Sat, August 22 2026

After the success of Amar Singh Chamkila, Imtiaz Ali returns with Main Vaapas Aaunga—a film that desperately wants to build a timeless love story, but forgets to make its lead characters believable. We discuss the movie’s sanitised and one-dimensional depiction of Partition trauma, the bizarre inclusion of stand-up comedy monologues, and question Ali’s “political reawakening”. Along the way, we talk about the disastrous casting of lead actor Vedang Raina, how the film treats historical trauma like a Wikipedia checklist, and why Naseeruddin Shah effortlessly outclasses everyone despite being bedridden.

Sun, June 21 2026

Naseeruddin Shah headlines a film about love and loss and longing.

It has been a week since the end credits rolled for Imtiaz Ali’s Main Wapas Aaunga, but the film has been playing non-stop inside my head and heart. It has been peeling itself, layer by layer, to reveal the nuances that might have been missed when you were bawling your heart out for a love lost, and people displaced. This is the second movie this year to pay spiritual homage to Sargodha — the first was Sriram Raghavan’s tender anti-war film Ikkis, about war hero Arul Khetarpal. I confess I saw the movie through the many stories of escape I had heard in my six years (1997-2003) in Delhi, living in Old Rajinder Nagar, one of the colonies the refugees settled in. Many Papajis and Maajis still shed salty tears for their Pind, for the people, potted plants and property they left behind, never to return to. As we knitted on chill winter mornings when the sun played peekaboo, the creases on Maaji’s face softened, and yet another past memory resurfaced.

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Tue, June 16 2026

In the end, Imtiaz Ali, though sometimes full of feeling, seems full of sermonising.

In a scene during Imtiaz Ali’s Main Vaapas Aaunga, when Nirvair (Diljit Dosanjh) takes the stage at an open mic in London, I braced myself. In my head, Ali is notorious for dipping his toes in subcultures he considers ‘hip and trendy’ (like stand-up comedy here, fresco painting in 2009’s Love Aaj Kal) – including them as passing details in a film, never to be brought up again. Over here, it’s used to establish Nirvair as a young wastrel (from a wealthy family in Amritsar) coasting through life. He can’t stick to a job for more than two months, he can’t commit to his girlfriend, Kaveri (Banita Sandhu). His father (Rajat Kapoor) asks, “Why do you keep running?” – a narrative failsafe, lest the metaphor be lost on someone unfamiliar with an escapist Imtiaz Ali protagonist.

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Sat, August 22 2026

Elan, a Dubai returnee who just lost his job, and Pavithra, a corporate employee and popular influencer, fall in love and marry under unusual circumstances. Developing cold feet on the wedding day, she asks Elan to move into her home instead of his. Though initially repulsed by the idea, Elan relocates to Pavithra’s place as a dependent househusband staying at his in-laws’ residence. Elan the actor, for a debut, fares slightly better than Elan the director. He handles comedy with ease, but the script offers minimal room to prove his acting chops. Saanve Meghhana manages to bring some dignity to Pavithra, saddled with a male-centric narrative determined to caricature her.

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Fri, August 21 2026

Elan makes his acting debut with a fun, crisp take on gender reversal. Starring Saanve Megghana, the film raises interesting questions about marriage and equality, but falters with a shallow climax.

Choices and freedom are equally important for men and women in a relationship built on respect, love and true companionship. But here’s the uncomfortable question that lingers: when it comes to marriage, are men and women really given the same freedom to choose their own lives? Or are some choices still reserved for one gender more than the other? Director Elan’s Pyaar Prema Kalyanam toys with this idea and presents some genuinely interesting arguments around role reversal. Elan (Elan) is a reckless young man with little sense of responsibility. After losing the job in Dubai that his strict, conservative father got him, he returns to India with a simple life goal: fall in love and get married.

