Shubhra Gupta

Yet another Maddock stable offering, with the by-now familiar fix of the natural and supernatural, risque humour, in-house jokes, meta-movie references and item numbers, Thamma goes one better, by giving us not one but two of those. And a heavier star slate than before, with a combo of Ayushmann Khurrana and Rashmika Mandanna, playing a pair of star-crossed lovers whose romance is overseen by betaals and bhediyaas and other mythological creatures. But I have to sadly report that the law of diminishing returns has clearly set in, in the work of a director who gave us the comparatively perky ‘Munjya’ and ‘Kakuda’: there is so little that engages in this crowded canvas, written by Niren Bhatt, Suresh Mathew and Afrun Falara, that the result is a pair of hurting ears and glazed eyes.

Exactly twenty years back, Arshad Warsi had played an upright cop in one of his finest films, ‘Sehar’. We had seen him in mostly comic roles up until then, and this ramrod straight policeman was a welcome departure, posting notice that he could do serious as well as jokey, turning him one of those performers whose presence invariably betters the movies they are in.

It’s Sankyukta Das’s last day at work at her cop station; she is headed to another city, and a desk job, which will give her more time with her husband-and-daughter-and-mother, all of whom gets pushed aside when it comes to the most important thing in her life: the work at hand. This, as it turns out, in the first part of the show comprising six episodes, is the discovery of a dead girl in a local politician’s campaign car. Family commitments will have to wait, as Sanyukta dives into assembling her team, while having to deal with barely-hidden barbs from a smug new entrant to her team Jai Kanwal (Surya Sharma), who thinks he knows better.

Two unlikely couples find themselves in a house far away from the madding crowd in the English countryside. It’s meant to be a convivial dinner, getting to know each other better. But right from the time they are ushered in by their hosts Rohit (Arjun Mathur) and Sanya (Zora Rahman), Ira (Rasika Dugal) and Basukinath (Paresh Pahuja) sense there’s something off: a big chest, placed in the middle of the living room. It becomes an object of increasing concern: what is inside? Or is it who? Is there, shudder, a body inside?

Wedding crashers. Five star Rajasthan hotels. Brand endorsements for glittery apparel. And not to forget the most important element, shiny baubles standing in for characters: Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari settles creakily back in the sangeet-sagaai-shaadi template awash with star-crossed lovers and their parivarik conflicts. In short, everything we’ve seen before, in multiple iterations, over the years, because that’s literally all mainstream Bollywood rom coms seem capable of these days. Even the usage of the word ‘situationship’ feels familiar, even when it is mouthed by Ananya (Sanya Malhotra) to describe the thing between her and Sunny (Varun Dhawan): why should only boys have all the fun? She was his, and now she’s not, and he needs to deal with it, even as a BFF Bantu (Abhinav Sharma) shoulder comes in handy. Of course, there’s a bestie; how else will heroes be propped up?

The film opens with two young men, Chandan and Shoaib, making their way into the centre of a heaving crowd, creating space for themselves. The location is a train station, from where they hope to be borne away, yearning for the ‘ijjat’, and ‘paisa’ which will allow them the dignity they have clearly been deprived of all their lives.

The Ba***ds of Bollywood — the name itself has been causing non-stop buzz because it taps into current public perception of how the Hindi film industry is full of baxxds — is a mixed bag. The problem, in fact, is in the name itself. When ba***dly behaviour is on full display, we feel that promises have been kept, and that it is not just calling its detractors out by putting itself out there, but having some fun at our expense while it’s at it; it’s when the seven-part series segues into the showing us ‘the other side’, that it deflates into seen-before ordinariness. Watching glittering stars sending themselves up is always going to be a send. It never gets old, and we’re so here for it. Aamir, Shah Rukh (a no-brainer, given he is the debutant director Aryan Khan’s proud daddy-o), for pan-Indian appeal, SS Rajamouli, Ranbir Kapoor, Ranvir Singh, Rajummar Rao, Arjun Kapoor, and of course, Karan Johar, who is not just a cameo like the others but a full-fledged presence: who better than Johar to personify the much-reviled movie mafia which ‘buys paps’ and warns people not to ‘cross them’. Salman is a blink-and-miss even as cameos go, and him muttering about not wanting to a be a dad is sort of hilarious, in this whole parade of daddies. It’s all nudge-and-wink, and smile-worthy.

Kajol and co are back in Season 2 of ‘The Trial’ as legal eagles working their way through and around the system geared towards saving the powerful and damning the weak. The previous season began with Noyonika Sengupta (Kajol), reeling by the betrayal of a cheating spouse Rajiv (Jisshu Sengupta), having to find her way back into a profession which she thought she had left behind. The cases, handed out by senior advocates Malini Khanna (Sheeba Chaddha) and Vishal Chaubey (Alyy Khan) plunges her into a discovery of the self — away from the roles of wife and mom to two young daughters — even as she learns to navigate office politics, learning the difference between who is a plunger of the knife (Gaurav Pandey), and who has her back.