Sanyukta Thakare

The Assasin is a crime thriller created by Harry and Jack Williams and led by Keeley Hawes and Freddie Highmore, which follows a mother and son duo as their past begins to haunt them. While the mother is an assassin the son returns to her asking questions about who his father is. Meanwhile, a unknown group puts a heavy bounty on her head making it impossible for the two of them to have real conversation without racking up dead bodies around them. The show begins with Keeley Hawes as Julie at a young age in 1994, fighting off a group of Russians to get to her target. Despite being offered a lot of money, she finished her mission and left the money behind. However, just as she confirms her kill and is about to move on to her next, the timer on her watch rings out to let her know it’s time to check the pregnancy test. 31 years later, Julie has retired and is living on a small Greek island alone while waiting for her estranged son to come visit her.

Tehran, led by John Abraham, Manushi Chillar, and Neeru Bajwa follows the attacks on Israeli diplomats which took place in 2012. The action thriller film directed by Arun Gopalan not only follows the story of justice at the hands of an Indian officer, but also the geopolitics that is just as important. The makers do not focus on the star power but on the story they wish to showcase. The film begins with John Abraham’s ACP Rajeev Kumar taking down a major gangster without any protocol after he had threatened his family. When the cops arrive, he just hands over the case and asks him to take care of it. On the other hand, as his daughter is returning from school, a similar car is attacked and blasts off in the middle of the road, injuring by standards and killing an innocent 6 year old girl.

War 2, directed by Ayan Mukerji and led by Hrithik Roshan, follows his iconic role, Kabir, going through the dark depths of India’s enemies and bringing them to justice while staying hidden in the dark. While Tiger, Pathan often live between the lines of good and bad, Kabir is the baddest, and Jr NTR joins him here on out. One scene in the film also has the latter asking why Kabir often turns heroes into villains and villains into heroes. And an answer to that we will never get, because the next in the franchise might have a similar story again. The film begins with a long introductory action sequence of how much Hrithik Roshan’s Kabir has changed and gone bad. He walks into the den of a Japanese mafia alone, subdues their loyal wolf by just looking at him and then proceeds to kill everyone in the entire mansion, or the open corridor, because that’s all we get to see. At the end of it, we know one thing for sure: Hrithik Roshan’s Japanese has gotten much, much better since we last heard it. Not long after it is followed by another long introductory action sequence for Jr NTR, which portrays him as fit action hero who jumps into enemy lines without parachute, guns or any sort of support to land.

Mayasabha follows the story of two friends who have similar goals to serve the people of the country but their change in ideologies sets them apart and turns them into biggest political rivals of 80s and 90s. The show is based on N. Chandrababu Naidu and Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s career along with their friendship and personal life, while India is struggling through its own political problems. It is currently streaming on SonyLiv and is led by Aadhi, Chaitanya Rao, Sai Kumar, Divya Dutta among others. The show begins with introduction to each one of the future political leaders, their family and social status years before their career began. Kakarla Krishnama Naidu (based on N. Chandrababu Naidu) is played by Aadhi Pinisetty and is seen being pushed around by people for his ambitions. While his family doesn’t understand his need to continue studying or passion for politics, he finds some solace among his friends and peers when he reaches college for PhD.

Together written and directed by Michael Shanks has been surrounded with controversy about the origins of the story as the makers face a copyright infringement lawsuit based on how similar it is to another film. The producers of Better Half in their lawsuit claimed that the story was originally pitched to Franco and Brie in 2020, but they turned it down. Husband and wife Dave Franco and Alison Brie are leading Together and were widely praise for their performance after Sundance debut. Rightfully so, as this is one the best psychological thrillers in recent times with chilling and very real, relatable concept. The film begins with an unusual incident taking place in the small town where a couple has already gone missing. Community volunteers can be seen searching the forest walking trails when two dogs of a of volunteer wonders off into a dark cave. They end up drinking from a well in the cave and begin to have some kind of a hypnotic reaction to it. Even after they go home with the volunteer, they continue to behave different, and at night when the dogs won’t stop barking, the volunteer walks in on them having consumed half of each other.

Freakier Friday is directed by Nisha Ganatra, who has also worked on hit comedy shows like Fresh Off The Boat, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Mindy Project and many more. The sequel follows both main characters from Freaky Friday 2003 film, a mother daughter duo who could not see eye to eye even after switching their bodies. Almost three decades later Anna and Tess have returned with more complications in life (two daughters), and a much needed lesson waiting for four of them which will bring them even closer. The film begins with a quiet recap of what everyone has been up to since the OG film’s release in 2003. Jamie Lee Curtis’ Tess Coleman has been happily married, she now runs a podcast from her closet and is a published author, on the other hand, Lindsay Lohan’s Anna has stopped performing and now works for a pop star Emma while being a single mother to a strong-willed teenage daughter, Harper. When a food fight ensues at the school because of Harper and her British nemesis Lily, both Anna and Lily’s father Eric are called to the school.

Weapons, directed and written by Zach Cregger had one of the most amazing promotional campaigns seen in this year for any film. The horror follows the story of a small town where kids ran out of their homes on their own accord never to be seen again. The trailer focused on how these kids seemed freer in the dark night running away from their families. However, the actual film is nothing close to what anyone would have expected. Visually stunning Weapons has an eerie tone to it with a background score as good as that of Nosferatu. The film begins with the narration of a small child, setting up the tone of the story as well as the situation around the incident. She reveals that one morning while the day was as ordinary as one could expect, one class had 17 kids missing. No one showed up to the class that day expect one boy Alex and the teacher Justine Gandy. While the teacher would be the usual suspect if this were a usual crime thriller, the cops and the parents in the town are baffled when ring light cameras and security details of their own homes revealed how the kids on the previous night had just run out of their homes on their own.

Siddhant Chaturvedi and Tripti Dimri led film explores the story of India’s cast system and how it is impacting the youth of today. A decade ago, a film like this would have been about the love story and how the leading characters fought the casteism to be with each other, here it is about how they fought the world just to survive and exist. That big difference makes this film a good watch. Dhadak 2 beings with Siddhanth Chaturvedi’s (Nilesh) first interaction with Tripti Dimri (Vidhi). While she is a guest at a wedding, Nilesh is playing a Dhol for the wedding festivities. She goes on to invite him to play at her sister’s upcoming wedding and gets herself a 20% discount, unknown to the fact that they two will cross paths again somewhere else. They happen to join the same law college but the reasoning behind their decision is what sets them apart.