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Fri, August 21 2026

In its rush to play it safe, while also trying to check all the right boxes, we feel stuck in a tiring game of tug-of-war between people we never feel at home with

Director Elan’s Pyaar Prema Kalyanam could be termed a spiritual sequel to his first film Pyaar Prema Kadhal, a detail the director will not allow you to forget. At the core of it, they’re both films about the chaos that erupts when the families of a couple, decide to force their opinions onto their children. Both of these films also try to analyse a fairly modern (or seemingly progressive) relationship status from a distance, banking on the comedy that erupts when their orthodox family members try to come to terms with it. Pyaar Prema Kadhal, which released in 2018, did this with a couple that decides to enter into a live-in relationship, that too when one of their families live just one street away from them. In Pyaar Prema Kalyanam, Elan takes it one step ahead; the couple here are sure about getting married, but the groom must leave behind his home to move in with the bride and her family.

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Sat, August 22 2026

Sanjay Dutt chews the scenery, and Salman Khan counts his chickens as this Arabic action spectacle loses its vision in translation

What happens when you inject Hollywood blood into the veins of Arabic cinema? A cinematic coup that stakes a claim on cultural soft power. After headline-grabbing football acquisitions, Saudi Arabia seems to be aiming for global box office dominance by mounting a vanity project. Orchestrated by ‘Bad Boys’ Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the Arabic blockbuster, 7 Dogs, lands on our shores in the form of an official Hindi dub.

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Fri, August 21 2026

In a shack nestles Salman Khan as a small-time informer called Johar; in a bigger shack, Sanjay Dutt holds court as flamboyant goon Ranjit. They’re both big draws in the Middle-East, Salman being the bigger one, but their parts are nothing but glorified cameos.

A global cartel called 7 Dogs. A super-strong drug called Pink Lady. Good guys. Bad guys. And a billion-dollar budget. Make that billions. And there’s your Big Arabic Blockbuster, studded with international stars and locations, its India release buoyed by the presence of Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt. I must confess that I went into the movie mostly to see what the two Bollywood superstars would do in a film like this one, whose plot-line resembles countless films they’ve been part of. Clearly, the Belgian-Moroccan director duo of two of the ‘Bad Boys’ capers– as well as a couple of episodes in the enjoyable series ‘Ms Marvel’– are capable of mounting films on scale, creating kinetic set-pieces with a high degree of entertainment.

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Fri, August 21 2026

A cushy budget and a flashy international cast cannot pep up this by-the-numbers action flick shot in Saudi Arabia

A trivia question for the ages: what film has Monica Bellucci, Giancarlo Esposito, Martin Lawrence, Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt in its cast? The answer is 7 Dogs, a Saudi Arabian action thriller by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the directing duo behind the last two Bad Boys movies. The internationalism is more or less the point. Admittedly, there’s always a cheap thrill in watching your favourite faces in a snazzy global production, complete with explosions and gunfights. It’s an old tradition across media. Think of it as the cinematic equivalent of an all-stars charity match — sans the charity.

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Sat, August 22 2026

The Prithviraj Sukumaran film works best when it breaks down the inner workings of a complicated “family business”, even if it feels familiar and comes undone in the last hour.

Director Vysakh has made some of Malayalam cinema’s biggest blockbusters, but he still doesn’t have a clue about how to handle romance. In a fairly straightforward first half hour of the film, you’d expect to understand the Ali family’s hierarchy and criminal legacy; Vysakh forces a “cute” love story between Prithviraj Sukumaran’s Aamir Ali and a girl named Fiza. There’s some background here about Aamir’s ailing grandpa and how he wants to see him get married as his dying wish, but you can smell the fluff from miles away.

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Fri, August 21 2026

Director Vysakh's Khalifa, starring Prithviraj Sukumaran and Neil Nitin Mukesh, is a template masala entertainer that lacks heart and conviction. The film relies heavily on Prithviraj's swag rather than a compelling story.

Prithviraj Sukumaran needs a win, and Khalifa: The Ruler arrives at just the right — or perhaps the most crucial — moment. After Vilayath Buddha and I, Nobody failed to make a mark at the box office, all eyes are now on Vysakh’s action thriller to turn things around. But does Khalifa have what it takes to end Prithviraj’s box-office dry spell? Let’s find out! Khalifa opens with a grand wedding, after which the bride’s brother, Samad, is detained by the police. From there, the narrative unfolds around Aamir Ali (Prithviraj Sukumaran), who has taken refuge in London. With a warrant issued against him for murder and a notorious reputation as a gold smuggler, the film explores the circumstances that led Aamir to this point.

