Keyur Seta

It is not often that you see the notion of caste and its atrocities being explored in mainstream Hindi cinema. The one name that comes to our mind is filmmaker Anubhav Sinha’s Ayushmann Khurrana starrer Article 15 (2019). Now, director Shazia Iqbal’s Dhadak 2 enters the rare list. It is hugely different from the Khurrana starrer despite addressing the same subject. Dhadak 2 is the official Hindi remake of the 2018 Tamil hit Pariyerum Perumal. It takes place in a semi-urban city in India. The story revolves around Neelesh Ahirwar (Siddhant Chaturvedi). He hails from the lower caste and lives under challenging economic conditions with his parents. He is eager to rise above poverty by becoming a lawyer. He gets admission in a reputed law college in the city under reservation.

Over the last several years, mainstream Hindi cinema has been guilty of showing more than half or at least half of the film in the trailer itself. When the promo of Mohit Suri’s Saiyaara and the video of its title song came out, it gave a feeling about the film being in the Kabir Singh zone about a frustrated lover living a toxic life. However, as it turns out, the film is nothing like that. It’s hugely different from its trailer. In fact, it’s one of the rare mainstream Hindi film to completely hide its main plot. Saiyaara is based in today’s era in Mumbai. It revolves around a hot-headed and arrogant struggling singer and musician Krish Kapoor (Ahaan Panday), who is a part of a music group. He once roughs up the editor of a digital publication for mentioning only one person’s name from their band in their review of their album despite he being the lead singer. During this time, he comes across Vaani Batra (Aneet Padda), as aspiring journalist who was there for a job interview.

Since more than a decade, one has seen a large number of sports movies being made in mainstream Hindi cinema. So much so that it has now become exhausting. Filmmaker RS Prasanna and Aamir Khan’s Sitaare Zameen Par, thankfully, doesn’t appear as just another sports film from the industry. Sitaare Zameen Par is the official Hindi remake of the Spanish film Campeones (English title: Champions). The story is based in Delhi and it revolves around the assistant coach of Delhi’s basketball team, Gulshan Arora (Aamir Khan). He is an arrogant, brash and a hot-headed guy. His nature once gets him into trouble when he hits his senior coach Paswan (Deepraj Rana) in a fit of rage. Hence, he gets suspended from his job.

Writer and director Rushikesh Gupte made his feature film debut with the Marathi film Dil Dimaag Aur Batti, which was a spoof of the formulaic commercial Hindi films of the yesteryears. But his next release titled Jarann (his second movie Hazaar Vela Sholay Pahilela Manus hasn’t released yet) falls in the diametrically opposite genre of a psychological cum supernatural thriller. Jarann revolves around Radha (Amruta Subhash), who stays with her daughter Saie (Avanee Joshi) in a bungalow in a city in Maharashtra. Her husband Shekhar (Vikram Gaikwad) is abroad for work since a year. Radha and Saie once visit the former’s family’s wada (ancestral house) in a village in the state. The house is about to be sold, so this is Radha’s last chance to visit it and enjoy a get together with her parents and relatives.

Producer Sajid Nadiadwala’s Housefull series is going a step lower with each film. The first two films were quite good. The third one was average but watchable while the fourth one turned out to be bad and offensive. However, if you felt the franchise couldn’t stoop any lower, the makers throw in a rude surprise in the form of Housefull 5. This one is not just the worst film of the franchise but also one of the most ridiculous films of the decade. So much so that it falls into the same league as the producer’s last film Sikandar.

JioHotstar’s Criminal Justice series, which is adapted from BBC Studio’s British series of the same name, revolves around lawyer Madhav Mishra (Pankaj Tripathi) and the cases he takes upon, which are considered impossible to crack. Criminal Justice: A Family Matter, the fourth season in the series, revolves around another case taken by him. But by now, Madhav has established himself as a force to reckon with. The law circles are now pretty much taking him seriously. He is joined by his brother-in-law Deep (Aatm Prakash Mishra), Shivani Mathur (Barkha Singh) and his wife Ratna (Khushboo Atre). This time, it’s the story of well-known surgeon Dr Raj Nagpal (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), who has separated from his wife and lawyer Anju (Surveen Chawla) but they haven’t divorced. She lives just next door because she wants to be there for their daughter Ira (Khushi Bhardwaj), who is suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome. Raj has hired a full time nurse Roshni (Asha Negi) to take special care of Ira. After some time, Raj and Roshni become close and fall in love. Anju is fine with it while Ira considers Roshni as her best friend.

If there was one film that had an enormous amount of pressure to turn out to be impressive it was director Christopher McQuarrie’s Tom Cruise starrer Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning. It’s the last film from the globally admired and successful franchise and hence, fans from all across the world were counting on it to be good. The film is the continuation of the previous one from the series Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning. At the end of it, secret agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) gets hold of the special key from Gabriel (Esai Morales) from the Orient Express. The key holds the key (pun intended) to control the Entity, which has started negatively affecting the world. Meanwhile, the US President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) asks Ethan to help the government in controlling the Entity. She doesn’t want him to destroy the Entity as she believes it can destroy cyberspace.

Mumbaikars are often seen complaining about the BMC (Brihanmumbai Mahanagar Corporation) when it comes to running the city. While these criticisms might be valid, it is their poor workers who are always at the receiving end since they become the face of BMC at ground level. Debutant filmmaker Shivraj Waichal’s Ata Thambaycha Naay! is a much deserved tribute to them and their painstaking efforts to keep the city functioning. But the movie goes much beyond displaying their difficult lives. It is based on a true and heartwarming incident in the lives of a few BMC workers in 2016, although the film features fictitious characters and their sub-stories. The Assistant Municipal Commissioner Uday Shirurkar (Ashutosh Gowariker) of BMC decides to get a group of its Class IV workers complete their 10th standard. They had to drop out of school due to some reason of the other. Shirurkar not only decides to provide them education free of cost at a night school but, on top of that, promises to pay them a remuneration for the same along with a chance of salary hike.