Uday Bhatia

In the run-up to Digger’s release, a stray theory caught on that Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film might be a stealth musical. It was a sizeable enough rumour that the studio actually issued a disclaimer that it wasn’t. I was reminded of this at the end of an elaborate sequence, the centrepiece of the film in many ways, in which oil tycoon Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) is addressing a European Parliament of sorts. He starts off conciliatory and ends up combative, enraging his audience to the point that they stop yelling and start singing “blah blah blah blah blah”.

Subbu (Sananth) has just escaped the irate brother of the woman who was comforting him after a loss. Something compels him to seek out the hulking brute and explain that he has no romantic designs on his sister. This goes down badly, and soon Subbu, in an open field, is fighting for his life. His best friend, Karthi (Rishikanth), joins in, just about evening the odds. it’s a strange fight: stop-start, lots of long and overhead shots, action at the edges of the screen or outside it. Though the younger men keep launching into flying kicks, neither they nor their opponent really know how to fight, so the whole thing has a clumsiness that belies the increasing stakes. At one point, a dung beetle carefully rolling a ball is foregrounded, and the silly, deadly fight becomes a blur in the back.

A young woman and her parents are at a police station. They’re trying to file a complaint, but the officer they’re speaking to is distracted. Another cop comes by with a box of sweets, says they’re from Saburi, that Baapji makes them with his own hands. The family are offered these as well; the daughter is uncomfortable but is told it’s aashirvaad. She tells the officer again that she wants to report a crime done to her. Badsaluki, she says first, then corrects that to zabardasti. The perpetrator is Baapji. There’s a temple bell, a cry of ‘Baapji ki jai’, and we go into the opening credits.

Daayra opens with a city in celebration. It looks like a festival—the streets are teeming, sweets are distributed, fireworks set off. Eventually, the hero of the hour arrives: DCP Raman Kumar (Prithviraj Sukumaran), who led the team that shot and killed four men accused of rape. Officially, it was in self-defense, but no one, not the cops or the revelers, pretends it’s anything but an encounter killing. Meghna Gulzar’s film is loosely based on the 2019 Hyderabad rape case, in which the accused were killed in police custody and the cops widely praised afterwards. It offers the illusion of balance, but its heart is with the celebrating public. A week after the deaths, DCP Ajooni Kohli (Kareena Kapoor Khan) of the Special Investigative Team is tasked with looking into the case after human rights activists raise concerns. In contrast to Raman’s heroic introduction, we first meet Ajooni conducting a comic sting operation on an avocado-desiring inmate—a small clue to how the film sees their respective roles.

At the start of Haiwaan, Shyam (Saif Ali Khan) boards a ferry, teases a man who owes him money, sings and plays guitar. If it wasn’t for his dark glasses and cane, it would be hard to tell he’s blind—indeed, it’s a running conspiracy theory through Priyadarshan’s film that he’s only pretending he can’t see. Shyam has heightened senses of sound, touch, taste and smell, which provide him an uncanny mental picture of the world around him. But when his sister tearfully asks for his blessings, he responds after a few seconds and doesn’t realise that she’s left. He’s left patting the air around him while violins play sadly on the soundtrack.

‘Illey Illa’, the first song in Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, has a line that translates to “your novenas have finally come true”. The word was unfamiliar to me—I later found it’s a Catholic term for prayers offered for nine successive days, or weeks. It’s one little detail among dozens in the series of vignettes that make up the musical sequence: a busload of passengers held up by a short film shoot; a bowler running out a wandering non-striker, resulting in a brawl; father and son cooking pork curry; a young woman, friendless in a new town, watching her farewell video on her phone at bedtime; a grown man proudly clutching stuffed toys won from a claw machine.

A young woman is visiting her in-laws for the first time. She’s eager to impress them. She cooks, cleans, runs the house. She’s hurt by their jibes but tries not to show it. Her husband is mild-mannered but thin-skinned; she has to apologise for pulling his leg. Their lovemaking is awkward. She puts her interests on hold, but it isn’t enough. Slowly, she comes to a boil. She’s played by Nimisha Sajayan. The film is The Great Indian Kitchen. Or is it Babita Singh Reporting? It’s a little strange to watch Sajayan, one of the best actors in India today, undergo similar trials and humiliations to ones she endured five years ago, in her most celebrated role. Ambiecka Pandit’s Hindi film is a world removed from Jeo Baby’s Malayalam drama. But Sajayan’s Babita is a close cousin to her unnamed wife in that film, a silent sufferer until all the silence is wrung out of her.

“I was hoping to have a civilised conversation,” says Melissa (Rukmini Vasanth) to the naked glowering gangster. Raya (Yash) glances down deliberately, then looks up and says, “Do I look civilised to you?” She pulls open her dress to reveal a bomb strapped to her chest, says she wants revenge for her father, who was ruined by Raya’s casino. He sets off the timer and propositions her while she panics. At the last moment, he flings the explosive out the window. Next thing you know, she’s threatening his ‘regular’ and calling herself his ‘permanent’. Toxic is thin as paper and empty like a broken promise. Not since Animal has a film tried this hard to get a rise out of the audience. But Sandeep Reddy Vanga at least knows his entire purpose is juvenile baiting. Try as she might, Geetu Mohandas doesn’t have that innate nastiness. The transgressions she offers are ridiculous but not shocking—a distinction the film itself makes when Nadia (Kiara Advani) tells Raya he’s not a bad guy, just toxic.