Sat, August 2 2025

Sat, August 2 2025

Thu, July 31 2025

Director Gowtam Tinnanuri's 'Kingdom', starring Vijay Deverakonda and Satyadev, is a spy action drama with a reincarnation trope. While the film is visually striking, it lacks emotional depth, especially when it touches on brotherhood and the purpose of life.

A film that hinges on brotherhood and a man’s/woman’s larger purpose in life has to get one aspect right. And, it’s not the scale or the music. It’s the emotion. You need to connect and resonate with the characters on-screen to feel their pain and joy. However mediocre the story might be, if the emotion connects, the film lands! Director Gowtam Tinnanuri’s ‘Kingdom’ promised to be a story of brotherhood, a spy thriller and a lot more. Has it cracked the magic formula? Let’s find out! ‘Kingdom’ begins in the 1920s, with a tribe called Divi fighting against the British. The tribe fails in the fight with the hope that a saviour will arrive to put off their worries. 70 years later, we see Suri (Vijay Deverakonda), a constable searching for his elder brother Siva (Satyadev). Siva fled after killing their abusive father and ran away from home. His attempts to find Siva land him in a covert mission.

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Fri, August 1 2025

Wed, July 30 2025

In Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, Bollywood after long has newcomers who, in their very first film, have made a solid case that they have the thespian chops to shine on

It took two twenty-something newcomers to cause ripples at the box-office. The Ajay Devgn-led Son of Sardaar 2 pushed its release date. And those awaiting releases in August know they have a force to reckon with in Saiyaara. So, what’s about the intense musical romance that audiences cannot get enough of and are reacting to in a rather dramatic fashion? IV drip? Copious tears? All this despite a happy ending. Here are five reasons why director Mohit Suri and writer Sankalp Sadanah have crafter a winner. Saiyaara’s soundtrack has one earworm after another, with the title track particularly hitting all the right loving notes. Rendered by Kashmir’s indie artist Faheem Abdullah, this is Gen Z and Alpha’s “Tum Hi Ho” moment, a track which is likely to dominate the airwaves and streaming apps for a few years, like “Kesariya” did.

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Wed, July 23 2025

Mon, July 21 2025

Tue, July 29 2025

Co-produced by Karan Johar, Sarzameen feels like it was butchered beyond recognition on the editing table. The final film accidentally gets you to root for a terrorist, played by Ibrahim Ali Khan, to kill his father, a soldier played by Prithviraj Sukumaran.

In Sarzameen, a stern military man allows his only son to be murdered by terrorists in Kashmir because… nation comes first or something. You often hear about parents who proudly declare that they are willing to sacrifice their children for the country, and perhaps Prithviraj Sukumaran’s Vijay Menon is cut from the same cloth as those folks. The only difference is that his son isn’t a soldier on the front-lines, but a child for whom he feels no love. Played by Ibrahim Ali Khan, the child’s name is Harman, and the only reason his father hates him is that he isn’t like the other boys; he’s timid, he can’t play sports, and he speaks with a stutter.

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Mon, July 28 2025

Every frame of Sarzameen is dunked in staleness, and the dialogues are woefully clunky. Kayoze Irani’s filmmaking is worryingly absent: there's no staging, no build-up, no arc, no inspired casting.

Kayoze Irani’s Sarzameen, comes in the long line of films that sacrifice a decent idea at the altar of inept filmmaking. It is one of those political films that props itself up to make a statement but lacks both the spine and the bite to articulate its politics. Kannan Iyer’s Ae Watan Mere Watan (2024) is a recent example, also backed by Dharma Productions, where the voice of the maker got lost in the chaos of commentary. But if Sarzameen is to be believed, Irani has no voice. This, of course, is not wholly true. Before directing his feature debut, Irani helmed one of the better shorts in the uneven Netflix anthology Ajeeb Daastaans (2021). There was genuine sensitivity on display even when aided by a persuasive cast. Four years since, nothing of that remains. Sarzameen could have been directed by a tree, and I still wouldn’t be surprised. Every frame of the film is dunked in staleness, and the dialogues are woefully clunky, like an AI is talking to another AI.

