Wed, April 2 2025

Mon, March 31 2025

The film goes far in showing Gujarat-like 2002 communal horrors, which is more than any other film has done.

A few days before the release of L2: Empuraan, actor/director Prithviraj Sukumaran was asked in a press conference about how Malayalam films banked on content for their acclaim/success, and if his film would follow suit. Given that the film was a sequel to the 2019 hit Lucifer, Mohanlal’s bid for a globe-trotting, convoluted spy thriller fused with a homegrown tale of political succession, the condescending tone of the question addressing the sequel wasn’t entirely unreasonable. And thus, Sukumaran stepped in to say it was still ‘content’ that had dictated the making of L2; only the content was expensive to shoot. When I saw this clip two days before the film’s release, I fobbed it aside as another one of those empty promises made during a marketing campaign. But only two days later, I found out that the film was being targetted by right-wing forces. This is going to be a challenging review to write because L2: Empuraan is barely a competent film. Inheriting the vague world-building of the first film, Sukumaran’s film is everywhere and nowhere. One of the two primary plotlines takes place in Kerala around its local politics, while the other takes place between Senegal, London, Iraq and Berlin.

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Sat, March 29 2025

Empuraan, the sequel to the 2019 Malayalam film Lucifer, is a high-budget, globe-trotting actioner reminiscent of productions from YRF or the Tamil and Telugu film industry. The success of its predecessor has elevated the scale and ambition of this installment. However, with such ambition often comes the risk of overlooking essential elements in favor of a grander vision. In this instance, the screenplay suffers due to an emphasis on extravagant action, where style frequently overshadows substance. At nearly three hours in length, the film initially packs in a great deal of content but later tends to meander. Prithviraj, who has transitioned from actor to director, possesses the vision necessary for a project of this magnitude, yet the foundational material must be robust. The film clearly aims to appeal to mass audiences, featuring slow-motion sequences and other stylistic choices. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, it occasionally aspires to get serious,, and the fusion of these elements does not always produce the desired effect. It is helpful to recall key details from Lucifer, which was released five years ago. The narrative reintroduces international crime syndicates and the underworld, with Khureshi (Mohanlal) returning to the fray. Regrettably, the local character Stephen Nedumpally, also portrayed by Mohanlal and central to the action in Lucifer, takes a back seat in this sequel.

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Wed, April 2 2025

Mon, March 24 2025

Sandhya Suri’s superbly performed socio-political drama, which was the United Kingdom’s official entry for the 2025 Oscars, screened at the recent Red Lorry Film Festival

Santosh is two movies. The first is rooted in how Santosh, meaning “contentment” or “happiness”, is traditionally a man’s name. This underdog movie is about Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami), a 28-year-old widow who inherits her late husband’s police job. As a new woman constable, Santosh strives to make a name in the notoriously masculine field of law enforcement. She finds a mentor in Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwar), a veteran cop who has over the years become a symbol of feminism and gender empowerment. Together, they investigate the brutal rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl. Santosh impresses her superiors, transcends her “compassionate appointment” (or bereavement quota) image, reclaims her own identity, and chases the case. This is the film that a specific India believes in: an inspiring coming-of-age story, a narrative of human fortitude, a gritty tale of patriarchy smashing and female agency. Santosh herself believes in it. It’s her against the world. But this is also the film that’s sold to this India. One that’s bereft of complexity, truth, ambiguity and labels. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss — or contentment.

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Mon, November 18 2024

A cracking two-hander between Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar, director Sandhya Suri's crime drama is intent on exposing the audience's biases.

A few years ago, there was an uproar over a scene of sustained violence in director Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit, a period crime drama about a real-life incident that led to the deaths of three young men. The controversial scene unfolded across several uncomfortable minutes, and showed a group of white police officers beat down a lineup of innocent Black men. Bigelow didn’t avert her eyes from the horror, and instead, caught the audience by the scruff of the neck and made them watch. The film’s examination of ingrained racism, police brutality, and the systemic oppression of minorities drew parallels to modern-day America, but it also divided audiences. Director Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, which was screened at the recent Dharamshala International Film Festival, unpacks similar themes, but in the context of contemporary north India. Like Detroit, it pivots on a scene of unrelenting brutality that transforms it from a standard police procedural into something more haunting.

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Tue, April 1 2025

In Delulu Express, Zakir Khan takes the scenic route through memory, melancholy and middle-class life.

