Uday Bhatia

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.

Jason Statham isn’t one to go a-wandering. In The Beekeeper (2024), he plays an ex-Marine out to avenge the death of his landlady. In his next film, A Working Man (2025), he’s an ex-Marine who rescues his employers’ kidnapped daughter. In Shelter (2026), he’s an ex-government assassin who protects the daughter of an old friend. And in his latest, Mutiny, he plays an ex-Marine out to avenge the death of his employer. The way you can tell them apart is The Beekeeper has a lot of bee-related puns, A Working Man is written by Sylvester Stallone, Shelter is set in the Scottish Hebrides, and Mutiny takes place on a boat.

Halfway through Batwara 1947, bored out of my mind, I started to wonder how the film might be if instead of Shabana Azmi playing the old homeowner it was Naseeruddin Shah channeling his Ishar Singh from Main Vaapas Aaunga. It’s not that Azmi isn’t effective, just that Mai—a Lahori Hindu who’s lost her family in the tumult of Partition and whose house is allotted to Muslim refugees from India—can only ever be an object of pity. On the other hand, a cranky, rude old timer who resents the Muslims occupying his home… now that might be a challenge to the audience. Rajkumar Santoshi’s film isn’t interested in challenges. It wants to appear bold without actually being bold. It’s adapted from a broad, didactic play by Asghar Wajahat, Jis Lahore Nai Vekhya, O Jamya E Nai, and the film ends up even more of a sermon. Aamir Khan, co-producer with Aparna Purohit, has never stopped lecturing viewers since the 2000s, but at least he usually does his own preaching. Here, confusingly, it’s Sunny Deol, who’s calling for universal brotherhood one minute and horse-whipping a dozen men the next.

Two months into the Kargil War, Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif determines to see with his eyes what his heart already suspects: that they’re losing the battle. At Skardu base, he’s received by Maj Gen Javed Hassan, who invites him to the officer’s mess for a briefing. Sharif fixes with a stare and says, “The truth of democracy is revealed at the polling booth, and the reality of war in the hospital.” The condition of the wounded and general despondency in the hospital tent tells him all he needs to know, prompting a rare act of rebellion and a covert trip to Washington.