Keyur Seta

Sunny Deol made a phenomenal comeback with Anil Sharma’s Gadar 2 in 2023. The film’s acceptance and box office run was such that nobody expected. Naturally, following this, there was a keen anticipation for his next. The wait has long as his next actioner Jaat with Gopichand Malineni has taken almost two years. But the wait has been worth. Jaat starts off in 2009 when Ranatunga (Randeep Hooda), his brother Somulu (Viineet Kumar Siingh) and others are working as labourers in Sri Lanka for the Sri Lankan army. Once while digging, Ranatunga comes across hidden bars of gold. He decides that they should steal the gold and flee from the place. They succeed in doing so by killing a number of Sri Lankan army personnel.

Over the last few years, we have been dished out quite a few films (except Tiger 3) that are made just to showcase Salman Khan’s herogiri through fight scenes, dialogue baazi, songs and dances and, above all, his noble on screen nature. This has now become a new genre of filmmaking called ‘Bhai films’. Filmmaker AR Murugadoss’ Sikandar is yet another film in this genre. The story starts off in Rajkot where Sanjay Rajkot (Salman) enjoys the life of an unofficial king of the city. He lives in a palatial bungalow. We don’t know whether he inherited it from his ancestors or earned money himself to build his empire. He has a wife Saisri (Rashmika Mandanna), who is much younger to him. She is married to him since quite a few years but is still unaware how he has so many nicknames. And it is after quite a few years of their marriage that she says she prefers to address him as only ‘Sanjay’. During a flight, Sanjay beats up Arjun (Prateik Smita Patil) who was trying to forcefully get physical with a woman on flight after blackmailing her just before take-off despite the presence of her little son. Arjun turns out to be the son of a powerful minister (Sathyaraj) from Maharashtra. The senior politician and his son, obviously, are seething with anger and eager to take revenge from Sanjay.

What makes Follower more interesting and intriguing is that it organically weaves a story of close friendship between three friends and perfectly joins the same with the political conflict. It also makes fine use of flashback. The story could have been narrated in a linear form and it still would have been likeable. But the back and forth narrative converts the film also into a mystery drama. The events that lead Raghu into becoming a staunch supporter of the star political leader is the biggest triumph of the film. The production value makes the film look more like a telefilm. The lack of proper resources is clearly visible. This, however, doesn’t turn out to be a major issue because of the strong content at hand. The film is also shot in a creative manner by cinematographer Saket Gyani. It is laced with a number of impressive long one-take shots. The one that takes the cake is between Raghu and Parveen when both are riding their respective two-wheelers while conversing. The background score is minimally used, which goes with the nature of the film.

Filmmaker Shivam Nair’s The Diplomat tells the real story of an Indian lady Uzma Ahmed (Sadia Khateeb), a single mother. She falls in love with a Pakistani national Tahir (Jagjeet Sandhu) while working in Malaysia in 2017. He promises to marry her and help treat her daughter, who suffers from Thalassemia. However, after she lands in Pakistan, she sees the real face of Tahir. He takes Uzma to the deserted land of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where she realizes that he is already married and also has a few kids. But that’s not all. Tahir repeatedly physically and sexually abuses Uzma before forcing her to marry him. Once by chance, Uzma gets to know that the only way to escape from there is by somehow reaching the Indian embassy in Islamabad and ask for help. She makes Tahir take her to the Indian embassy through some pretext and, when he and his friends are away, barges inside the embassy and begs for help. But JP (John Abraham), the Deputy High Commissioner at the embassy, doubts her intentions.

India is obsessed with marriages. Weddings take place all over the country in different regions and among different communities and they are celebrated like anything. However, even in today’s times in rural India, the idea of a girl’s forced arranged marriage still exists. Filmmaker Jayant Digambar Somalkar’s Sthal (A Match) boldly highlights this social evil. The movie takes place in a village in Maharashtra named Dongargaon and it revolves around Savita Daulatrao Wandhare (Nandini Chikte). She is in her Final year of Bachelor of Arts course and her specialization subject is Sociology. Her father (Taranath Khiratkar) and mother (Sangita Sonekar) wish to get her married off soon but she wants to study further.

Malegaon, a small little town in Maharashtra, has its own little film industry. It all began after the mid-1990s when local artistes over there started making parodies of iconic Hindi films. These films were made in minimal costs and with whatever resources available. Some examples of these include Malegaon Ke Sholay, Malegaon Ki Shaan, etc. Filmmaker Reema Kagti’s Superboys Of Malegaon is a fictionalized tale of Nasir Sheikh and his friends who started the crazy film industry in Malegaon. Starting off in 1997, the film tells the story of Nasir (Adarsh Gourav), who runs a video parlour in Malegaon. He struggles to attract audiences as he screens international films. The parlour opposite to theirs is doing well as it screens mainstream Hindi films. Nasir, one fine day, learns the trick of editing and starts compiling action sequences from different films and releases them as a single film.

Actor Subodh Bhave’s directorial debut Katyar Kaljyat Ghusli (2015) turned out to be a spectacular affair. There were much expectations for his second film as a director Sangeet Manapmaan, not just because he is in the director’s chair. This film is also adapted from an old classic musical play, just like the 2015 movie. But this time, the end result turns out to be just a one-time watch. Sangeet Manapmaan is adapted from Krushnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar’s musical play of the same name, which was first staged way back in 1911. The story takes place in a kingdom in Maharashtra called Sangrampur in an unspecified era. The chief of army Kakasaheb (Shailesh Datar) expresses his wish to the queen of Sangrampur (Nivedita Saraf) to retire from his services because of his advanced age. Although the queen believes he is irreplaceable, she suggests Kakasaheb’s deputy Chandravilas (Sumeet Raghvan) as the next chief. Kakasaheb subtly disagrees with the queen as he believes, despite being a brave warrior, Chandravilas doesn’t possess the exact qualities to be the next chief.

Filmmaker Paresh Mokashi’s Mukkam Post Bombilwadi is based on his own Marathi play of the same name. The story takes place in 1942 when World War II is in full swing. Adolf Hitler (Prashant Damle) is under pressure for not having won the war despite fighting it for years, especially from his wife Eva (Deepti Lele). Winston Churchill (Anand Ingle), the Prime Minister of Great Britain, is making things more difficult for him. Meanwhile, in Bombilwadi village in Maharashtra’s Konkan, Varvante (Vaibhav Mangle) heads a theatre group. He is struggling hard to rehearse for a play with the members of his troupe (Devendra Pem, Geetanjali Kulkarni and Ritika Shrotri). Vaidya Buwa (Sunil Abhyankar) and Bhaskar (Pranav Raorane), who are also a part of the theatre group, have made a bomb to blow up Britishers.