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Thu, August 20 2026

Director Vysakh’s ‘Khalifa’, starring Prithviraj Sukumaran, suffers from an outdated story and a flat narrative, with even a cameo from a superstar failing to make up for its shortcomings

When a star plays a notorious smuggler, there has to be a compelling reason for him to become one. Vysakh’s Khalifa provides Aamir Ali (Prithviraj Sukumaran) a reason with some emotional pull. A one-liner for the film could be this: ‘a heart-rending story of a man who becomes a master gold smuggler to repay his honest father’s debts caused by corrupt politicians’. However, the narrative lacks the intended emotional pull or the expected thrills. The similarity to umpteen films released in the 1980s and 90s adds to the movie’s dullness.

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Sat, August 22 2026

Pathikrit Basu’s biographical drama about Indian revolutionary Ananta Singh uses history as a crutch to give its superstar a free run

It’s easy to process the crushing familiarity of a movie like Keu Bole Biplobi Keu Bole Dakat (“Some call him a Revolutionary, some call him a Dacoit”). Mainstream Indian cinema has long run out of ways to stage populist fiction about swaggering vigilantes meting out their own versions of justice. So storytellers often choose the crutch of nonfiction. For instance, KBBKBD is a big fat superstar vehicle posing as a historical action drama. The figure it’s about — in this case, the controversial revolutionary Ananta Singh — is just a narrative vessel. The framework exists almost entirely so that Bengali superstar Jeet can flex his muscles as a Robin Hood-coded rebel and righteous superhero who fights for the oppressed in a broken system.

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Sat, August 22 2026

The Emergency-era thriller, starring Kay Kay Menon and revolving around the race to weaponise India’s first wireless phone is scattered, strange and disorienting at best

It’s not often you go into a film blind — and come out blinder. But Dial 1975 is that rare Hindi thriller. When you have an intriguing logline like “a gripping race to control India’s first wireless telephone takes place during the Emergency,” it takes some doing to make the furthest possible iteration of it. There were times I had to look up the premise again to make sure I wasn’t watching the wrong film. A semblance of a storyline pops up every now and then, and I can’t be sure, but it’s a pot-of-gold plot featuring an ex-soldier-turned-baddie (Kay Kay Menon), an ex-con-turned-goodie (Pravessh Rana), the goodie’s girlfriend (Kirti Kulhari), a bag full of cash (currency notes), missing tapes, a German guy with the precious invention, and a battle between government loyalists and rebel factions to procure said phone.

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Fri, August 21 2026

Streaming on Waves OTT, directors Navneet Behal and Vibhu Kashyap bring a film seeing a delayed release of almost a decade, but still appears incomplete.

There is a long history of small-budget films that escaped the limitations of finance and showed the world what true innovation really is. Generations of filmmakers have relied on techniques indistinguishable from magic tricks to make up for budgetary constraints. Scores of these movies are now regarded as classics. Dial 1975, which dropped on the OTT platform Waves this week, isn’t one of them. The film features a trio of talented actors and traps them in a production so amateurish that it could be mistaken for a student project. The starting premise is familiar. It’s the Emergency (of the ‘70s) and civil rights have been greatly restricted by the administration of a prime minister, who, however, is never seen or heard in the film. It is up to the prime minister’s loyal aides to ensure that even the mere thought of rebellion is quelled before it can morph into something more damaging.

