Saibal Chatterjee

A crackling whistleblower drama that excoriates the algorithm-driven world of Facebook/Meta/Instagram for the way it imperils nations, societies, communities and individuals struggling with disaffection and disinformation, The Social Reckoning sees writer Aaron Sorkin return (this time with directorial responsibility added on) to the turf that he trod in The Social Network (2010). He hits his target hard enough when the darts land right. When they don’t, this standalone follow-up, which rests to a great extent on the shoulders of Jeremy Strong stepping in for Jesse Eisenberg in the role of Mark Zuckerberg, is projected as a sort of cold-hearted corporate scalawag chasing revenues no matter what the price of the pursuit is.

Continuing in the same vein as the first two films of the self-contained Drishyam universe, the past never goes out of focus in the concluding part of the Hindi-language franchise adapted from Jeethu Joseph’s superhit Malayalam original. It constantly impinges on the present as the barely educated protagonist, Vijay Salgaonkar (Ajay Devgn), stops at nothing to obfuscate the truth. The inveterate movie buff who takes his cues from the films that he has devoured over the years and believes that the one who controls the narrative holds all the aces. There are two types of stories, he asserts: one hides the truth, the other becomes the truth. Who is telling the story is of utmost importance, he feels as a bunch of people around him ferret vigorously for leads that could nail him and his family for good.

The eponymous forest - it has been in existence since the 7th century, the audience is told in a rushed introduction - has a human voice. It emanates from a goddess carved in stone. The rock deity has eyes that glow in the dark like traffic lights. Only those who dare to venture into the forbidden, mystical woods at night witness the phenomenon but only a few survive to tell the tale. It is deep-rooted fear of the unknown that keeps people away from the forest after sunset. In the climax, a crowd divided by what they know or what they don’t congregates there. A protracted fracas erupts. The skirmish is of the sort that leaves one completely cold.

Excessive violence and predictable storytelling suck the air out of The Paradise and reduce it to a limp, messy heap despite all the technical wizardry and visual vim and vigour that director Srikanth Odela packs into it end to end. A Telugu mass movie that pulls out the stops, The Paradise homes in on a man who takes up cudgels on behalf of his mother and his marginalised tribe to avenge the brutal oppression that a feudal lord has subjected them to for many years. Lead actor Nani, reuniting with Odela three years after the super-successful Dasara, plays Jadal, a seething rebel with a cause who returns to his people after serving a long prison sentence. He sets out to settle scores with the viciously exploitative Malik (Mohan Babu).

Slacker comedy meets espionage thriller in an awkward but passably entertaining union in Vibe, produced, written and directed by lead actor Kunal Kemmu. The fun elements in the film vary wildly but they do not veer too far off the path the screenplay marks out for them. And that, for what it is worth, is no mean achievement. High-spirited frivolity of the kind that Vibe peddles demands extreme caution. The danger of it falling through the cracks and sinking into brainless buffoonery is real and ever-present. To its credit, even as it navigates differing strains of mirth that occasionally appear to work at cross-purposes, the film retains its grip on a wacky sense of verbal humour. For the most part anyway.

A police drama that upends generic conventions, Daayra spins around a core composed of the tropes of a thriller blended with the dynamics of a procedural focussed squarely on the essentials. Director Meghna Gulzar, returning to the domain of crime, inquisition and punishment that Talvar explored, adopts an aptly workaday storytelling style enlivened by dazzling editing. Crime-busters in Mumbai movies are usually men (and sometimes women) who are fast-talking, quick-on-the-draw individuals. The two Daayra cops are a world apart. They are as committed to the uniform as any law enforcer one has seen in Hindi cinema. One believes in instant results, the other is slow and steady. The contrast underpins the debate at the heart of the tale.

Transplanted from Kochi to Mumbai, a well-received Priyadarshan-helmed Malayalam crime drama that Mohanlal spearheaded a decade ago morphs in the same director’s hands into a Bollywood thriller with the Kerala superstar in a surprise cameo. Textually similar, texturally different and tonally entirely its own beast, Haiwaan, starring Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan, struggles to shrug off the shadow of Mohanlal and Oppam (2016). Comparisons here are not as odious as they usually are. They are, in fact, essential in understanding the trip that Haiwaan is on in the company of two Bollywood actors whose personas shape the film.

Irrespective of one’s stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the least you expect from Fauda, the Netflix series co-created by and starring former IDF soldier Lior Raz, are dramatic flair, technical finesse and solid performances. Season 5 of the Israeli series delivers all these in ample measure. But no matter what it throws into its “Shin Bet agents fighting Hamas terror masterminds” construct, the show struggles to ward off a degree of been-there-done-that kind of fatigue. “To hell with this world,” says one female operative in Marseille, France, where she is close to busting a terror module. The lady has reason to be peeved. Three rogue agents have embarked on an unapproved personal revenge mission that threatens to scuttle her plans.