Rahul Desai

The framework of Kankhajura is ripe with promise. It’s a revenge drama going through an identity crisis — it doesn’t behave like one for the most part, and every time the theme emerges, it feels a bit surprising. Based on an Israeli series called Magpie, Kankhajura (“centipede”) revolves around the sticky ‘rehabilitation’ of Ashu (Roshan Mathew), a young man released from prison after 14 years. There’s something shapeless about him. He looks innocent in a deranged way, shows signs of neurological damage, has a trauma-infused stutter, and freelances as a police mole. Most of all, Ashu remains needy for the validation of his older brother Max (Mohit Raina), a real-estate mogul who aids his reintegration into society without fully embracing his return.

The crime scene: an upscale Bandra apartment. The crime: famous surgeon Raj Nagpal (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) is found holding the dead body of his girlfriend, Roshni Saluja (Asha Negi). The social angle: the person who finds Raj in this position is none other than his separated wife, Anju (Surveen Chawla), who lives next door. The dysfunctional-family quirk: Roshni was the nurse and caregiver of Raj and Anju’s neurodivergent 13-year-old daughter (Khushi Bhardwaj). The lawyer(s): working-class hero Madhav Mishra (Pankaj Tripathi) defends prime suspect Raj against old foe and public prosecutor Lekha Agastya (Shweta Basu Prasad). Other characters who may or may not matter: a shaken housemaid, two police investigators (also a divorced couple), Roshni’s ex-boyfriend, Raj’s bitchy friends, Anju’s jaded face, and the public spat that Raj and Roshni had at the daughter’s birthday party the night before.

I have my reservations about live-action hybrid remakes of animated Disney classics. I just don’t see the point. The original invariably does a better job of charming newer generations of kids and adults (on smaller screens). The odd tech and VFX updates aside, there’s no real add-on; it’s like watching the capitalisation and credit of cultural interest into a bank account that refuses to invest in the current market. Remaking beats a re-release, sure, but it’s a mighty expensive way of telling the same story twice. The commercialism is grating, especially when the film in question is a cutesy childhood fable about the wonders of being young. But the most pressing question surrounding this remake/adaptation cycle is: Have we run out of imagination? Is there no will to create something new?

It’s never a good sign when you watch a remake and immediately have to look up the story of the original to understand exactly what you watched. Being in the dark for 142 minutes can go two ways: either it happened or you slept early and had a fever dream. Kapkapiii is somehow a bit of both; the viewer is never sure where their own reality ends and fiction begins. It is disorienting, patched-up, sporadic and incomplete, and not in a good-psychedelic way. Based on the Malayalam horror-comedy Romancham (2023), it tells (but also untells) the tale of six male flatmates sharing a decrepit apartment in which strange things happen after they mess around with a makeshift Ouija board. There are also two young women who live above, a swaggy Muslim don, Kya-Kool-Hai-Hum-meets-Delhi-Belly innuendos that don’t land, a graveyard for rats (!), a weird houseguest, and jumpscares that exist for the heck of it. To be fair, they’re all as confused as we are.

I suspect this is going to be a short review. Not just because Kesari Veer is unwatchable in so many different ways that one is spoiled for choice. But also because I’m tired of writing the same thing about multiple Hindi period dramas — if one can call them that — over the last few years. As a critic, I’ve gotten to a point where I robotically tick off a mental checklist. Provocative? Of course. Islamophobic? Certainly. Hate-mongering? Obviously. Misinformation parading as creative license? Sure. Kesari Veer is a 162-minute inspired-by-true-events slog about a Rajput warrior who tries to defend the Somnath temple against the Tughlaq Empire in the 14th century, but it’s also another 21st-century excuse to demonise Muslims in a communally sensitive country through the elastic medium of history. In another era, it would’ve been banned. All of this goes without saying. It’s the starting point. Tell me something new.

Imagine an enticing cricket match. The players have serious skills. The spectators are having a blast. The momentum swings back and forth. Until suddenly, out of nowhere, a batsman does something controversial: he gets out on purpose. He ‘sacrifices’ his own innings so that his teammate, the more deserving candidate, can smash the winning runs. The commentators then play down the incident and reveal that this whole match was planned down to the T — it was all a ruse to prove that cricket is a selfless sport. Nothing was real. In fact, a multibillion-dollar corporation donated a small fortune to NGOs for every wicket and boundary. It’s not enough that cricket entertains; it must make the world a better place. Fans must be taught the value of humanity, even if it’s at the cost of the game. Some might call this charity. I call it ethical match-fixing.

Unlike most action-adventure franchises, Mission: Impossible has often thrived on expressing how hard it works. It’s the opposite of effortless. Nothing looks easy; nobody is smooth and sophisticated; not a frame seems bereft of blood, sweat, madness and tears. A large part of its allure is rooted in this utter lack of vanity, this desire to be open about its working-class spectacle. Tom Cruise, arguably the most majestic of modern superstars, hasn’t been afraid to channel this ugliness as Ethan Hunt. His stunts over the years — including a (literally) breath-taking underwater quest and an acrobatic mid-air brawl in the latest instalment — feature all sorts of cosmetic imperfections: the rippling of skin folds, awkward facial contortions, wide-eyed terror, garbled gasps, desperate lunges. The miracle was always how real and impossibly human he looked.

It’s a strange week to be a Hollywood nerd. I binge-watched all the seven Mission: Impossible movies in anticipation of The Final Reckoning. Psychologically, this made me feel invincible — I almost found myself walking into oncoming traffic on a Mumbai highway (the potholes slowed down the cars, but never mind), convinced that I’d Ethan-Hunt my way out of danger. Nothing could kill me; I felt braver every time I risked my life to reach a place. Then I speed-watched the five Final Destination movies in anticipation of the sixth, Final Destination Bloodlines, which is more of a reboot but never mind. Just to get into the spirit of things. Psychologically, this made me feel extremely killable. On one hand, the M:I movies injected blind courage into me, but on the other, my mind was suddenly wired to obsess about a million gruesome ways I could perish the moment I walked out my front door. Was I fearless or scared sh*tless? I don’t know anymore. Maybe it’s the same thing.