Priyanka Roy

I had never thought that there would come a film — at least in my lifetime — that could challenge the combined vacuous pointlessness of the Student of the Year franchise. That distinction belongs to Nadaaniyan, a film which, even though we are just in March, stands a good chance of being within the Top 5 section of the worst films list of 2025. Nadaaniyan, streaming on Netflix, comes from the same folks who, of course, made the Student of the Year franchise. Dharma Productions may have packaged its ‘younger’ productions as the more sleek-sounding Dharmatic, but Nadaaniyan is clearly not the kind of film that is going to take them far. Nor is it the kind of debut that actors Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh should have approved for their son Ibrahim Ali Khan.

‘Shaukh paal ke kya karega, Malegaon mein tu marega.’ This innocuous line sung rambunctiously by two childhood friends on a bike ride is both about ambition and the realisation of the futility of it, destined as they are to live within the borders of Malegaon, the small town they were born in and will probably die in. And yet, it is these two boys — along with a few pals, all of who share a common love for cinema — that have gone on to put Malegaon on the map. Superboys of Malegaon revolves around this motley crew. A charming, slice-of-life film about ordinary men doing extraordinary things, this Reema Kagti directorial written by Varun Grover is a potent, layered example of storytelling, one which strikes a chord immediately, even if you know very little of the world the film is set in. Malegaon, an unassuming town close to Nashik in Maharashtra, has made it to the news for a variety of reasons. There were the Malegaon blasts close to two decades ago that claimed many lives. Five years ago, Malegaon incubated itself in such a way that very few lives were lost in the Covid-19 pandemic, prompting other administrations to attempt and replicate its model.

An extroverted heroine with an inclination to cuss with abandon and the ability to talk nineteen (hundred) to the dozen. A docile hero, the exact opposite of her. And the pair caught up in chaos during the course of one night. This could well be the first hour of Jab We Met. But the dark and quiet galiyaan of Ratlam have given way to the cacophonic roads of Mumbai. The pair here — unlike Geet and Aditya in Imtiaz Ali’s romantic comedy for the ages — are married. This is Dhoom Dhaam. The title is a smart play on the festivities associated with a wedding. After all, ‘dhoom dhoom se shaadi karenge’ is as old as Bollywood itself. But in Dhoom Dhoom, now playing on Netflix, ‘dhoom dhaam’ alludes to the fireworks that follow. What can be more deadly than marriage? Well, a bride and groom on the run on their wedding night, pursued by a gang of goons who are convinced that the newly-married couple are in possession of a key piece of incriminating evidence. Except that they aren’t.

The law of averages — that a brilliant father rarely gives way to an equally illustrious son — was turned on its head as early as the 17th century when Sambhaji took over the reigns of the Maratha empire from his father, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj’s depiction in history — despite tales of his unwavering valour — are unfortunately sketchy. Even the name by which he was referred to — ‘Chhaava’ aka ’lion’s cub’ — is more of a nod to Shivaji’s larger-than-life courage and persona. To cite an almost as-good-as-it-gets allusion, it refers more to Mufasa than it does to Simba. Hence, the unsung story of Sambhaji, and his relentless fight against the Mughals, led by the tyrannical Aurangzeb, needed to be documented. Chhaava does that, with its source material being the eponymously named historical novel by Shivaji Sawant. Which brings us to the tricky question of how much of Chhaava — the book, and by logical extension, the film — is fact and how much of it is exaggerated fact? We will, perhaps, never know.

For those not in favour of remakes — I am one of them, considering most turn out to be a lazy copy-paste job — the decision to let go of Mrs because the memories of watching The Great Indian Kitchen are too sacrosanct, will not be unfounded. But Mrs is not just any other remake. It is a thriving, breathing, nuanced film in its own right. It is the kind of film that takes the best out of its source material and enhances it, setting itself in a socio-cultural context that is relevant and relatable. Mrs hits hard — just as hard as The Great Indian Kitchen did when it released at the tail-end of the first wave of the pandemic. The Malayalam film with a seemingly simple story of a newly-married woman struggling to fit into a conservative and patriarchal household, ignited conversations around gender roles, casual sexism, toxic relationships, male entitlement and a woman’s role in a world she is constantly stereotyped in. It became a mirror of the suffering that most Indian women, at some time or maybe all of the time, have been subjected to. In that film, what remained subtle and innocuous at first finally boiled over into rage that resulted in a moment of gut-wrenching catharsis. Like the woman at the centre of it, we felt elated, but we also cried.

There are flawed protagonists. And then there are problematic men masquerading as heroes. Dev Ambre aka Deva belongs to the latter category. Deva is a trigger-happy Mumbai cop whose designation is disproportionate to the body count he has notched up. Deva has severe anger issues, conveniently notched down to him being a rebel. He doesn’t think twice before sticking the barrel of a gun into the mouth of a woman who is not a criminal by any measure. Dev is a huge proponent of police brutality, but gets away with it every time. No one can say ’no’ to him. For that would mean that person’s body parts could be in real danger of being distanced from his body. When Dev asks his girlfriend Diya (Pooja Hegde) what she likes about him, she replies with: ‘Besides your arrogance, your grumpy face and your huge anger issues, I like the fact that you have a child in you’.

A year ago, almost to the day, when Fighter released and didn’t exactly set the box office on fire, director Siddharth Anand put forth a bizarre claim. He said that the Hrithik Roshan-Deepika Padukone starrer, described by its makers as “India’s first aerial action film”, had not found much favour with the audience because “90 per cent of Indians haven’t flown in planes”. By that logic, one would have to be an Italian mafioso to appreciate The Godfather. The good thing is that you don’t have to sign up for a fighter pilot licence before you walk in for a show of Sky Force. This bi-annual Akshay Kumar deshbhakti dose — ‘a fictional story inspired by real events’ — has the kind of thrill and drama that every viewer, brought up on a steady diet of Bollywood patriotic films, is familiar with. Which is both a good and a bad thing.

Mother’s Instinct could have been named ‘Mom gone bonkers’. Turning the concept/ idea/ theme of a mother’s selfless love for her child on its head, this 2024 thriller, now streaming on Prime Video, is a pulpy watch, with maternal instinct going into a zone dark enough to result in murder. A couple of them, in fact. Set in the 1960s and headlined by Hollywood A-listers Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain, the directorial debut of acclaimed French cinematographer Benoit Delhomme has a Hitchcockian feel of unease and foreshadowing, but never really lives up to its ultimately pulpy potential.