Watching Zakir Khan do stand-up comedy is to reckon with the limitations of the art form and the possibilities of it. It is to witness regular observations carry the weight of a punchline and existential thoughts take flight with the lightness of humour. It is to see a man holding the audience in thrall even with his silence. Tathastu in 2022 was a genre-defying set that wrapped thoughts about his parents, concerns about mortality, and filial resentment in humour without punctuating them with gags. His latest Delulu Express does something similar without reiterating the format or style. It is a lighter arrangement imbued with excessive style and multiple characters. On paper it is more chaotic but beats with the same narrative heart that Khan has been honing since Tathastu.

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Fri, March 28 2025

Zakir Khan’s easy-going comedy special, streaming on Prime Video, arrives in a landscape that’s now a warzone.

Watching a Zakir Khan stand-up special is like watching that funny friend from your childhood actually find his true calling. It’s sort of moving, because you know for a fact that none of those friends took their talent seriously. Society simply reduces them to a personality type — the witty guy, the joker, the attention seeker, the mischief monger, the crowd pleaser, the yapper. If anything, they barely recognise it as a talent. Khan’s sets often feel like an authentication of such transient, everyday humour. His languid delivery expands the most ordinary details into mini-narratives of being alive. Which is to say: Zakir Khan isn’t a comedian; he’s a very good storyteller with comic timing. He isn’t really funny; he’s funnily real.

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Sun, March 30 2025

As viewers, it’s never easy to hitch your loyalty to any one character in 'Ponman' in which all the great writing decisions are complemented with equally great performances

Ponman seems like a silly title for the film this turned out to be. The title translates to ‘kingfisher’, but it’s also a play on the phrase ‘pon’ meaning gold and man, because it’s about a man who deals in gold. By the end of the film, though, one might find other reasons to justify this title, but to begin with, you understand that it’s referring to the character played by Basil Joseph, a strange character named PP Ajesh. Going by the term the film uses, he runs what is called a “Madiyil Jewellery”, the kind of mobile jewellery in which the gold, literally, ends up on your lap. I’m not sure if this business is specific to Kollam, where the film is set in, but from my understanding of the trade, Ajesh is a broker who supplies gold to brides right before they get married, expecting to be repaid using the money they earn in the form of gifts during the wedding. It’s a peculiar practice, something many of us will discover as we watch Ponman. It is also ideal as a plot device in a film that talks about dowry, that too within the fascinating Latin Catholic community of the region. So, when we first meet PP Ajesh, he’s supplying 25 sovereigns of gold to a bride named Stefi Graf (Lijimol Jose), a night before she gets married to the “big, mountain-like” Mariyano (Sajin Gopu).

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Sat, March 29 2025

Sat, February 1 2025

The film, starring Basil Joseph, leaves a lot to ponder about resilience, will of the heart, and survival of the bravest, despite being modest in its story and execution.

If one has to go on a quest to find why the Malayalam film industry is consistent with churning out good cinema, the journey will end with the secret alchemy of finding stories from the people. Lijo Joseph’s Angamaly Diaries is about Angamaly. Maheshinte Prathikaram provides a gorgeous landscape of Idukki, and so does Idukki Gold. Manjummel Boys is, well, about the resilience of the boys from Manjummel. Malayalam writers don’t make stories but end up finding them around. Ponman, written by GR Indugopan and Justin Mathew, is yet another story about everyday people in the port city of Kollam. The story, the conflict, and the stake of Ponman are small. But the film leaves one pondering about big things of human resilience, grit, and ethics–typical of good Malayalam cinema. The film’s protagonist PP Ajeesh (Basil Joseph), has a rather unique and risky business called Madiyil Jewelry or Walking Gold. Ajeesh sells gold upfront to families who are struggling to come up with dowry themselves to marry off their daughters. After the wedding, the families pay him off with the gift money. The conflict in Ponman arises when Ajeesh lends 25 sovereign gold to the family of Steffi (Lijo Mol Josse), but her useless brother Bruno (Anandh Manmadhan) and hapless mother only make half the amount to pay back. With Steffi’s husband being a short-fused ruffian from a notorious area of Kollam, Ajeesh ends up in a do-or-die predicament to retrieve his gold.