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Sun, July 27 2025

An upright army officer Vijay Menon, while being a caring husband to Meher, struggles to raise his son, Harman with the same compassion. When Vijay nabs two suspects in his pursuit of a terrorist, Mohsin, his son Harman is kidnapped. Torn between his motherland and blood, a conflicted Vijay is forced to make a tough choice, one that’s bound to have serious repercussions many years later. Prithviraj Sukumaran, in the shoes of Vijay Menon, is excellent as the stoic, tough father, hardened by circumstances. He infuses life and sincerity into the father-son drama with a tour de force act. The star receives ample support from Kajol, who returns to form in style with a memorable, crucial role, in what is like an antithesis to her part in Fanaa. Both the actors truly shine as performers.

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Tue, July 29 2025

Matt Shakman’s film tells a coherent story which doesn’t need to use the MCU as a crutch for its own muddled telling.

Yes, I’m as surprised as any of you. Marvel’s lacklustre run since Avengers: Endgame (2019) has meant that Kevin Feige has been looking to consolidate for a while. He’s been badgered with constant firefighting that’s been needed since the sudden passing of Chadwick Boseman in 2020 (Black Panther), the abuse allegations against Jonathan Majors, who was playing Kang – supposed to be built up as the next big Marvel villain after Thanos – and the reality-check that Feige got for the female-led films like Black Widow (2020), The Marvels (2023), and a black Captain America (played by Anthony Mackie) – all of which turned out to be disappointments. Coupled with Marvel’s strained relations with director Ryan Coogler, actors Scarlet Johansson, Brie Larson, and the two main draws – Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr sitting out (till RDJ was announced to return as Doctor Doom) – it all looked like the cinematic universe was too scattered. But that seemed to take a new turn with Thunderbolts*, which teased reinvention of the Marvel movies with almost a M Night Shyamalan-esque take on a superhero movie.

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Sun, July 27 2025

The Fantastic Four - First Steps marks the entry of the Fantastic 4 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Their appearance has been hinted in the past, most obviously in the post-credits scene of Thunderbolts*, earlier this year but this is their first full-fledged film and they will be seen again in Avengers: Doomsday, scheduled for 2026.

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Sat, July 26 2025

Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby shine as Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman in Matt Shackman's reboot of The Fantastic Four. The film also paves the way for Avengers: Doomsday well.

There has been enough representation of The Fantastic Four in pop culture. My earliest memory is of the animated series on TV. Of course, there were some underwhelming films too that came out in the early 2000s. In the post-pandemic era, as Marvel tries to reboot and revive its lost glory, The Fantastic Four: First Steps fits well in the larger scheme of things. It takes the audience, new and loyalists included, back in time and narrates the story of Marvel’s first family. It changes some of our earlier perceptions of the four superheroes from Earth 828, adds certain new elements, and makes it a formidable franchise that hopefully will see more films in the future. Does it make for a thrilling ride, though? Let’s find out.

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Tue, July 29 2025

The bad boy golfer played by Adam Sandler returns nearly three decades later to save the sport of golf in the sequel that rewards fans of the original.

Adam Sandler has made it no secret that he enjoys working with his friends and family. His latest film, Happy Gilmore 2, is stuffed to the gills with cameos and friends of the actor. His wife, Jackie Sandler, and daughters, Sadie and Sunny, also have roles in the comedy sequel. The original, directed by Dennis Dugan, came out in 1996, and the sequel attempts a bit of maturity. Sandler’s Happy is now the one trying to save the traditions of the sport he picked up on a whim. However, the film begins on a downer from which it never recovers. The sequel becomes a much darker comedy as Happy is now a widower raising four strapping young men and a daughter, Vienna (Sunny Sandler). His old rival Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald) is in a mental asylum, and an upstart millionaire named Frank Manatee (Benny Safdie) wants to start a rival golf league that goes against all the rules. Happy is now a depressed alcoholic and wouldn’t give Frank the time of day, except he really needs the money for Vienna’s dance school fees. Can he turn it around in a winner-takes-it-all tournament to save the sport?

