Fri, June 27 2025

Created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, the bingeworthy Korean series finally reveals its last chapter and the fate of its beloved characters.

After four years, 22 episodes, and countless character deaths, the most popular Korean series in the world, Squid Game, finally comes to an end on Netflix. Writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk’s deadly saga pitted vulnerable people against one another to win riches beyond their dreams but at a cost that could haunt them forever. Over three seasons, the filmmaker has presented two very different winners of the Squid Game: Hwang In-ho, aka the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), who becomes the host of the games after his victory, and Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), who wants to save as many people as he can from the games. It’s this larger picture of humanity and morality that is explored in the third and final season that answers the question, what remains in the end, greed or integrity?

Continue reading …

Thu, June 26 2025

The critically acclaimed hit dramedy and Emmy winner The Bear is back for a fourth season that sees its characters talk out their issues.

After focusing Season 3 on the opening and running of their new restaurant, The Bear returns to the characters we love so much in its fourth season. The FX and Hulu series, streaming on JioHotstar, returns with Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), and Ritchie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) working to get their financial losses in order while staring down a possible closure of the restaurant in their future. However, if last season was about chaos, this season is all about growth. The culinary series, created by Christopher Storer, also addresses the show’s future within the narrative. Spoilers ahead for narrative plots! While the craziness of Season 3 has been dialled down, Season 4 of The Bear looks at the grim realities of running a restaurant. The Bear’s sandwich shop window never slows down, but the main high-end restaurant sees some roadblocks. There’s a literal running clock, showing how much money the establishment has until it needs to shut down without solid profits. Apart from the culinary obstacles, each character faces a crisis of faith. There’s a family wedding, a health scare, and a baby to welcome. But most importantly, all of the characters actually talk to each other about problems they’ve hidden deep all this time.

Continue reading …

Thu, June 26 2025

It's a bit calm, like before the storm

The makers have returned with another season explores the culinary world through the restaurant and its highly talented staff. The show has been around for three seasons and always give at least 3-4 perfect episodes per season. Can the same be said for this one? Yes. Season 4 takes a little while to kick off but it does. And when it does there is so much more to look for. The new episodes begins right after season 3 as they begin to feel the wrath of a countdown which could decide the future of the restaurant. After finding out about uncle’s diminishing finances, a running clock is added to the restaurant as a reminder how they need to win a star or break even in 4000 hours. However, to do that Carmen and others have to first get through layers of emotional, their own and others. With a wedding and a new baby in the mist, the family drama also continues the influences the decisions in the kitchen.

Continue reading …

Thu, June 26 2025

In an opening flashback, Carmen aka Carmy — played by the irrepressible Jeremy Allen White — is seen telling his late brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal) about his vision for a restaurant. He says: “We could make it calm, we could make it delicious, we could play good music, people would want to come in there and celebrate… we could make people happy.” Carmy’s recipe for a winner of a restaurant pretty much sums up what The Bear has meant to us over the last three seasons — a series, that true to its audacious and intense DNA, throws its players into the frying pan of adversity, but the fact that they come up trumps at the end, is inspiring. In short, it is an uplifting experience. The Bear has always “made people happy”. Season 4 of the much-loved and highly feted series is now streaming on JioHotstar, and it hits the ground running, taking off from where the third season had ended. The reason could possibly be that they were shot back-to-back. It is a more confident and calmer season than its immediate predecessor, though the 20-episode arc across the two seasons — with a ‘to be continued’ thrown in — means that they are essentially two sides of the same coin.

Continue reading …

Wed, June 25 2025

Unlike so many other Bollywood films, the Emraan Hashmi-starrer Ground Zero paints Kashmir as a land and Kashmiris as a people not to be tamed, but to be won over — with kindness, compassion, and bravery. This is commendable.

“There is no such thing as an antiwar film,” the French New Wave icon Francois Truffaut famously declared once upon a time. It was almost as if he’d secretly been yanked into the future and made to attend a ‘special screening’ of Uri: The Surgical Strike at PVR Juhu. It is, indeed, irresponsible for any movie to glorify war, and Truffaut was of the opinion that this isn’t a supposition, but an inevitability. He wasn’t entirely correct, of course. There have been several great antiwar films over the years, and we’ll discuss some of them here. But what about Indian movies? The recent film Ground Zero, which was released on Prime Video following a theatrical run that was unfortunately affected by the Pahalgam terror attack, appears to be aware of these concerns. But it chooses to ignore them when it matters the most.

