Saibal Chatterjee

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.

Love makes the world go round in confoundingly concentric circles in Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari. Given full on flippant treatment, the caprices and convolutions of the Varun Dhawan-Janhvi Kapoor starrer have a free run of the field. The film revolves around four young people who are surrounded by families at variance with their choices. The quartet finds itself on a wild merry-go-round of break-ups, hook-ups and matrimonies.

Another southern superstar vehicle that alternates between soaring high and sputtering cumbersomely, They Call Him OG does not go completely off the rails thanks to the kinetic power that lead actor Pawan Kalyan lends the film. The Telugu superstar goes full tilt at powering an erratic screenplay that delivers an abundance of superficial style. The film has plenty of arrows in its quiver but all of them hit their intended targets. But if you are a Pawan Kalyan fan, that lacuna is unlikely to take anything away from the sheen that the star possesses.

Marking a buoyant return for Anurag Kashyap to the gangster drama genre, Nishaanchi serves up a campy broth with a generous sprinkling of retro Bollywood ingredients that dissolve into each other in unpredictable ways. Written by Kashyap with Rajan Chandel and Prasoon Mishra, Nishaanchi brims with raw action, earthy humour and gnarled emotions that frequently unleash full-blown violence. Notwithstanding its ups and downs, the film retains its crackle all the way through. Set in Kanpur in the years leading up to and beyond the turn of the millennium, the gritty film homes in on a family sucked into the world of crime by rage and retribution. The family of four suffers the repercussions of impulsive acts, including a life-altering tragedy, but is held together by a woman who is no Nirupa Roy. She is the antithesis of the silent, long-suffering mother of Hindi cinema’s chequered past.

Secret of a Mountain Serpent by writer-director Nidhi Saxena is a poetic exploration of female desire set against the backdrop of the Kargil conflict. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival, the film weaves folklore, symbolism, and haunting performances by Trimala Adhikari and Adil Hussain into a tapestry of longing, liberation, and cinematic beauty. With its blend of myth and reality, evocative sound design, and visual mastery, it is an unforgettable contribution to Indian independent cinema. Between Dream and Reality Writer-director Nidhi Saxena’s second film, Secret of a Mountain Serpent, is an exquisite piece of cinema. It blurs the line between the dreamily meditative and the wholly tangible to explore the boundaries of female desire when it is set free from the suffocating constraints of societal stipulations. ‘

Producer Sajid Nadiadwala returns after a five-year hiatus with his nearly one-decade-old action franchise, which is perhaps like no other in the world. All the films in the series, including the one being reviewed here, are standalone ventures with Tiger Shroff in the guise of an overly belligerent rebel being the only common link between them Baaghi 4 foists upon us more of what the franchise has done before in abundance - gratuitous violence - in order to peddle a brand of toxic masculinity that the world can certainly do without. Shroff, of course, has the chops to plunge headlong, with his action hero poise intact, into spitfire sequences and give them all he has - and then some. But what can an actor do when what is on paper is only superficially visceral and does not pack the sort of punch that can inject some credibility into the protagonist’s exploits.

Coolie has no dearth of big stars. It has Aamir Khan in a special appearance as a swaggering, heavily tattooed crime lord who pops out of a chopper in the middle of a desert at the fag-end of the film. Upendra has an extended cameo that kicks of late in the second half when the chips are down for once for the titular protagonist. Nor is that all. Nagarjuna Akkineni dons the garb of the principal villain and Soubin Shahir slips into the skin of a slimy double-dealer. It’s top-heavy, to say the least. Each one of them carries his weight in Coolie-The Powerhouse (the title of the Hindi dub of the Tamil action extravaganza that’s been released without the suffix). But it is hardly surprising that the onus of doing most of the heavy lifting in squarely upon the redoubtable Rajinikanth.