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Sun, July 27 2025

हरियाणवी सिनेमा का स्थापित नाम हैं संदीप शर्मा। अक्सर वह हिन्दी फिल्मों में भी दिख जाते हैं। अब वह अपनी ही लिखी कहानी पर यह हरियाणवी फिल्म ‘रंगीली’ लेकर आए हैं जो हरियाणवी कंटैंट के लोकप्रिय ओ.टी.टी. मंच ‘स्टेज’ पर रिलीज़ हुई है। हरियाणवी सिनेमा में हाल के बरसों में जो अच्छा कंटैंट आने लगा है उसके पीछे स्टेज जैसे ऐप का बड़ा हाथ है। यह फिल्म भी उसी अच्छे कंटैंट की एक मिसाल है। यह कहानी है एक विधुर पिता और उसके दो जवान बेटों की जो मेहनत-मज़दूरी करके अपना पेट पालते हैं। एक लड़की को बलात्कारी से बचाते हुए दोनों बेटे अंधे हो जाते हैं। लेकिन न तो पिता हार मानता है और न ही बेटे। एक-दूसरे का सहारा बन कर ये लोग अपनी ज़िंदगी के अंधेरे को रंगीनी में बदलते हैं। संदीप शर्मा की लिखी कथा, पटकथा अच्छी है जिसमें मुश्किल वक्त में हिम्मत न हारने की सीख तो है ही, पिता और बेटों के आपसी प्यार का भी गहराई से चित्रण किया गया है। संदीप व वी.एम. बेचैन के के लिखे संवाद सटीक हैं और फिल्म को दिलचस्प व गाढ़ा बनाते हैं। फिल्म का अंत थोड़ा जल्दबाजी में बुना गया लगता है। क्लाइमैक्स को साध कर इस फिल्म को और अधिक असरदार बनाया जा सकता था।

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Sun, July 27 2025

Fri, July 25 2025

Not a single person in Bollywood would've had the patience or the palate for the extended epilogue in writer-director Shahi Kabir's Ronth, starring Dileesh Pothan and Roshan Mathew.

In a recent interview, Arshad Warsi — the star of Dhamaal, Krazzy 4, and Golmaal: Fun Unlimited — ate a bunch of yakitori and decided that he must take pot-shots at Satyajit Ray. Mocking the sort of movies in which characters spend 15 minutes walking up a staircase, Warsi joked that they could simply announce the characters’ arrival at his or her destination, and save precious time. He’d probably hate the new Malayalam-language film Ronth, a slow-burn thriller if there ever was one. The movie understands a key aspect of storytelling: sometimes, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the 15-minute journey up a flight of stairs.

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Sat, June 14 2025

Shahi Kabir's 'Ronth' is a film that stands on its own for the complexity of its inter-personal relationships and the achingly depressing take on what it’s like to be a young police officer today.

During certain passages in Shahi Kabir’s Ronth , we do not feel like we’re watching the story of two separate police officers, played by Roshan Mathew and Dilesh Pothan. Instead, the sparks in Shahi Kabir’s writing give us the feeling that we’re watching one person on two opposite ends of a character arc with each character representing a before and an after scenario of what serving in the police force can do to you. On one end of this arc is Roshan’s Dinnath, a junior officer at the Dharamshala police station in Idukki, still naive and open-eyed about the kind of upright police officer he wants to be. On the other is his senior Yohannan (Dileesh Pothan), decades into his service and closer in form to the pot-bellied police officer we’re used to seeing in real life. ohannan appears to be far more practical and real, almost to a fault. At one point, we see him taking money from a priest after an accident. Yohannan figures by going close to the priest that the latter’s had a glass of wine, but instead of letting him go easy, Yohannan asks the priest to cough up a certain an amount of money. Yohannan is quick to clarify that this amount is not a bribe. He explains to Dinnath about the money he needs to pay the garage for fixing up their police jeep and how difficult it is to be able to get a refund from the police department. When Yohannan ends up giving us his side of the story, we needn’t fully agree with his point, but we understand where he’s coming from.

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Sun, July 27 2025

It’s not just the film’s dated making and clunky dialogues that give you the feeling of watching a 30-year-old movie. It’s by design that it wants to take you back to a time when Suresh Gopi was a legit superstar

Five minutes into Pravin Narayanan’s controversial Janaki V Vs State Of Kerala and there’s no escaping the strong feeling of déjà vu the film wants you to experience. It begins with the shot of a bishop entering the office of a hot-shot lawyer named David Abel Donovan (Suresh Gopi) and you’re thinking of a character from Lelam. A scene later, we’re drawn into a protest sequence and the sight of an old man getting crushed by the mob and immediately, Kuthiravattom Pappu from The King comes to mind. The sequence and the phone call that sets off the mob is something we’ve seen in several films before, but The Commissioner comes close, and strangely, the film’s ending gets you to recall The Truth. All of these films belong in the ’90s and so does most of Janaki V Vs State Of Kerala. But it’s not just the dated making and clunky dialogues that give you the feeling of watching a 30-year-old movie. It’s almost by design that the film wants to take you back to a time when Suresh Gopi was a legit superstar (the movie begins with a title card stating the same). Just like how the makers of Gopi’s Kaaval tried to milk the ’90s nostalgia by even setting the film in that particular period, Janaki V Vs State Of Kerala too wants you to dig deep and go back to a phase when a bombastic dialogue delivered in affected English was enough to deliver the big goosebumps moment.