Continue reading …

Sun, April 27 2025

Ground Zero is an action thriller about Indian Armed Forces’ hunt to eliminate the dreaded terrorist Ghazi Baba. Ghazi was responsible for not only ending dozens of innocent lives, but he also masterminded the outrageous terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001 that left multiple security personnel dead. Let’s dive into the ending of Ground Zero, which is explained here, its plot, cast, release date, and more. The movie stars Emraan Hashmi as a Border Security Force (BSF) officer Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey. A real person, Dubey was the man who led an anti-terror operation against Ghazi. The said operation ended with Ghazi and his associates’ deaths but also casualties on the BSF side.

Continue reading …

Sat, April 26 2025

‘Ground Zero’ is sober and sympathetic to a degree. But its view of Kashmir is ultimately blinkered and reductive

Narendra Dubey (Emraan Hashmi) is getting his daughter ready for school. She’s reluctant to go; the ‘gun waale bhaiyya’ on the bus is scary, she says. Who would you rather have on the bus, her father asks with a smile. Santa Claus, the girl immediately replies. Later, when Narendra, the BSF’s top man in Srinagar, is asked why he risks his life, he says he hopes to fulfil this wish of his daughter’s. Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar’s Ground Zero opens its eyes—but only a little. It recognises that a child heading out every day with an armed soldier is scarring. Fair enough. But that girl, young though she is, must have some idea that the gun is there for her protection. Similarly, there must be a child in her class who sees the same guns every day. Even if, in her short life, they haven’t been pointed at her, she must instinctively know that they might be one day. This child Ground Zero doesn’t want to contemplate.

Continue reading …

Mon, June 23 2025

Fri, June 20 2025

Nelson lets go of his strong suit of relationship drama to put on an armour of investigative thriller, and is unable to balance both with the required panache

Tamil cinema often explores the complexities of marriage. From marital discord due to forced marriage to people falling out of love, and hoping the other one falls into love, we have seen various facets of marital life be explored in our films. And when director Nelson Venkatesan introduces a distraught Anand (Atharvaa) and a chirpy but disturbed Divya (Nimisha Sajayan) in his latest film, DNA, the stage was set for yet another exploration of two random people deciding to live their lives together. This is a space Nelson has excelled in, right from his debut film, Oru Naal Koothu, which dealt with the idea of marriage. Even in Monster, although the primary story was a man-rodent conflict, it spoke about companionship, empathy, and loneliness. And it was a culmination of all of these themes in his third film, Farhana. However, in DNA, Nelson lets go of his strong suit to put on an armour of investigative drama, and is unable to balance both with the required panache.

Continue reading …

Fri, June 20 2025

Director Nelson Venkatesan's film, starring Atharvaa and Nimisha Sajayan, is a neatly crafted thriller about organised crime. The film boasts enough thrills with a few unwanted detours.

Tamil director Nelson Venkatesan has been in the industry since 2016. Nearly a decade in Kollywood, the filmmaker is just three films old, and all three films have made noise for their themes and filmmaking style. After the underrated ‘Farhana, he returns with his fourth offering, ‘DNA’, starring Atharvaa and Nimisha Sajayan. Anand (Atharvaa) is a brooding alcoholic drifter who is struggling to come to terms with life after a breakup. Divya (Nimisha Sajayan) is a naive woman diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, who often gets branded as paithyam (a derogatory Tamil term for someone with mental illness). One good-for-nothing man deserves a woman with a condition – this is what both families decide as they come together for a marriage of convenience. But, Anand and Divya navigate through this and find love in each other. He is a man who makes life easier for Divya, while she is a woman who lights up his life. When they get pregnant and are all set to step into their lives as new parents, tragedy strikes - Divya finds out that the infant handed over to her is not her child. Anand, who initially doubts Divya, eventually believes her and takes the police’s help to find their missing child.

