Rahul Desai

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.

Nobody notices the tall and nerdy IT support guy. He doesn’t mind it; “invisibility is my superpower,” he tells himself. He only longs to be noticed by the popular office girl. But she’s in a relationship with their tall and handsome boss, who is going through a messy divorce. A company trip to Japan beckons. Our nerdy guy makes a middle-class wish at a holy site: “if we could be together even for a day”. It’s a figure of speech that gets lost in translation. An accident happens, and popular girl wakes up with an amnesia specifically tailored to his wish. Her short-term memory is wiped out, but it will return in exactly one day. There’s one more symptom: she will permanently forget everything that unfolds in this one day. Boardgames have less elaborate rules. So our nerd does what any self-respecting romantic would: he pretends to be her boyfriend for the day. This is his chance. You know the rest. You know she’s going to find out, you know it will get ugly, and you know that science will be challenged by its greatest rival: the Bollywood heart.

I have to get this out of my system. We need to talk about the dying — nay, extinct — art of the background score in mainstream Hindi cinema. The setup of Ginny Wedss Sunny 2 somewhat brings to mind Haseen Dillruba (2021), the romantic thriller about semi-toxic newlyweds in Haridwar; she’s a siren, he’s a Nice Guy, she cheats, then he becomes the madness and badness she craves for. I remember disliking Haseen Dillruba until a haunting theme in the climax made me rethink my reading of the entire film — a rare case of a score urging the viewer to feel a story rather than judge it. That’s the job of background music and supplementary sound: an extension of unfilmable text, not lazy mood-prompts for the audience.