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Sat, July 19 2025

Fails to deliver shock value and drama. Suresh Gopi's larger-than-life persona clashes with the realistic setting, resulting in a convoluted screenplay.

Abel Donovan (Suresh Gopi) asks the victim of a brutal sexual assault, Janaki V (Anupama Parameswaran), “Do you watch porn?" Almost everyone in the court and in the theatre is supposed to be shocked by that question, which seems to be the point of it. The idea here is to invoke a similar dramatic intrigue as in a scene from Pink, where Deepak Sehgal (Amitabh Bachchan) asks Minal Arora, “Are you a virgin?" The question in Pink is justified, as Deepak intends to bring about the irrelevance of it in the context of consent. However, here the scene is exactly for all the wrong reasons. Debutant director Pravin Narayanath, who has also written the film, has intended to create an enigmatic protagonist and a sense of shock value by having a protagonist saving the wrong person in Janaki V Vs State Of Kerala. To put it more precisely, David Abel Donovan is the Devil’s advocate, literally! While it sounds like a brilliant idea, the film fails to bring it to fruition.

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Fri, July 18 2025

The Suresh Gopi starrer, ‘Janaki V Vs State of Kerala, is caught between the need to tell a sensitive story and projecting the superhero aura of its lead actor, who plays an advocate

Nothing enlivens courtroom dramas than fiery arguments, which open new pathways into our understanding of a case. In Janaki V Vs State of Kerala, celebrated advocate David Abel Donovan (Suresh Gopi)‘s arguments are full of fire. Still, a significant portion of them are so irrelevant that they would fit more in a loud television debate than in a courtroom. He is the kind of person who would talk about cheese when he is supposed to argue about chalk. So, it is no wonder that he would go on a long diatribe against the State’s developmental projects when he is arguing in court in a case related to sexual assault, or that he would ask a rape victim whether she watches porn and how often. The opening credit sequences of the film hint at this behaviour with news clippings of his various press statements on a host of issues, all of which reveal a lawyer who is more active outside the court than inside. Janaki V Vs State of Kerala, which arrives in theatres with an extra ‘V’ thanks to the diktats of the censors, is caught between the need to tell a sensitive story and projecting the superhero aura of the actor playing the advocate. Debutant director Praveen Narayanan, who has also written the film, struggles on both counts.

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Sun, July 27 2025

Officer Rea Thomas and a former cop, Vikram Singh, investigate gruesome ritualistic killings marked by mandala symbols. The narrative connects to the 1950s, where a widowed scientist, Nandini, creates a wish-granting device upon a sinister warning from Rukmini. Ultimately, Vikram’s kidnapping for a sacrifice to revive the deity Yast forces Rea to confront her grandmother’s history to stop the deadly ritual. It feels like Vani Kapoor has built a wall around herself while playing Rea; the portrayal is too ordinary, and the character lacks a strong identity to make any impact. Gullak-fame Vaibhav Raj Gupta is decent as Vikram, but there’s nothing remarkable about the role. In an extended cameo, Shriya Pilgaonkar is the show’s most effective performer, who embraces her greys with immense conviction.

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Sat, July 26 2025

Mood, mystery, and message take a long time to align in this tiresome series, featuring an unsure Vaani Kapoor and a tenacious Surveen Chawla

While the tastemakers of Bollywood have shifted their focus to love and romance in the darkness of theatres, they continue to serve slices of the dark ages in the brightness of living rooms. What started as an avenue for experimentation, OTT content is increasingly becoming predictable and phoney. With self-censorship limiting the options for subversion, long-form content with decorative layers is becoming tiresome to watch. The latest is Yash Raj Entertainment’s largely incoherent iteration of a cult’s commitment to recreate its god out of the flesh and blood of a select group of residents in the quaint area. Someone’s murder is someone’s sacrifice. Someone’s god is someone’s demon. We get the gist, but the mood, mystery, and message take a long time to align. Created by Gopi Puthran, who, having made the chilling Mardani universe, knows more than a thing or two about telling stories of women surviving a violent, patriarchal world. Here, he puts them at the centre of conflict, but the chill feels cosmetic.