Continue reading …

Sun, June 22 2025

Fri, June 20 2025

Fri, June 20 2025

Director Sekhar Kammula's 'Kuberaa', starring Dhanush, Nagarjuna and Jim Sarbh, is an intriguing story about power, money and justice. The crime drama grabs your attention right from the get-go, only to have a conventional ending.

Telugu filmmaker Sekhar Kammula’s reputation speaks for itself. With films like ‘Anand’, ‘Godavari’, and ‘Fidaa’, among others, his films are rooted yet progressive at the same time. His films, even after years, make you fall in love with it all over again. His latest offering, ‘Kuberaa’, with a power-packed cast including Dhanush, Nagarjuna, Jim Sarbh and Rashmika Mandanna, is a film that touches upon various topics including power, money, betrayal, humanity and justice. Has he managed to strike gold again? Let’s find out! Neeraj Mitra (Jim Sarbh) is a powerful and ruthless businessman who discovers oil reserves that could support India for the next 15 years. He strikes a deal with the ruling government that would benefit both parties in the long run. To help execute his plan, Neeraj approaches Deepak (Nagarjuna), an honest CBI officer who is in prison due to a false case. Although Deepak initially refuses, he eventually joins forces with Neeraj and his father after much prodding.

Continue reading …

Sat, June 21 2025

The three-part HBO documentary succeeds as both an expose of a shady business and a character study of a charlatan.

Depending on where you live in the world, the first episode of HBO’s new true crime series, The Mortician, will either be scandalous or sloppy. In the 1980s, a man named David Sconce took over his family’s respectable funeral home business, and took it in an altogether macabre direction, all in the name of aggressive expansion. But the sort of shenanigans that he got up to would hardly draw a second glance in India. A lot of what he was convicted of doing would be brushed off as ‘jugaad’ here. In the United States, however — especially the wealthy Pasadena neighbourhood where Sconce conducted his activities — a scandal erupted. It was discovered that Sconce was mass-cremating bodies and essentially scooping out ashes from large barrels, and presenting them to the families of the deceased. They had no idea that the urn being given to them contained the remains of several dead people mixed together, and not just their loved one. Sconce said that this was a common practice in funeral homes, and that most businesses would be lying if they pretend that it wasn’t. You could imagine white people getting all hot and bothered about something like this, but in India, where the cost of human life is negligible, it would be more surprising if there was no skullduggery going on.

Continue reading …

Sat, June 21 2025

‘Detective Sherdil’ is an easy watch and Diljit Dosanjh makes it worth your while.

t’s a classic whodunit, says our desi Pink Panther, Detective Sherdil (Diljit Dosanjh). Of course, somewhere in the middle, he turns the phrase to “howdunnit”. Peppered with many red herrings, some dead giveaways too are thrown in. Set almost in comic book fashion, coming from the stable of Ali Abbas Zafar’s production house, ‘Detective Sherdil’ cuts no corners as far as the production design is concerned. Cinematographer Marcin Laskawiec trains his camera not only on the beauteous locales in Budapest, Hungary, but also matches the effervescent atmospherics of the film. Otherwise, the Hindi-English feature has all the regular trappings that come with an Indian murder mystery.

Continue reading …

Fri, June 20 2025

There are enough adept actors in this ensemble, led by Diljit Dosanjh, for us to expect an engaging whodunit. But the treatment is flat, making the characters even flatter.

A billionaire is found dead. It is murder most foul. His will reveals a shocker. His fortune is split between his favourite canine and a complete outsider. Cue, shock and outrage. Enter sharp sleuth Sherdil, and the worms come wriggling out. On the suspects’ list is Pankaj Bhatti’s (Boman Irani) entire family, starting with wife Rajeshwari (Ratna Pathak Shah), son Angad (Sumeet Saigal) and daughter Shanti (Banita Sandhu). The dead man’s driver is also under the scanner, but the family’s ire is directed against Shanti’s boyfriend Poorvak (Arjun Tanwar), a deaf-mute like her, who is the biggest recipient of Bhatti’s generosity.

