resurgence of the horror genre, except that the effect is softened by comedy. Horror comedy, the consequent hybrid result, has in turn evolved into a commercial goldmine. The context is important because Furia does not give in despite obvious temptations. He remains admirably focused and crafts Chhorii 2 in the same world as Chhorii. Except even the latter, a remake of his 2017 Marathi film Lapachhapi, was not effective to begin with.

When you are a Film Critic, the principal aspect of the job is to show up. It does not matter if one had a fight with their partner the previous night, or that maybe, there are ill parents in the scenario. If a film releases, one turns up. While this urgency is true for most jobs, the difference in this case is the surrender it demands. Unlike being at an office where plugging in headphones is an acceptable sulking option, theaters allow none of the indulgence. One is required to be objective and acknowledge fictional characters with severity as if they were real people. This isn’t a complaint and, truth be told, there are upsides to it. For instance, my parents have been unwell for a while, and between calling them and meeting deadlines, my brow has been perpetually furrowed with concern. I have been thinking about the brutality of time and the many big and little ways in which it affects the people we love. Then I sat for Gopichand Malineni’s Jaat, and my worries were suspended for a while. Time, at least in some cases, appears to stand still.

Watching Zakir Khan do stand-up comedy is to reckon with the limitations of the art form and the possibilities of it. It is to witness regular observations carry the weight of a punchline and existential thoughts take flight with the lightness of humour. It is to see a man holding the audience in thrall even with his silence. Tathastu in 2022 was a genre-defying set that wrapped thoughts about his parents, concerns about mortality, and filial resentment in humour without punctuating them with gags. His latest Delulu Express does something similar without reiterating the format or style. It is a lighter arrangement imbued with excessive style and multiple characters. On paper it is more chaotic but beats with the same narrative heart that Khan has been honing since Tathastu.

A SALMAN KHAN FILM has come to mean certain things: it arrives on Eid, it abstains from intimacy, it extends the actor’s legacy of goodwill, it insists on pairing him opposite someone at least two decades younger, and resists making any demands of acting from Khan. In the last couple of years, there have been multiple renderings of this formulaic outline (Bodyguard, 2011; Radhe, 2021); a doubling down on this blueprint with Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (2023) whilst also sneaking in another rule: he will not try anymore, pushing the bar to the floor. The upshot of this is that a Salman Khan film can no longer disappoint, it can only impress. The sole way to go is up. As a result, the audience is conditioned to expect nothing and believe everything. Khan wore a jacket mid-air in Kisi Ka Bhai and lip-synced leisurely in Tiger 3 (freely skipping most words). His reluctance to strive is so deep that even an ounce of effort on his part draws cheer. He moves his body and you commend his flexibility. He cries in a scene and you compare him to Robert De Niro. Watching a Salman Khan film today has come to resemble an act of parental bias as if he were an irate child and the rest of us exist to humour him.