Rohan Naahar

Nearly two decades after dying quite unambiguously at the end of the 2007 release Awarapan — they even held a memorial for him (in Pakistan!) — the ‘selfless angel’ of a gangster Shivam Pandit (played by Emraan Hashmi) is back in Awarapan 2. The new movie is designed almost exclusively for Hashmi’s cult fanbase and the odd passer-by with nothing better to do at the multiplex. Remember, the first Awarapan was a flop; it gained a following thanks to multiple reruns on cable and Pritam’s evergreen music album. This time around, directing duties have been handed over to Nitin Kakkar, who simply doesn’t have the command over such material that original filmmaker Mohit Suri did.

A colourful portrait of one of football’s most complicated characters, Netflix’s Mourinho finds “The Special One” in characteristically charismatic form. It portrays football manager and former player José Mourinho as somehow both psychologically opaque and emotionally transparent; he claims that he has never felt pressure, but he seems to thrive in it; he is capable of forming lifelong bonds with everyone except his own flesh and blood; Mourinho is an enigma, one that would take more than a Netflix series to crack.

What if the Covid-19 lockdown never ended? What if the world’s entire population was forever imprisoned in their homes, with family members as their cellmates? What would happen after three weeks, three months, or three years? Netflix’s new original movie, The Last House, doesn’t take this admittedly intriguing premise to its potential. What if the Covid-19 lockdown never ended? What if the world’s entire population was forever imprisoned in their homes, with family members as their cellmates? What would happen after three weeks, three months, or three years? Netflix’s new original movie, The Last House, doesn’t take this admittedly intriguing premise to its potential.

Like so many visual effects-heavy productions from India, Netflix’s Operation Safed Sagar — inspired by the Indian Air Force’s operation in Kargil during the 1999 India-Pakistan war — sacrifices human drama in favour of flashy computer-generated sequences. These action scenes are obviously challenging for under-pressure VFX artists working on tight deadlines, but they’re also extremely difficult to perform for actors whose faces are concealed behind masks. As visual effects have advanced in recent years, there has been an increase in the production of aerial warfare movies in India. But instead of using these newly available tools to enhance the storytelling, these movies appear to have relied on embellishments to conceal the shortcomings in scripts.

What if the endlessly affable characters of Manjummel Boys (a 2024 Malayalam survival thriller) were constantly bickering, entitled 20-somethings instead? Chances are, you’d begin to wish that the cave they’re trapped in swallows them whole before rescue services could be alerted. This is the central problem with The Devil’s Mouth, the new survival horror movie on Prime Video. Instead of rooting for its protagonists to make their way out of the mess they’re in, you kinda-sorta-maybe start rooting for their adversary — a lost bull shark in basically the same predicament as they are. Both parties cross streams one day after a series of events that are too boring to get into here.

The fundamental issue with adapting mythological epics in India is that there’s very little adaptation going on, avoiding straying too far from the source. But the issues with SonyLIV’s new animated series, The Legend of Karna, are twofold. Not only does the show struggle to find anything new to say about one of the greatest stories ever told, the Mahabharata, but it also can’t decide whom it is targeting. Too verbose for children and too simplistic for adults, The Legend of Karna ultimately finds itself in no man’s land, fighting a war that it was always going to lose. The irony. A retelling of the Mahabharata from the warrior Karna’s perspective, the series has been created by Sharad Devarajan and Jeevan J. Kang, with none other than Anup Soni, of “Saavdhan Rahein, Satark Rahein” fame, voicing the titular character. The Legend of Karna, to its great misfortune, finds itself sandwiched between Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and the upcoming two-part Ramayana starring Ranbir Kapoor. Needless to say, it cannot compete with either of those projects in terms of production values or scope. There was, however, an opportunity to present a more internal take, especially since the writers were under no burden to flesh out the scores of characters in the Mahabharata.

The new Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a mixed bag. It’s both conventional and kinetic, sombre and silly. Under the stewardship of director Destin Daniel Cretton, the movie isn’t as synthetic as the franchise’s previous instalments — especially the previous two films starring Tom Holland as Spider-Man. Brand New Day is more grounded than those movies, less bothered by multiverses and mayhem and more concerned with the characters. The action is spectacular (and most definitely inspired by the popular Spider-Man video games by Insomniac), the superhero shenanigans are reliably rote, but Brand New Day is at its best when it’s being a Bollywood emotional drama from the mid-2000s

After succumbing to the sophomore slump a few years ago with the dreadfully dull psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling (2022), Olivia Wilde has reaffirmed herself as a phenomenally talented filmmaker with her third feature, The Invite. It is as astute a dissection of long-term relationships as this year’s The Drama was of the honeymoon phase. Wilde stars as an anxious woman named Angela, who secretly invites her new neighbours for a casual get-together in a naked attempt to impress them. However, she neglects to run this by her husband Joe, a failed musician-turned-teacher played by Seth Rogen. He isn’t into it one bit. Joe has an axe to grind against the neighbours, because their love-making has kept him awake for weeks. He doesn’t know whether to be angry or jealous, but he most certainly isn’t going to be rolling out the red carpet for them. Played by Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton, the neighbours are the perfect foils to utterly bored Angela and Joe. Even before the chic couple from next door arrives, the two are at each other’s throats about everything from back posture to charcuterie boards.