Continue reading …

Fri, June 20 2025

Fri, June 20 2025

Without any of the hangover of the first season, despite some characters making a reappearance, the second season treads a fresh path, with veteran actors Indrans and Harisree Ashokan delivering what is required of them.

As far as series openings go, Kerala Crime Files 2 takes off from quite a peculiar situation. All the police officers at a particular station have received transfer orders over suspected links with criminals and goons. A new set of police officers, clueless about the place or the criminal activity in the area, have just taken charge. Before they could ease into their new seats, they are forced to launch a search operation for one of their own. The initial piecing together of the complex character of Ambili Raju (Indrans), the missing Civil police officer who was among the transferred bunch, makes up some of the best passages in the six episode-series directed by Ahammed Khabeer, a follow up to the first web series made in Malayalam in 2023. The unassuming officer is the kind of person who is vital to any investigation team, with his wide network of acquaintances and deep knowledge of the place. He has his share of shady links, most of them cultivated for the purpose of his profession, yet he remains unsullied by it all through sheer strength of character.

Continue reading …

Thu, June 19 2025

The Malayalam-language sports comedy film Alappuzha Gymkhana has no stakes, no villain, and no classic structure. This could either have been a bold decision or an act of self-sabotage. It’s somewhere in the middle. We talk about the film’s underdeveloped characters, its over-reliance on flashy camerawork, and its overlong second half. We also discuss its cultural specificity, its zero-stakes narrative, and its refreshing idea of male friendship.

Thu, June 19 2025

Directed by Khalid Rahman, the Malayalam-language sports comedy Alappuzha Gymkhana has no stars, no stakes, and no villain. It should be seen as a blueprint for Bollywood filmmakers looking to go more rooted.

In recent years, several Bollywood big-shots with varying degrees of wealth and intelligence have said that South Indian movies are performing better than their Hindi counterparts because they’re more ‘rooted’. The word has become a part of the lexicon, alongside terms such as ‘elevation scene’ and ‘BGM’. Anurag Kashyap has said it; Javed Akhtar has said it; if they’d asked the women, they’d have said it as well. But what does the word ‘rooted’ even mean? The one movie that perfectly captures all the ingredients that are missing from Hindi cinema these days, the one movie that Bollywood would do well to emulate, is the Malayalam-language sports comedy Alappuzha Gymkhana, which debuted recently on SonyLIV after an excellent theatrical run. It’s as rooted as they come. But the definition of this kind of cinema could vary. While Kashyap thinks that ‘rooted’ cinema refers to stories of the heartland, Akhtar has complained that Hindi filmmakers are losing touch with the language. He forgets that his own children write in English and have their scripts translated. For most Bollywood producers, ‘rooted’ is merely a code word for a very specific kind of big-budget movie; the chauvinistic and bombastic sort of cinema popularised by the Telugu industry and bastardised by the north.

Continue reading …

Sat, June 14 2025

Five friends who fail their 12th-grade exams seek college admission through sports quota (boxing). Led by Jojo Johnson, they join the local Alappuzha Gymkhana boxing school under coach Salim, and later, Antony Joshua. What begins as a casual effort to bide their time evolves into a tale of friendship, self-discovery, and grit as they train and compete in district/state championships. Though Naslen is the most recognisable face in the film, the story wisely avoids overly distracting itself to give him more prominence. It still makes the most of his goofy persona, and the actor fits the role of Jojo perfectly. Lukman Avaran is well-cast as the hot-blooded coach, while Anagha Ravi has a lot of fun in her brief appearance.

Continue reading …

Thu, June 19 2025

Akshay Kumar's Kesari Chapter 2 is oblivious about the irony of professing free speech while actively spreading misinformation.

A few years ago, Karan Johar debuted his Dharmatic Entertainment banner with a Netflix film called Guilty. It remains memorable for two reasons; first, Kiara Advani is terrific in it, and second, it’s perhaps the only time that Bollywood has addressed the #MeToo movement head-on. Guilty, which made solid use of the Rashomon effect, ended with a rather on-the-nose title card about Bollywood having turned a blind eye to the accusations made against some of its most prominent figures. Years later, their alleged crimes are essentially forgotten. Many of the accused continue to work freely, while several of those that raised their voices were quietly outcast. Entirely by accident, Johar’s recent co-production, Kesari Chapter 2, turns out to be an accurate indictment of why, as a system, the industry failed its most vulnerable members.

