Tusshar Sasi

“Kaise soldier banunga? Bobby Deol hoon kya main?” Hardik (Kunal Kemmu) wails at Madam H (Preity Zinta) in Vibe, and the line does what most Hindi spy films refuse to do: it cheerfully winks at its own tropes. From that micro-meta gag here, Kemmu, directing himself, builds a legitimate ode to the ’90s actioner in a later scene, played for joy rather than piety. Fun is not a garnish here; it is the method. And I enjoyed watching almost everyone have some. I could only feel bad for Deol, who had none in the recent Alpha, a cousin film that took itself far too seriously, as if seriousness alone could give it a pulse. Alpha treated its serum like doctrine. Vibe lets Hardik and Bhagirath “Bugs” (Sparsh Shrivastava) pocket something similar and keep walking. Few questions asked, which is both the joke and the design. They are corporate slaves, one a buffoon, the other a nerd, who become accidental spies after Hardik’s planetarium date with his crush Kareena (Vanshika Dhir) goes sideways. Romance is the door he knocks on. Espionage is what he falls into.

“Mera raasta alag hai,” says DCP Ajooni Kohli (Kareena Kapoor Khan) in Daayra as she walks away from DCP Raman Kumar (Prithviraj Sukumaran). He strides in the opposite direction. The camera slips into slow motion, a song kicks in, and the lyrics spell out the obvious: ‘alag raasta’. It is a thriller announcing its metaphor the way a trailer announces a clash, set to a song that is decidedly not ‘Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga’. That is Meghna Gulzar in 2026: still drawn to the space where law and justice stop being synonyms, still unwilling to let an image sit without a caption.

How do we empathise with a force like the police? The last time I asked myself this, I was watching reels of police violence against Gen-Z protesters at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. That scepticism lasted about thirty minutes, right until I spotted a traffic cop drenched in sweat while I sat comfortably in an AC vehicle, wearing sunglasses and two layers of sunscreen. Humanising lower-rank police officers in India is an uncomfortable exercise. Director Shahad’s investigative thriller Pradhama Drishtya Kuttakkar takes up that challenge and builds a cat-and-mouse game around a group of cops hiding an accidental crime from a system that both empowers and oppresses them.

A bizarre exotica circles India’s southern state of Keralam, encompassing its people, cinema, food, and heritage. Outside the state (excluding Bangalore, of course), it almost feels like a soft form of reverse racism. Sure, Keralam has the stats to back up the reputation: better education, sanitation, and a genuinely decent quality of life. Malayalam cinema has long ridden that wave, shaping this glowing image (the famous Kerala Model in many areas of public life) while turning out some of the best films in the country, a list Bethlehem Kudumba Unit seamlessly joins.

Indian male superstars have a difficult time from their 40s onwards. From soft romances and emotional dramas in their youth, they graduate to violent action films, with VFX often taking care of their once-famous physiques. These trends originate from society’s age-old belief that one is supposed to behave a certain way after a certain age. For sure, things are changing, which is why rare attempts like Vishwanath & Sons, with a major star like Suriya looking and playing his age, are welcome. Is Venky Atluri’s film the game-changer we need in 2026?

Bollywood doesn’t do solo Muslim male leads. In fact, it is both an ironic reality and an unspoken convention when the industry forces its pioneering Khan triumvirate to play upper-caste Hindus. Unless, of course, you have them as gangsters (Raees), terrorists (Fanaa), terrorism victims (My Name Is Khan), or a rare Mughal emperor (Jodhaa Akbar). Therefore, getting a superstar of Sunny Deol’s stature to play a compassionate Muslim hero in Batwara 1947 is a mini-revolution like Coolie and Sultan. Rajkumar Santoshi’s film is surprisingly well-timed in a society that still thrives on religious hatred, the seeds of which were sown decades ago, damaging India’s vibrant social fabric to a state of no repair.

Loyalty is an endangered sentiment. Even for the most committed non-vegetarians, dogs and cats occupy a completely protected tier of affection. The reason is simple: they are companion animals whose existence is closely linked to ours, and dogs, in particular, form strong, family-like attachments. Don’t we always want the absolute best for our family and close friends? In director Amit Rai’s Ohh My Dog, this unwavering, unconditional bond is explored through the framework of a thriller.

“I don’t have a phone. Do you mind taking me home?” At one point in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Zendaya’s MJ makes this request of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. Without batting an eye, our boy leaps out of the window with her confidently clutching his arms, as if it were the most normal thing to ask and receive, like a faster alternative to the Uber she couldn’t call. Maybe for New York dwellers in the Marvel Universe, it is a common sight to see Spidey all over town, strolling around if he isn’t saving them from the constant rain of villains. This is where Destin Daniel Cretton’s film revisits a question that previous Spider-Man films have asked as well: can our superhero be vulnerable, too? Can he grieve his own tragic losses?