Kartik Bhardwaj

There’s nothing better than a film that surprises you. I admit, I did preemptively box Prahaar: The Ujjwal Nikam Story as another propaganda piece– a subtler one if not of the blaring loud type. It wasn’t an unfounded opinion. If you read up about Ujjwal Nikam you will find an impressive CV. Before getting on the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks trial, the Maharashtra-based lawyer had already served as a special prosecutor on high-profile cases like that of the 1993 Bombay bombings and that of T-series head Gulshan Kumar’s murder. If you research a layer deep, you will find that the lawyer was a candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha constituency in the 2024 Maharashtra state assembly elections. A Caravan article details how the BJP played up Nikam’s image as the lawyer who delivered the death penalty to terrorist Ajmal Kasab and reduced the whole campaign to be either for or against terrorism. Nikam lost the election but was given a Rajya Sabha seat by the ruling party in 2025.

At a time when journalism is reduced to either fact-checking or absolute sycophancy hadn’t we become pessimistic enough to jettison that starry-eyed reporter who “fought for the truth”? This constant conscience-invoking journalist, who barges into meetings to give it back to his seniors, who calls their colleagues “cowards” for not chasing a story, who doesn’t flinch even when he is fired, is a unicorn who exists only in the movies. But here me out, I am not saying there are no truth-seeking journalists, there are, but things are not as simplistic as it is shown in Reporting Live. I had to do a massive suspension of reality when I saw a character filing an RTI application in one scene, and getting the answers in the next one.

“Are you watching closely?” Christian Bale asks in The Prestige (2006). Across three films, the Drishyam franchise has taught the audiences how to consume it. You lean forward, sit on the edge of the seat and take in all the strokes of the picture. Remember this throwaway dialogue, this glance, this dangling plot point. It is a contest between you and the film. But will you really enjoy it if you win? Six months after the events of the second film, it seems that the Deshmukhs have finally moved on from the murder of their son, Sam. But soon Meera (Tabu) has the muzzle of a gun up her neck. Troubled by his wife’s dwindling mental health, Mahesh (Rajat Kapoor) seeks to reopen the case against the Salgaonkars. Enter the pensively-smoking Rajveer Singh Tomar (Jaideep Ahlawat), a crime branch officer who prides himself as the shani. He moves fast and concludes that if they can’t prove a murder has been done, they can at least prove that evidence has been hidden.

Mrunal Thakur and Huma Qureshi starrer legal-drama Pooja Meri Jaan–centered around a girl who gets entangled in an abetment case after her jilted lover commits suicide—drops amid powerful context. In the aftermath of the gangrape of a minor girl in a park in Delhi, central universities are erupting in protests. Women are out with placards, bearing catchy, diss couplets. How to really trust men when your feed is filled with videos of one of them forcefully picking a girl up with his hand between her thighs. The movie also comes post the Atul Subhash suicide case—about a techie who killed himself over allegations of mental harassment by his estranged wife and in-laws—and multiple incidents of women murdering their husbands and going-to-be husbands.

A public toilet becomes the contained outlet for the public’s rage in Bhed Bakri Bhoot, a 30-minute short helmed by Shivam Shankar. It all starts with a heartbreak. A jilted lover, a marriage-band player of everyone, scratches “Shalu I hate you” on the yellowing wall, as the trumpets of his paramour’s wedding procession blare the tale of his pain in the background. This wall becomes the writing slate of disses and desires. Everybody from a runaway bride stood up by her lover to a journalist quitting his job to an escaped convict, pens their opinion on the wall, venting out their frustrations.

Villainous godmen are becoming an OTT staple. The acclaim of Aashram (2020), which catapulted Bobby Deol’s dangling career, was followed by the rockstar act of Manoj Bajpayee in Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai (2023) where he played a lawyer, going against a godman to ensure justice to a rape victim. There was also Netflix’s Maharaj (2024), which again revolved around a baba brainwashing and sexually assaulting his female disciples. Godmen make for great antagonists as they provide filmmakers with a controversy-free proxy to comment on the banes of blind-faith, callousness of power systems and the perils of patriarchal societies, while also championing the need for female liberty and free thinking.

Child might be the father of man but the Indian father is often a manchild. Raised under the patriarchal system which limits men to their hunter-gatherer history, the Indian dad provides for his family more out of a sense of duty than love. This man, whose idea of strength is curbing emotional release, lives his middle-age as a disciplinarian, commanding his family, his tribe, with an iron hand. But when the kids grow up and the wife discovers her calling, the dad, now retired, witnesses his grip loosening over the family. Then comes the annoyance, the mean comments, the thumping around the house like a wrecking ball.

“You can’t handle the truth!” screams Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessep when pushed too far by Tom Cruise’s Lieutenant Kaffee in A Few Good Men (1992). He is right, in a way. You deeply read about any conflict in the world in a bid to find a conclusive answer but what you really get is a truth that unsettles you, maybe questions your notions. Ideologies are ever-changing, so are political opinions and sides. Unlike the movies, life has no clear heroes and villains. There is no black or white. Before the release of Daayra, Meghna Gulzar’s new film starring Kareena Kapoor Khan and Prithviraj Sukumaran, the director posted a long note on Instagram, describing the film as “not binary” but “dual” and also “grey.” That the film is, in its truest sense. It doesn’t satisfy you with answers but presents you with two truths under two contexts, which you can choose from as per your ideology. The irony is that this is the film’s biggest strength and also its weakness.