Continue reading …

Sat, April 19 2025

Advocate Sankaran Nair, a key member of the Viceroy’s Council, remains staunchly loyal to the British Crown in his professional tenure—until the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre changes everything. Branded as terrorists, thousands of innocent civilians are slaughtered in cold blood, shaking Nair to his core. As the truth unfolds, he joins forces with a young advocate, Dilreet Gill, determined to hold the British accountable for what they believe to be an act of genocide. Akshay Kumar has always been a perfect foil for plot-driven sagas that have no space for flabby distractions. In the shoes of Sankaran Nair, the seasoned actor delivers a classy performance – his subtle humour, ease with dialogue delivery help him immensely. Ananya Panday, without doubt, is steadily finding her rhythm as a performer, and her portrayal of Dilreet is a firm indicator of her evolution.

Continue reading …

Sat, April 19 2025

Just last month, filmmaker Ram Madhvani came up with his Sony LIV web series The Waking of a Nation. It was based on the aftermath of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and how General Dyer was dragged to the court for the same. Although it was inspired from C Sankaran Nair’s case that shook the British Empire after the massacre, it was a fictionalized version with a fictitious protagonist. Filmmaker Karan Tyagi’s Kesari Chapter 2: The Untold Truth Of Jallianwala Bagh sees C Sankaran Nair himself fighting the case against the British Empire where he accuses the latter of a planned conspiracy in the form of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre that killed more than a thousand Indians gathered at the site for a peaceful protest. Although Tyagi’s film also uses a lot of fiction, it is more impactful than The Waking of a Nation.

Continue reading …

Thu, June 19 2025

The Survivors, the new six-episode Australian miniseries on Netflix, will remind you of Big Little Lies. People gone missing, secrets held close both in the past and present, deaths hanging over a closed-knit group of residents, and a fresh murder that not only triggers old memories but also reopens an old case. But unlike Big Little Lies, when it comes to crafting a compelling mystery with engaging characters, The Survivors just about passes muster. Based on the eponymously named book by Jane Harper, the action in The Survivors takes place in the fictional Tasmanian town of Evelyn Bay, the hometown of Kieran (Charlie Vickers), that he visits — girlfriend Mia (Yerin Ha) and their infant girl in tow — to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the night of a terrible storm. It was an unfortunate event in which Kieran himself nearly drowned, while his brother and a friend died trying to save him. Memories of that dreadful night — and its aftermath — loom large over Evelyn Bay, with most residents believing that Kieran was to blame. In fact, the young man’s mother Verity (Robyn Malcolm), having lost a son, also holds Kieran responsible for the deaths.

Continue reading …

Wed, June 18 2025

Based on the unfinished novel by Edith Wharton, the romance series returns with more love triangles and plenty more melodrama.

The Apple TV+ period romance The Buccaneers returns after a year and a half for its second season, in which the five young American women plant firmer roots in England. But compared to the events of the premiere season, the women are faced with more obstacles as they assert their identities in the middle of a patriarchal society. Amidst that, the series created by Katherine Jakeways develops into a more vibrant and messier version of itself than Season 1, especially when dealing with its romantic storylines. Set in the 1870s during the Gilded Age, the American women have now married into British society. Nan (Kristine Froseth) becomes one of the most powerful women with the title of Duchess of Tintagel, a position she uses well to shield her sister Jinny (Imogen Waterhouse) against her abusive husband. The rest of the young women, American heiress Conchita (Alisha Boe) and sisters Lizzy (Aubri Ibrag) and Mabel (Josie Totah), have newer mountains to overcome. Nan’s mother, Patti (Christina Hendricks), decides to leave her husband with her sister, Nell (guest star Leighton Meester), by her side. Nan’s mother-in-law, the Dowager Duchess (Amelia Bullmore), also gets a second chance at romance. But not all of these endings are happily-ever-after this season.

Continue reading …