Saibal Chatterjee

Life stands still and yet flows inexorably in Alaav – Hearth and Home, written and directed by Prabhash Chandra. The uncompromisingly austere film approximates the restrained tempo of existence when old age takes its toll on both the giver and recipient of geriatric care. With its meticulously composed frames and strikingly unhurried rhythm, Alaav delineates the weight of ageing and its repercussions on a 95-year-old woman and her sexagenarian son sheltered in a well-appointed Delhi home.

Shorn of jingoism, free of gratuitous frills and delivered with fitting deference to the memory of the Indian soldiers (many of them unsung) who laid down their young lives in the battle of Rezang La in 1962, 120 Bahadur is a Bollywood war movie of a refreshingly different timbre. Directed by Razneesh “Razy” Ghai and written by Rajiv G. Menon with dialogues by Sunit Arora, 120 Bahadur strikes a balance between emotion and action in its fictionalisation of a military face-off that took a heavy toll of lives but helped India stop China from marching into Ladakh.

Given the high benchmark it has to reckon with, Delhi Crime Season 3 has its task cut out. It does all it can to measure up but falls just a tad, (yes, just a tad!), short of replicating the powerful wallop that the first two seasons packed. The thrilling and disquieting true-crime drama is not the sort of gut punch that would send one reeling, nor is the nature of the violence that it depicts as terrifyingly severe as it was the last time around. Much of the brutality on show - the victims are teenage girls captured by a gang of vicious traffickers - is either only suggested or palpably curbed rather than shown in graphic detail.

Until two prolonged and pointed courtroom soliloquies are staged in quick succession late in the film – one is delivered by Emraan Hashmi, the other by Yami Gautam Dhar, with both actors acquitting themselves to perfection – Haq opts for sustained restraint even in its most dramatic passages. It is this temperance that defines the film. It is rare for a Bollywood film these days not to froth at the mouth when talking about India’s principal minority community and summarily stereotyping it. Directed by Suparn S. Varma and written by Reshu Nath, Haq tackles an emotive and sensitive topic. It could easily have gone overboard. That it does not is the film’s greatest strength.

Notwithstanding the title, The Taj Story does not have much of a story to tell. What it does peddle by way of a narrative has not only been done to death over the decades but has also been debunked in several courts of the land, including the apex one. The writer of the film is constrained to admit as much in a series of title cards before the end-credits begin to roll. The Taj Story is bargain-basement filmmaking that draws inspiration from unsubstantiated history to create a piece of cinema that expects full-on explosions from dud-bombs. It wends its way through prickly territory only to end up without a case strong enough to make itself essential viewing for those who care for the truth.

A genre-breaching inter-species love story, Munjya and Zombivli director Aditya Sarpotdar’s Thamma harks back to a character or two that are integral to the Maddock Horror Comedy Universe (MHCU) while it marks out the way forward for the evolving franchise with a pair of new all-powerful figures who now have their tasks cut out. Does Thamma have enough crackle to be a fitting Diwali release? For the most part, yes. Rooted in all-encompassing folklore, it mashes up a medley of fantasy conventions and rustles up a tale in which the boundaries of credulity are constantly tested but in a fun sort of way.

Underdog stories tend to traverse a predictable arc - from incipient dream to dogged pursuit, from frequent stumbling blocks to rousing, triumphal finale. On the face of it, Bison Kaalamaadan, writer-director Mari Selvaraj’s fifth film, is cast in pretty much the same mould. But that isn’t all there is to it. While the Tamil film largely swings to a familiar beat, it isn’t just another sports drama. Selvaraj puts on it a significant spin that liberates the film from the confines of genre. The urgent social commentary at the core of the film is draped in popular storytelling trappings. The audience gets the best of both worlds.

All that you expect it to be and then some, Kantara: A Legend - Chapter 1 is an audaciously conceived and mounted visual spectacle packed with high points that are strong enough to make amends for the sections that appear a touch laboured and overstretched. Lead actor and director Rishab Shetty leaves no stone unturned to enhance the scale and sweep of Kantara, a pan-Indian hit that paved the way for this ambitious prequel that now also has a sequel in the works. The makers are clearly aware that they always had a hard act to follow.