Priyanka Roy

Cocktail was penned by Imtiaz Ali. Cocktail 2 has been written by Luv Ranjan. Imtiaz Ali is the genius behind iconic scripts like Jab We Met, Rockstar, Tamasha, Amar Singh Chamkila and last Friday’s Main Vaapas Aaunga, to name just a few. The three Pyaar Ka Punchnama films, Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety and Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar belong to Luv Ranjan. This review could have ended here itself, but I am not that lucky. Well, I watched Cocktail 2, so I didn’t exactly wake up clutching a fortune cookie on this particular filmi Friday.

You feel the violence in Raakh before you see it. It is present right from the first few moments, in something as innocuous as two teenage siblings excitedly getting ready for a much-awaited evening out, the good-natured bickering between them and their lively banter with their mother. But you, as the viewer, find your nerves on edge, holding back a threatening lump in your throat. For you know that once they walk out of that door, the Arora siblings will never come back home again. The year is 1978. The series is Raakh, Prime Video’s eight-episode watch, streaming now, which is, without a doubt, inspired by the Sanjay and Geeta Chopra double murders. Taking place in the capital, the heinous crime shocked the country, elicited a nationwide manhunt and ultimately resulted in the death sentence for perpetrators Billa and Ranga. The case shaped India’s capital punishment jurisprudence, fundamentally altered children’s safety policies, and set landmark media rights precedents. Since then, it has been touched upon on screen, with varying degrees of fact and fiction, quite a few times, with the most recent example being the Netflix winner Black Warrant.

In the fall of 2007, Anton Chigurh walked on to our screens and drove fear into our hearts, one which deepens with every rewatch of No Country For Old Men. The neo-Western crime thriller, directed by the irrepressible Coen Brothers, starred Javier Bardem as Chigurh, with the versatile Spanish actor turning in a deathly, remorseless, unemotional act that is unanimously cited as a masterpiece of cinematic villainy. The chilling Chigurh won Bardem a host of awards — including an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA — with one important footnote being attached to his portrayal for posterity: the cold, unstoppable killer-for-hire, distinguished by that iconic bowl-cut, has been crowned as “the most realistic film depiction of a psychopath” in the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

Samar Mehra is not a has-been actor. His career never took off and at 50, acting opportunities have shrunk considerably, and so have his relationship prospects. Samar — played by an almost opaque Bobby Deol, a necessity for the part and not an encumbrance — sustains by lip-syncing to his old hits (C’mon baby, with him looking like a shiny disco ball, is addictive) at weddings and entertains himself by being on a dating app. His rent is overdue, so is surgery for a bad back. Unmarried, his current on-off date is Khushi (a refreshing Saba Azad). Cynical and exhausted, one night Samar finds his life upended when cops unceremoniously land up and herd him off to jail. A disbelieving and distraught Samar learns that he has been accused of rape by Gayatri (Sapna Pabbi), a woman he claims he had right-swiped on, got intimate with a few times and ghosted when she got obsessive. But in a post #MeToo society skewed against the man in such cases — “I am a victim,” Samar laments. “You are the accused until proven innocent,” his lawyer (Riddhi Sen is solidly cast) says bluntly — he finds that the stakes are heavily stacked against him.

Seven episodes of Brown later, I couldn’t help but make my way to a place I never visit: ChatGPT. I keyed in a series of prompts which looked exactly like this: Serial killer + Murder mystery + Kolkata + Anglo-Indian community + Alcoholic and troubled cop + Food + Rabindrasangeet + Noir feel + Shadowy spaces + Kolkata landmarks + Sepia frames. In less than five seconds, I was staring at a plot uncannily similar to what I had just watched. It had even suggested a title for the story: “Sepia Nights”. ‘Sepia’ is, of course, described as “a deep reddish-brown colour”. ‘Brown’ is the operative word here. Before you rap my knuckles for venturing even close to AI, Brown has already beaten me to it. The series, now streaming on ZEE5, is nothing more than an algorithmic amalgamation of everything that Kolkata is. More importantly, it shows more of what Kolkata isn’t. Granted that Brown is a serial-killer thriller and not a geography lesson. But for a story that relies so much on atmospherics, it is a shame that director Abhinay Deo, along with his team of writers (Suri Gopalan, Diggi Sissodia, Sunayana Kumari and Mayukh Ghosh) choose to present the city through such a stereotypical, trite lens.

As a society, when we can’t put women in a box, we often use a predictable and largely over-used term to describe them — messy. The word, somehow, acts as an all-encompassing crutch to encapsulate everything about these women that we can’t put a finger on. In small-town India (though that may be a limiting demographic to cite on our part), a woman who not only refuses to be helpless, fragile or vulnerable, but also cocks a snook at so-called community norms is often branded a “daayan”. That is the description that Rekha has had to live with all her life. A sensation among her (male) neighbours ever since she stepped into Adarsh Colony as a young bride, Rekha’s sleeveless blouses, come-hither looks and bold walk and talk (read: the desire to be a single, independent woman who derides judgment and doesn’t feel the need to explain herself or her actions) has given rise to loose talk, unfounded suspicion and strong rumours that she not only preys on men sexually, but also makes quick work of them, the urban legend being that their skeletons are stashed beneath the bed of marigolds in her garden.

n a market and year where Hollywood tentpole has been dominant — think Project Hail Mary, think Michael, think The Devil Wears Prada 2, led by the biggest so far, namely, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — the last few weeks have seen film buffs worldwide defy every kind of algorithm, glossy packaging and blockbuster potential, to troop into cinemas worldwide for a film which has quickly become what one can only describe as a “phenomenon”. Horror is having a moment on the Holly screen, and Obsession — to quote an unavoidable cliche — is now an obsession.

What ails legal thrillers in the Hindi language space? A lot of other problems apart, it is what the genre refers to as the “gotcha” surprise evidence trope. In film after film — the frequency alone merits this sweeping generalisation — we get to see dramatic, last-second reveals of secret witnesses or documents that swing a case in a way that is all too convenient, and therefore, feels manipulative. It is enough to make audiences feel cheated, especially if you have remained invested in the proceedings up to that point. The problem (or not, depending on which side of the attention divide you have been on) with System is that the film, in its entirety, is based on so much contrivance that by the time you arrive at the “rabbit out of a hat” moment, you simply don’t care. If you are smart — and more importantly, if you somehow manage to push yourself and remain engaged enough during its 123-minute running time — you would have anyway figured out the “twist” long before it happens. In fact, you would have eye-rolled your way through it.