Rahul Desai

Like Khakee: The Bihar Chapter (2022), creator Neeraj Pandey’s standalone sequel Khakee: The Bengal Chapter represents the awkward second rung of crime thriller television — too trashy to be taken seriously, too serious to be pulpy, too long to be bingeable, and too predictable to be culturally specific. It’s more or less an old-school Prakash Jha potboiler stretched into long-form entertainment. A loaded ensemble and the illusion of a grassroots narrative are supposed to offset the generic tone, a cyclical plot and a repetitive landscape. This time, the focus is Kolkata in the early 2000s, where a no-nonsense IPS officer arrives to clean up a city ripe with bloody gang wars, sinister politicians and confused cops. A reporter exclaims: “Is the City of Joy now the City of Bhoy (fear)?”. Thankfully, the show explicitly mentions the timeframe at some point, because this is the one city that makes it hard to distinguish a period setting from a modern one. Timelessness is an aesthetic here; I assumed it was 2025 until I spotted a character holding a Nokia 6600 (which still made it look like 2022). Unfortunately, rumours of a Sourav Ganguly cameo in this seven-episode drama remain rumours, despite there being plenty of scope for a princely outsider with shirt-twirling charisma leading a team of gritty underdogs.

The first part of Adolescence opens with a 13-year-old boy, Jamie (Owen Cooper), being arrested on suspicion of murder. It’s early morning. The family home is raided by the police; DI Luke Bascombe (Ashley Walters) and DS Misha Frank (Faye Marsay) take Jamie to the police station. Jamie tearfully goes through the detainment process. He is strip-searched, his father Eddie (Stephen Graham) agrees to be his ‘appropriate adult’ and a local solicitor arrives to represent Jamie. The two cops then interrogate the boy. For much of this episode, as grown-up viewers, we are wired to watch these proceedings through the lens of one question: Did he do it? At some level, we experience it as an investigative thriller: a murder mystery where the suspense lies in the answer. When Jamie quietly tells his dad that he is innocent, it’s hard not to believe the kid. He sounds truthful. It’s probably all a mistake and he’s protecting a wayward friend or elder. We look at the father as a portrait of complicity, too — closely judging every word, glance and gesture of his. DI Bascombe mentions a previous juvenile case where none of them noticed years of sexual abuse. But the end of the episode shows that Jamie did do it. He brutally stabbed his schoolmate Katie to death in a carpark the previous night. The cops had proof all along. His guilt was never in doubt. There is no confession. The anti-climax lies in the eyes of the beholder.

If you watch Hindi cinema for a living (or a loving), chances are you will be cursed with the Red Flag Syndrome. What is this syndrome, you ask? (You didn’t ask, but I’m telling you anyway because clunky exposition is in my DNA). Being able to identify red flags in a film — or being able to see through a story within the first few scenes — used to be a superpower. But now it’s almost a crime, like X-ray vision for perverse superheroes: you’re accused of seeing the film naked. It took me all of 30 seconds to commit this crime with Be Happy.

he Diplomat has all the elements of a solid thriller. The drama is Argo (2012) and Bridge of Spies (2015)-coded, where one government agent must negotiate the safe return of a citizen trapped in a seemingly hostile country. The premise is almost ready-made. The film is inspired by the true story of Uzma Ahmed (played by Sadia Khateeb), a woman who arrives at the Indian embassy in Islamabad desperately seeking refuge; she claims to have been tricked into marrying an abusive Pakistani man who kept her captive in the mountains. Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh (John Abraham) takes charge, determined to guide her through a maze of media scrutiny, red tape, court trials and political tensions. All he has are words and aura, in addition to the support of the Minister of External Affairs (based on the late Sushma Swaraj) from New Delhi.

A great concept can be a curse. Take the one-liner of Humans in the Loop, for instance. An Adivasi single mother named Nehma (Sonal Madhushankar) starts working as a ‘data labeller,’ a job that requires her to train AI models to recognise the world in pictures and videos. This one-liner alone is so fertile — so ripe with cultural parables and documentary minimalism — that it’s hard to imagine a fictional film that expands on it. What can a feature-length story express that isn’t already implicit?

In cricket, when the fielding team challenges an LBW (Leg Before Wicket) call, the DRS (Decision Review System) comes into play. This DRS process is a lot like reviewing a film or show. Every stage corresponds to real-world parameters. First, the third umpire checks if it’s a legal delivery — the equivalent of checking if the craft and shot-taking and basic staging are fundamentally sound. Then they move onto Snickometer to see if there’s an edge off the bat or glove — the equivalent of checking if the storytelling is engaging. Finally, Ball Tracking is used to project the trajectory of the delivery. Even here, it doesn’t matter if the ball is hitting the stumps, it has to pitch in line — the equivalent of checking if the intent and politics of the narrative add up. If all checks out, the on-field decision can be reversed and the batsman is ruled out — the equivalent of defying an anti-art industry and making a good show.

It’s a wonder that after 12 years of professional film criticism and finding creative ways to pan ghastly Bollywood movies, the deepest thought that entered my head after watching Nadaaniyan was: “I want to kick this film”. Such a primal, crude urge. Kick, really? So much for all those analytical skills and fancy words. All those carefully constructed rants and sarcastic takedowns. It’s the kind of thought that’s second to an animalistic grunt. I should do better. I should be calmer. But hey, at least I’m calling myself out here. At least I’m admitting that my brain is broken and incapable of making sense. That makes me ‘Self-Aware’. And self-awareness is a superpower that we often abuse to weaponise our flaws. In this day and age, an idiot that knows they’re an idiot is automatically wise.

I remember watching the first season of Panchayat (2020) and thinking: Wow, this is going to change things. And it did. It altered the way we perceived “comedy” as a serious genre. It was very exciting to see a simple, slice-of-life environment — the iconic fictional village of Phulera and its bittersweet characters — seared into the modern streaming lexicon. But I’d be lying if I said I was blindly optimistic. At the back of my mind, there was this fear — a fear derived from years of watching Hindi cinema overkill a new sensation. Nobody knows how to quit while they’re ahead.