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Sat, July 26 2025

The eight-episode series, starring Vaani Kapoor and Vaibhav Raj Gupta, is original to a fault

Like Khauf, Black White & Grey — Love Kills, and Black Warrant earlier this year, Mandala Murders is the kind of Hindi fiction that wouldn’t exist if not for streaming platforms. It isn’t short of ambition or scale; it’s original; it’s conceived with the rules, reach, world-building and timelines of a fantasy novel. The template of two haunted cops investigating a pattern of ritualistic murders in a mysterious town becomes a generational saga of a secret female-led cult, black magic, the fusion of science and divinity, a machine that ingests human thumbs to grant miracles, comatose girlfriends, shadow worshippers, a political rivalry, a ninja-styled and mythical killer, a Frankenstein’s-Monster-coded mission, and a lot more. In fact, 8 episodes later, I’d be hard-pressed to distil the premise into a coherent logline. When one character tells another late in the show that “the answers you seek are beyond your understanding,” I could only nod in vehement agreement. To be fair, it does this without making us feel thick.

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Sun, July 27 2025

Adarsh, a journalist and the founder of a struggling newspaper, is shocked to discover his wife Naina’s sex tape with a male escort Sunny. In a vain bid for revenge, Adarsh resorts to Sunny’s help to turn a gigolo himself. While Adarsh surprisingly finds himself at home in an alien territory, at the cost of his professional career, Sunny’s life falls apart gradually. Vineet Kumar Singh, embracing newer challenges at every given opportunity, shines yet again in Rangeen, continuing his dream run in 2025 after impressive performances in Superboys of Malegoan and Jaat. As an average man, unaware of his casual misogyny and learns of his problems with time, the actor charts Adarsh’s evolution in the show with depth and confidence.

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Sat, July 26 2025

The absent-minded nine-episode series, starring the likes of Vineet Kumar Singh and Rajshri Deshpande, revolves around a journalist who becomes a gigolo

Imagine a group of strangers launching a Sunday book club. They begin enthusiastically — discovering each other’s tastes, comfort levels, sense of humour, personality and general vibe. Sometimes, they do drinks later and tease each other’s choices (“Sally Rooney? You’re such a hipster”). The possibilities are endless. Then one of them misses a Sunday; the balance is off. Two more drop out the next week. The plan-maker is gone soon. The energy fades. The discussions morph into dull rambles; sometimes, sentences and thoughts start only to get lost along the way. Finally, two members remain; one of them quotes J.K. Rowling. They sit in silence and scroll through their phones until their cabs arrive. They search for a “books to hold performatively in public spaces” list. Rangeen is this book club — united by passion, dismantled by time. The nine-episode series starts with hope. A talented crew, led by Vineet Kumar Singh (in pre-Chhaava mode) and Rajshri Deshpande (Trial by Fire); even Mismatched star Taaruk Raina isn’t miscast like he was in The Waking of A Nation. A solid setup: a self-righteous Hindi scribe named Adarsh (Singh) catches his wife Naina (Deshpande) with a young gigolo (Raina, as Sunny), and their marriage breaks down. The series more or less opens with this incident, so one is left to trace the language of their companionship through their conflict — no happy flashbacks, no spoon-feeding, just resentment and bad decisions and silence.

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Sun, July 27 2025

Of the many films that affect both the heart and the head, 'Bun Butter Jam' is a cringe classic that affects your tummy, the same way you feel when you take a sip of milk that went stale over two months ago

Can watching a film ever make you nauseous? Director Raghav Mirdath’s Bun Butter Jam seems to be a philosophical exploration of this one question. Why else would the director of a light rom-com want to zoom in so closely on the shot of a man clipping his nails? Or the reason why so many scenes are set in the toilet, including one that has the hero talk to a friend while holding a used toilet brush? Or the strange ways in which the film keeps trying to crack the same double-meaning joke by using unending shots of a tissue box and what the hero needs it for at night? or a film titled Bun Butter Jam, it’s impossible to explain just how unappetising all of this can be. It’s a seemingly simple plot about two old friends who decide to live next to each other with the hope of getting both their kids to fall for each other. Hence the caption, “An arranged love marriage” in the film’s title. Yet the performances, the jokes and the plot points are so stale and predictable that you can write down exactly what’s going to happen on a piece of tissue, i.e if the film’s hero decides to spare one.

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