Rahul Desai

The protagonist of Bhakshak (“Predator”), the Netflix film directed by Pulkit and produced by Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment, was a scrappy female journalist (Bhumi Pednekar) who uncovers a small-town sex abuse racket in a shelter home involving some very powerful figures. Kartavya (“Duty”), the Netflix film from the same makers, shares a universe of sorts. It opens with the murder of a senior female journalist who arrives to uncover a small-town child abuse racket in a spiritual cult involving some very powerful figures. The protagonist is the cop who fails to protect her from those bullets; her film ended before it could begin. SHO Pawan (Saif Ali Khan) is then forced to grow a conscience and do the work of a brave reporter who is reduced to a gun-wielding uniform. Both films unfold largely under the cover of night, and have central characters who realise that doing their duty is no longer about doing their job — it’s about doing the right thing. Both also feature Sanjay Mishra in top form as the loyal subordinate.

As a child, I used to enjoy flipping through pages of the Limca Book of Records. There were the weirdest categories: longest moustaches, walking on hands, typing with noses. I always imagined that I could some day qualify by doing an outlandish feat that nobody else thought of. You must be wondering where this is going; who starts a review like this? Wonder no further (like the film at hand). The closest I’ve gotten to being in that book is today. The feat: watching a two-hour “laugh riot” without a single expression on my face. Forget chuckling, I think I anti-chuckled: minus-humour, if that’s a thing. Which surely must be some kind of record. The problem is I’m not the only participant. From the reactions in a cinema hall every other Friday, there’s plenty of competition. And there are sub-categories: watching a comedy without watching it (eyes glued to the phone), maximum yawns in a screening, most planted viewers to elicit reactions. I don’t know if I’ll win. As a film critic, though, I’m a strong contender.

The cinema of “strangers connecting on a call/walk” is a trope as old as time. It’s almost a rite of passage for independent film-makers with lower budgets. The narrative is inherently actor-driven. The context of this connection is what distinguishes a story that has something to say from a film that tries to flaunt its intellect. Writer-director Aditya Kripalani seems to have an affinity for this genre. His previous film, Not Today, revolved around the first day of a female suicide-prevention counsellor who gets on a long and vulnerable phone call with a suicidal man to stop him from jumping off a terrace. The one-line premise eventually became a medium to stage a clunky and meandering conversation — the kind that’s derived from thinking and appropriating life rather than experiencing and feeling some truth.

A rising hockey star, Lucky, is admitted to rehab after a tragic accident. He kicks his drug habit, unpacks his trauma and falls for his recovery buddy, Sanober. After their breezy stint, the boy meets the girl’s volatile “family”: a hotshot Punjabi rapper named MC Badnaam, his girlfriend Paddy, and bestie Jazzy. In a heartbeat, a lovelorn Lucky is blackmailed and recruited as an informant by a narcotics officer named Gurbani; she has been working for years to bust an undercover drug ring led by none other than MC Badnaam. Now Lucky is her trump-card. But it’s not so simple. Lucky is morally conflicted as the mole; he is integrated into Badnaam’s side hustle but feels too hard for Sanober, even as a rival rapper and villain emerges as a ghost from their past. Things get knotty and violent. Cue climax at a music concert. Where else can things end?

I didn’t imagine I’d be starting a film review in 2026 with the question: what if Baghban and Kal Ho Naa Ho hooked up, had a baby out of wedlock, tried to make it work, lived separate lives in one home, but traumatised the child because of their dysfunctional relationship? That kid would grow up to be Daadi Ki Shaadi (“Grandmother’s Wedding”) of course: a dated and overlong and cloying and unfunny family dramedy that again scolds busy Indians for not visiting their aging and lonely parents enough. How often have we seen adult children of widows or widowers shamed for treating their seniors like an afterthought?

The first ten minutes of Dug Dug are intoxicating. A precarious scene of a drunken man (Altaf Khan) riding his rickety Luna down the highway at night is filmed like a dapper motorbike ad: a poetic voiceover, shots synced to a trippy guitar-riff score, an endless stretch of road, aerial sweeps, a lit cigarette, slick lighting, a “Ride Free” surge of adrenalin. You’d think he was ripping an Enfield; he looks invincible. It plays out like a hero-intro sequence. His name carries that punch too: Thakur. But it’s actually a hero-exit sequence. The spell breaks. The man dies in a gruesome accident; the hoarding of a magician is partly responsible. To be fair, he wasn’t even a hero. He is, by all accounts, an anonymous statistic: a lone figure relegated to the margins of public memory.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of Bajirao Mastani and Padmaavat back when they divided audiences, but I miss them now. A decade ago, the prospect of a lavishly mounted period drama about an iconic Indian warrior or king felt loaded with possibility. These much-revered figures could be accessed through the human dimensions of their personality — and I like that genre specialist Sanjay Leela Bhansali often used love and romantic tragedy as his medium. These days, they can be accessed (if at all) from a space of love too: but only if this love is a form of nationalism. Nothing less than reverence — slow-mo praises, spotless courage and heroism — will do. As a result, most releases arrive with an air of caution and compliance. Reviewing the storyline, its inaccuracies and omissions can be akin to reviewing the country. Raja Shivaji is the latest critic-proof spectacle in this series.

An eloping couple is brutally attacked by masked goons in Haryana. He is killed, and she ends up in a coma. The incident brings the girl’s two brothers back to their hometown. They are forced to reunite with their estranged father — the abusive parent who once drove them away — in pursuit of revenge. ‘Justice’ is not an option. The younger son is softer and more forgiving of the dad; the elder one is wary and resentful. But the three men launch their own unofficial investigation; the suspects range from the father’s jealous rivals and local mafia bosses to corrupt politicians and Khap panchayat leaders. It quickly spirals into a violent whodunnit in a lawless land.