Shubhra Gupta

On February 27, 2002, several coaches of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra station caught fire, causing the deaths of 59 people, many of them women and children. The train from Ayodhya, bound for Ahmedabad, was full of ‘karsevaks’ returning after a ceremony held under the aegis of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). Flames could be seen in four coaches, according to reports, but the worst hit was Coach 6, where the deaths took place. The horrific incident was followed by three days of rioting in Gujarat: according to several accounts, the number of the dead was well over 2000. The Nanavati-Mehta commission, appointed by the state government, concluded that the fire was the result of a pre-planned arson by a large Muslim mob; the one-member Banerjee commission instituted in 2004 by the government at the Centre declared that it was an accident.

On paper, ‘Vijay 69’ must have felt like a splendid idea. Old men dodder. They don’t go about being potty-mouthed, or making sad sex jokes. How about getting Vijay Mathew, a ripe 69, to have a vocabulary which is more foul than fair, even if he has reached grandfather status? Next, how about setting him an impossible task? Even the fittest baulk at attempting the triathlon. Why not get our elderly hero to have a dash at it? Vijay lives in a house surrounded by the memories of his dead wife, the only one who used to encourage him in his endeavours, the chief of which seems to be getting ranked in a swimming race. Everyone else, including his dearest friend Fali (Chunky Panday donning a grey wig and the broadest Parsi accent that can be mustered), thinks he’s gone bananas.

First things first: all hail the arrival of Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Indian cinema’s first real female action star who demands our attention from the get-go and never loses it through the six part series, Citadel: Honey Bunny. She’s coiled, ready for action, exploding off the screen whenever the script demands it of her, and the demand stays consistently high. As the family woman-cum-spry spy, who will do anything to protect her daughter, Samantha’s Honey is the best part of this enterprise, directed and written by Raj and DK (Sita Menon also gets writing and directing credit), and executive produced by the Russo Bros.

All right folks, we are back in the labyrinth. For a third time. Lots of stuff that we remember from the earlier outings. Creaky two-hundred-year-old Bengali havelis. Locked rooms. Vengeful ‘aatmas’. Ghosts who flit about. And characters who spout their lines, and vanish.

They say that the fount of all Indian fiction are the two epics, Ramayan and Mahabharat. Rohit Shetty seems to have taken this old saying to heart because Ajay Devgn’s eponymous Bajirao Singham is none other than a latter-day Maryada Purushottam Ram, his wife Avni (Kareena Kapoor Khan) is the faithful Sita, and all the other characters play their parallels in this version of Kalyug-ke-Ram Ki Katha. The result is loud and tedious, and instantly forgettable.

There was enough intrigue in the first season of ‘Mithya’, in which a troubled author is left on the edge of a sharp wedge, for us to want to return for another round. However, the new season, which comes from the same production house (Applause Entertainment) but a different director (Kapil Sharma) is everything that the first wasn’t: contrived, unconvincing, and, the worst sin, dull.

‘Do Patti’ comes armed with much promise. It is the first offering of a brand new female-led production house, with producer-actor Kriti and writer Kanika Dhillon having created an interesting ensemble led by Kajol, popular TV actor Shaheer Sheikh, Tanvi Azmi, Brijendra Kala and Vivek Mushran. What’s not to like? Turns out, quite a lot.

Based on a real-life character of the same name, Bandaa Singh Chaudhary tells the tale of a man who stood his ground and fought against tremendous odds during the 1980s in Punjab, when militancy was rising rapidly, propelling a clutch of separatist movements. With Arshad Warsi playing the eponymous Banda, and Meher Vij as his spirited wife Lalli, this film had the potential to deliver a strong character study set during one of the most turbulent periods of recent Indian history. But nothing does the subject any justice, neither the story-telling nor the performances.