Nonika Singh

What can be more exciting than the world of espionage, especially when the lead character is somewhat fashioned after our current National Security Adviser! We won’t name him since ‘Khuda Hafiz’ fame director Faruk Kabir’s ‘Salakaar’ doesn’t. The similarities, however, are uncanny. Of course, like all celluloid fiction, the series, too, takes cover under a long disclaimer and the ultimate caveat: inspired by true events. As is with all marriages of fact and fiction, as viewers, you are clueless about which part of the film is true and which isn’t. Pakistan, we all know, is a bona fide nuclear nation with a substantial nuclear arsenal. So, why should a web series revisit the days when it was trying to make a nuclear bomb? The period of attention here is 1978 and the focus is on the Kahuta nuclear plant. The man in charge of Pakistan is General Zia-ul-Haq, portrayed by Mukesh Rishi with demonic inflections of a demagogue, which is what perhaps Zia was.

Not all love stories are about roses and wine, even when these come from the house of gossamer romance, Dharma Productions. Many love tales come laden with thorns, especially when the lovers try to cross the class divide — even more pressingly, the caste divide. Thomas Jefferson’s famous words, “when law becomes injustice, resistance becomes your duty”, set the tone of the film. The very first scene establishes that despite two exceptionally good-looking actors, Triptii Dimri and Siddhant Chaturvedi, helming the film, standard notions of romance will take a backseat. ‘Dhadak 2’, the spiritual sequel to ‘Dhadak’, walks the same line of deeply-entrenched caste prejudices and is once again a remake, this time of Mari Selvaraj’s Tamil film. Since one consciously chose not to watch the 2018 ‘Pariyerum Perumal’, comparisons are out of bounds. So, while we can’t say this Shazia Iqbal directorial is as searing, it does cut you through and quick.

The series opens in 1952. Villagers are set to burn what they are led to believe is an abode of witches. What these women, led by the feisty Shriya Pilgaonkar (in a cameo), are doing is another point of interest. Undeniably, the very premise is intriguing, suspenseful and supernatural. Cut to the present day. Rhea Thomas (Vaani Kapoor) is a CIB (yes, the CBI derivative) detective assigned to crack the case and sent to Charandaspur, the epicentre of mystery and murder. ‘Gullak’ fame Vaibhav Raj Gupta as Vikram Singh is a cop suspended from duty. He is back in this quaint place, which happens to be his hometown and where his mother went missing decades ago. Both find themselves in the midst of a series of bizarre murders and get together to unravel the truth behind the shocking deaths. In the latest Netflix series ‘Mandala Murders’, superstition, magic, miracle and horror (science too) collide. The very first body, of a photographer uncovering a political scam, is discovered with the torso missing. Two more have their arms undone. At one level, the series unfolds like a police procedural, at another it’s political intrigue at its vilest best. But since at the heart of the series is some unnatural phenomenon, the mystery will not be easy to unfold, and conventional answers won’t apply. Who is killing and why, the mystery deepens.

Cyber warfare is the new geopolitical reality and thus an essential exploration area for the celluloid world. Creator-writer-director Neeraj Pandey recreates the world of AI-driven digital espionage. As the master storyteller and his lead protagonist, Himmat Singh (Kay Kay Menon), are back, compelling storytelling is in the offing once again. This time, Himmat, the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) officer, is entrusted with the responsibility of averting an imminent digital attack. Day in and out, we get to read news of digital scams. Imagine if it gets amplified at the national level, leaving not just individuals but the entire nation’s economy crippled. Chilling… but the way Pandey and his co-writers Benazir Ali Fida and Deepak Kingrani build the espionage game, it is more entertaining and engaging than alarming.

The year is 1990, the place is Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, and violence is the running theme of ‘Maalik’. Though Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee’s swag as a police officer is on ample display, the film belongs to Rajkummar Rao. As and in ‘Maalik’, he is menace personified, a gangster who kills without flinching, who rules through dread and fear. Rajkummar has donned a new avatar, far removed from his usual romcom films. The incredible actor that he is, he lives the character, channels the anger within, seethes, fumes and kills like never before. But when the hero is also the anti-hero, the makers could not resist the temptation to give him a romantic backstory, in this case his wife Shalini (Manushi Chillar).

Cute girl, nerdy boy — could be a romcom. A Sanskrit teacher meets one who teaches French. He is a virgin at 42, she is 32 and not squeamish about her sex life. Certainly not a cute meet, but unusual enough to pique our interest. On paper, the plot makes for some fireworks. After all, what can be more fascinating than Jean-Paul Sartre and Kalidas coming together! As the love story of Shrirenu Tripathi (R Madhavan) and Madhu Bose (Fatima Sana Sheikh) unfolds, the uncommon premise holds out, but not with magic in entirety. The heart of the film is in the right place. It opens with a tribute to KJo’s iconic ‘dosti pyaar hai’, a nudge to the fact that the film is produced by Dharma Productions’ digital arm Dharmatics Entertainment. Like many of its films in the recent past, it wears its progressive values on its sleeve. Patriarchy is on play in the Tripathi household where elder brother Bhanu (Manish Chaudhary) is every inch a male chauvinist, demanding complete subservience from his culinary-adept wife Kusum (Ayesha Raza) and daughter, whom he constantly beseeches to learn household chores. One scene with reference to ‘silbatte wali chatni’ is a direct nod to the much-acclaimed ‘Mrs’.

When the opening song itself gives you sharp snapshots of its lead characters, a whole battery of them, you wonder where the story can go from there. More importantly, as ‘Metro… in Dino’, a sequel of ‘Life in a Metro’, marks its date with the silver screen nearly 18 years after the beautiful prequel won our hearts, you also marvel at what more can the writer-director Anurag Basu offer. Though the film’s title literally means “metro these days”, have love and relationships really transformed in these two decades that we deserve yet another dose of it? Yes, we are made to believe, when we meet Sara Ali Khan’s Chumki, who sings “meri dasha hai confusion”. She alone is not emblematic of the new-world values of modern-day romance. Aditya Roy Kapur’s commitment-phobic Parth hops from one relationship to another.

When ‘Panchayat’ first dropped on Prime Video in 2020, it marked a refreshing departure from the crime-based dramas, triggering a new trend, and has since spawned a few clones too. Unlike violence and gaali-infested web shows which rule the OTT space, the offering from TVF (The Viral Fever), the original web content creator of shows like ‘Permanent Roommates’, won hearts and appreciation. With its perfect rural setting, an unusual premise and stellar performances, it figured high on the critics’ meter. Five years later and into its fourth season, it retains the series’ major strengths. Ever since Abhishek Tripathi (Jitendra Kumar), an engineering graduate, landed in the fictional village of Phulera in Uttar Pradesh as Sachivji (the panchayat secretary), all eyes have been on this roller-coaster ride of emotions, drama and laughter. An authentic slice of hinterland, it has brought forth the joys of simple things and the beauty of rural life, laced with subtle political commentary.