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Sun, March 30 2025

Rathinam, a desperate smuggler, conceals a diamond in his slipper during a police raid, inadvertently swapping it with Thyagarajan’s. Thyagarajan, a mild-mannered auditor, and his son, Ilango, discover the swap after the funeral but promptly lose the slipper in a series of comical mishaps. The slipper passes through various eccentric characters, each adding their own chaotic element to the search. Singam Puli, the only familiar face in the show packed with newcomers, does what’s expected of him with his trademark dialogue delivery. There’s nothing new that he does with it, though; he easily sleepwalks through it. Vivek Rajgopal needs more time to develop a flair for comedy; he’s sillier than funny here. While Ira Aggarwal looks good, the role provides her hardly anything substantial.

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Sun, March 30 2025

Kisha joins Fair High to find her missing sister, Anara, discovering her connection to the secretive Heartbreak Club (THC). She navigates dangerous games and broken hearts, including her own growing feelings for Tavish. Over time, Kisha deals with THC’s chess-like hierarchy, facing threats and betrayals. She eventually unearths the identities of the King and the Queen, who hold the access to THC’s database. Where will Kisha’s quest to find Anara culminate? Anushka Sen is an apt fit to be the face of the show in terms of her age, appearance and portrayal, delivering a neat performance as a girl who goes all out to find her sister and loses her way. Prit Kamani continues to prove that he’s a talent worth watching out for, playing a college heartthrob and an insecure lover with restraint. In her brief screen time, Priyamvada Kant is equally convincing.

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Sun, March 30 2025

Writer-director Adam Brooks helms this overly sentimental saga about a woman, played by Sofia Carson, sent on a quest by her late mother.

Netflix’s The Life List is designed as a tearjerker but doesn’t really push any exceptional buttons while trying to reach viewers’ emotions. Sofia Carson plays Alex, a young woman either in her late 20s or early 30s who gets her kick in life from her dead mother. Alex supposedly becomes a grownup in the course of the feature; however, it feels as if the film is pushing too hard to make us feel without actually showing us why. The film opens with Alex at a crossroads in life without the job of her dreams, directionless and not serious about her future. After the death of her mother, Elizabeth (Connie Britton), Alex is shocked by the directives in her will. In a move that will remind Bollywood fans of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, her mother sends Alex her teenage bucket list to complete. Upon completion of each one, she receives a video message and moves one step closer towards her inheritance. Reluctantly, Alex agrees but not before arguing with everyone about it, including the handsome young lawyer Brad (Kyle Allen) assigned to handle her mother’s estate.

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Sat, March 29 2025

The biggest problem with the Nithiin, Sreeleela-starrer is that it merely goes through its motions, and ends up as a rather tepid affair.

Robinhood movie review: Director Venky Kudumula loves making films that have a simple premise, a convincing lead, enjoyable songs, and a convoluted narrative seamlessly tied together with a lot of laughs. In his latest, Robinhood, all of these are in place, but with the laughs not enough, and the ambitious narrative not being supported by the writing, Venky’s dreamy house of cards crashes down. Remember Ravi Teja-Surender Reddy’s Kick? The film that was about a do-gooder thief who tries his best to outwit the system and a tough-as-nails cop, and serve the needy by robbing from the rich. The same film was remade in Tamil with Ravi Mohan, Kannada with Upendra, and Hindi with Salman Khan. Did you ever think what would happen if Nithiin starred in the rehash of the 2009 film? No, right? Neither did many others, but Venky had other plans, and he mixes elements of yet another Telugu film that Salman Khan remade in 2011 — Ready.

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Fri, March 28 2025

The Venky Kudumula directorial is a costly reminder of how scale and big names cannot salvage an underwhelming product

It is one thing to not take yourself too seriously when you are making a comedy and another when the irreverence serves as a mask to camouflage a lazily-written and a casually-executed film. To make up for a shallow plot and the limitations of its leads, the film is desperate to elicit laughs. Apart from Nithiin and Sreeleela, the presence of multiple comedians, actors from at least half a dozen film industries, an in-form composer and a cameo by Australian cricketer David Warner try to salvage a mess. The Telugu film Robinhood, much like its title, leaves little to your imagination. An orphaned protagonist, Ram (Nithiin), takes inspiration from a school pledge to claim that the entire country is his family. In his childhood, he uses this excuse to rob the rich and helps run orphanages that are starved of funds (which is reminiscent of the Ravi Teja-starrer Kick). It is amusing that it takes the cops over a decade to focus on this case and nab the culprit.

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Sat, March 29 2025

The screenplay fails

The mystery thriller is directed by Mimi Cave, who is best known for Flesh, a film focused on body horror. A glimpse of the same can be seen in Holland, but this is more focused on being a mystery thriller for its own characters. The trailer zeros in on the story, and the same narrative is explored during the almost two-hour-long film. Led by Nicole Kidman and Matthew Macfadyen, the film explores the dynamics of a family that looks perfect on the outside but something sinister is going on underneath. The film also stars a young actor Jude Hill and Gael García Bernal as the second love interest for Nicole. It begins with Nicole’s narration as Nancy Vandergroot, a teacher at the local high school where he kid also goes. She is respected around the town as the wife of Fred Vandergroot, a good church going man who is a life-saving doctor. Their kid, Harry, follows every word of his father, who ends up mediating their fights. Their life is perfect and good, but something remains off about Nancy as she gets obsessive and paranoid about little things. First, it is a missing earning which leads to her firing a babysitter and later, it is a receipt she finds in Fred’s pants.

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Fri, March 28 2025

Obtuse, poorly paced, and mildly incoherent, director Mimi Cave's psychological thriller has style to spare, but not enough meat on the bones.

After breaking out with the horror-thriller Fresh a few years ago — this was the movie in which Daisy Edgar-Jones played a young woman on a blind date with a man who turns out to be a cannibal — director Mimi Cave stays firmly in her comfort zone with her sophomore project, this week’s Holland. The cast is bigger, as is the budget and the scale. Fresh was mostly restricted to one large house, where the predatory male protagonist would lure his female prey and then, literally feast on them. An entire suburban town serves as Cave’s playground this time around; and at least one of its citizens is a killer of women. Nicole Kidman plays Nancy, a seemingly mild-mannered woman who works at the local school and dotes on her husband, Fred, played by Matthew Macfadyen. The one-time heartthrob — he played Mr Darcy in 2005’s Pride & Prejudice adaptation — seems to have been typecast as weaselly villains following his memorable performance as Tom Wambsgans in HBO’s Succession. Fred works as an optometrist; he’s the sort of guy that everybody seems to be friendly with, but crucially, not friends with. Nancy becomes suspicious when he starts going on weekly work trips, often using the flimsiest excuses.

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Fri, March 28 2025

Director SU Arun Kumar effectively crafts a complex story about love, loyalty and more that takes place in just one night.

For those who, in the flush of their youth in the early 2000s, in Tamil Nadu, life was coloured by many movies starring Vikram, but most notably Dhill (2001), Gemini (2002), Dhool (2003) and Saamy (2003). He had many hits post those too, but they all demanded so much of him physically — he gained weight, he lost weight, prosthetics were called in — we rarely got to see the performer in him shine without a crutch. We hardly got to see his shy smile or just be part of the universe created by a director, without drawing any attention to himself. Thaandavam (2012) and Mahaan (2022) were rare exceptions. The audience had to wait till 2025 to see vintage Vikram or the people’s much-loved Chiyaan back on the big screen. As Kaali in SU Arun Kumar’s Veera Dheera Sooran: Part 2, Vikram makes time stand still, and you can also see the film as a continuation of the works he greenlit in the 2000s. There’s action - yes, there’s love - yes, there’s sentiment - yes, but there’s also that lovely thing missing in most films — a hero who is part of the ambience, a hero who prefers lurking in the shadows, a hero who shies away from the spotlight. Cinematographer Theni Eswar lights and frames these dark spaces beautifully, considering most of the film takes place at night.

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Fri, March 28 2025

Arun Kumar has risen up to this challenge of making a Vikram film that will appeal to all, and even when he falters, there are a lot of positives

In many ways, Veera Dheera Sooran is director SU Arun Kumar’s version of Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Kaithi. The entire film unfolds during a single night, and builds towards an important event that must take place at sunrise. There is a gang on the run, and hunting them is a police officer with a plan. There is a sense of urgency. There are chases, fights, and violence. And then… there’s a weapon of mass destruction waiting to be unleashed. And yet, Veera Dheera Sooran is as distinct a film as Kaithi. How beautiful is it that similar stories can look and feel so different because of a filmmaker’s style and vision, and of course… the actor’s stardom?

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Fri, March 28 2025

The film doesn’t hold your hand—it drops you straight into a world already in motion. Director SU Arun Kumar uses smart storytelling, understated character moments, and emotional depth to elevate a familiar “man with a past” narrative into something bold and immersive.

‘Enter late and exit early’ is a popular screenwriting mantra that demands a writer start off the scene a bit late, narrowing it down to the important processing of the narrative, and exit before the resolution, leaving the audience wanting more. Director SU Arun Kumar has applied a part of this technique to the whole of Veera Dheera Sooran, which seems like a midpiece of a narrative. Hence, it’s numbered ‘Part 2’, despite being the first segment to get released. When we enter the world of Veera Dheera Sooran, it feels like you opened a novel midway. The characters are already established, and so are the origin of the context, and the motive of the characters. The film doesn’t wait for you to catch up, because it attempts to create a reality, where you are just an observer. It is indifferent to your understanding of what’s going on, and that’s the brilliance of Veera Dheera Sooran. It is more like reading a book than watching a film because it demands your investment. Things kick off when a husband complains to the police that Kannan (Suraj Venjarmoodu), an influential gangster, has done something to his missing wife and daughter. SP Arunagiri (SJ Suryah), who harbours vengeance for Kannan and his father Ravi aka Periyavar (Prudhvi Raj), uses the opportunity to end the two. When things get bad to worse, Periyavar seeks the help of an old friend, Kaali (Vikram), who is now running a provision store in a village. We are never explicitly told about all of their dynamics, but we seem to get it. That’s the splendour of the writing. You understand the characters by their actions, and not by what they say. Kaali is tasked with the job of killing the SP, but things take a different route when a hit job goes haywire.

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Fri, March 28 2025

Netflix's eight-part murder mystery, from prolific producer Shonda Rhimes, wants to march alongside the genre's greats. But a part of it also wants to throw a banana peel in their path.

Embracing the immaturity of a sitcom and the put-on sophistication of prestige TV, Netflix’s The Residence nestles into a comfy stylistic nook that makes more than eight hours of (surprisingly dense) storytelling go by in a flash. The murder mystery show is produced by the prolific Shonda Rhimes but spearheaded by writer Paul William Davies, who injects it with such an infectious sense of fun that you can’t help but play along. At least until the feature-length finale, which strains to deliver the sort of satisfying climax that you’d expect from a show that name-checks The Murder of the Orient Express and Knives Out with such affection. The genre’s ongoing resurgence didn’t, as many have decided, begin with Rian Johnson’s hit. The movie did admittedly well, leaving Netflix with no option but to hurl a reported $100 million at Daniel Craig to lure him back as the smooth-talking detective Benoit Blanc. But a couple of years before Knives Out, however, director Kenneth Branagh reintroduced Agatha Christie’s enduring detective Hercule Poirot to audiences with his largely reverential The Murder of the Orient Express. Believe it or not, the movie was a bigger hit than Knives Out. Branagh made the correct decision to not tinker with the book’s now-legendary climax, having understood that without it, it’s no different from the scores of other murder mysteries that Christie would churn out on a monthly basis.

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Fri, March 28 2025

The ‘MAD’ trio returns in a new setting and the result is a patchy absurd comedy. A few segments bring the house down while the rest fizzles

In late 2023, when director Kalyan Shankar’s campus comedy MAD introduced the audience to the three protagonists after whom the Telugu film takes its name, their antics forged an instant connect with the student community and anyone who wanted to reminisce campus fun. It worked as a Happy Days redux for a new generation, served with large doses of silly but mostly likeable humour. A worthy follow up to a runaway hit is a tough act to pull off. Sangeeth Sobhan, Narne Nithiin and Ram Nithiin return in a new set up, accompanied by Vishnu Oi and Muralidhar Goud. However, the material they are dealing with is like a patchwork of segments. Some generate ample laughs while the others fizzle, even within the framework of absurd comedy. In that sense, MAD Square is no Tillu Square, the other sequel comedy blockbuster from the same production house. The MAD trio — Manoj (Ram Nitin), Ashok (Narne Nithiin) and Damodar aka DD (Sangeeth Sobhan) — has moved on since the campus days but little else has changed. Their post-campus days unfold through a flashback narrated by Ganesh aka Laddu (Vishnu Oi), who is now in prison.

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