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Fri, August 21 2026

इस फिल्म ‘डायल 1975’ की कहानी कुछ यूं है कि… यार, मैं न बता रहा कहानी। पूरी फिल्म देख ली, इत्ती लंबी और उलझी हुई कहानी है कि देखने में माथा खराब हो गया, अब बताने में भी होगा। एक काम कीजिए, खुद ही ट्रेलर में देख लीजिए, अगर वह भी समझ में आ जाए तो। हां तो, अब आपकी समझ में आ गया होगा कि… बताइए क्या समझ में आया? नहीं आया न कुछ? चलिए मैं कोशिश करता हूं। जून 1975 में तब की ताकतवर प्रधानमंत्री इंदिरा गांधी ने भारत में इमरजैंसी लगवा दी थी। उन दिनों हर तरफ नज़र रखी जा रही थी, फोन-शोन रिकॉर्ड हो रहे थे, ऐसे में एक फोन-कॉल रिकॉर्ड होता है कि जर्मनी से एक ब्रीफकेस आ रहा है जिसमें आने वाले ज़माने का एक यंत्र है। इसकी डील चार लाख रुपए में एक होटल में होगी। अब बहुत सारे लोग इस डील के आगे-पीछे घूम रहे हैं। किसी को उस कॉल-रिकॉर्डिंग की टेप चाहिए, किसी को वह ब्रीफकेस, किसी को चार लाख रुपए तो किसी और को कुछ और। इन सारी चाहतों को पूरा करने के लिए अलग-अलग लोग, अलग-अलग लोगों को ज़िम्मेदारी देते हैं और ये अलग-अलग लोग बहुत सारे अलग-अलग लोगों को मारे जा रहे हैं।

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Sat, August 22 2026

The series taps into the fissures within the Swedish policing systems.

Yet another crime thriller in the OTT space, but without a feeling of deja vu or excess of familiarity. Swedish series ‘Blodsoffer’, ‘Blood Sacrifice’ in English, by creator George Kay, the maker of heist drama ‘Lupin’, doesn’t just take you into the blood-soaked killings on the streets of Stockholm, but also into the minds of policemen. What happens when those whose job it is to provide security are the victims? Can they protect themselves? The five-part Netflix series opens with the macabre killing of two police officers. To begin with, we don’t see the dance of goriness. The fact that the killer murders with utmost bestiality is mentioned more than it is shown.

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Sat, August 22 2026

The generic 8-episode series revolves around three bumbling friends who are hired to get rid of dead bodies in a lawless town

If I had a penny for every show trying to win a Mirzapur-lookalike contest, I’d have enough money to buy a streaming platform that bans men-and-gang-war shows with fake hinterland accents. Or maybe not. I’d probably have enough money to buy myself two beers after reviewing them. Blame inflation. This genre has begun to aim for second-screen viewing, which is strange, because it’s almost like the makers don’t really want you to be too invested but be just interested enough to notice the cast and hear the bullets. It gears into fourth-screen viewing at some points, but then there will be a plot twist that makes you get annoyed for not paying enough attention. It’s a troubling pattern across most Hindi shows of this ilk; Clean Up Company is another brick in this digitally erosive wall.

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Sat, August 22 2026

A film on Novak Djokovic deserved to be more contentious and bold. Unfortunately, 'The Wolf in Winter' ends up mistiming the juicy points of a controversial lone wolf.

For the most part, Jason Hehir’s Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter moves along expected lines, like any other sport-celebrity documentaries. The 39-year-old tennis icon talks about the early years, the turmoil of professional tennis as a junior, and his eventual ascent to stardom. The hostility from fans of the Federer-Nadal rivalry, who treated him as an unwelcome entity, as he dominated the 2010s. It’s still familiar territory for most tennis fans.

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Fri, August 21 2026

Directed by Jason Hehir, who previously made Netflix’s viral 2020 sensation The Last Dance, the Djokovic documentary not only falls short in its efforts to capture the life and times of one of tennis’ most controversial stars, but it also fails as a piece of filmmaking.

It would be safe to surmise that if you want to stand a chance at beating Novak Djokovic, you play him in an empty stadium, or better yet, fill it with fans. The tennis star will be thrown off track by all the love! Djokovic, widely regarded as the “greatest tennis player in the sport’s history”, famously thrives under pressure. He weaponises the disdain that crowds often show him and turns it into fuel that has pushed him farther than any tennis player in history. He has now reached that stage in his career where a documentary can be made about him. But the one we’ve been presented with by Prime Video is hardly the tribute that the champion deserves.

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Sat, August 22 2026

Jean-François Richet's film, starring Jason Statham, has some terse, gory action but not a lot to chew on in between

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.

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Fri, August 21 2026

Directed by Jean-François Richet, Mutiny races along like a speedboat across 95 breathless minutes, but there’s little that sets it apart from the dozens of other action movies that Statham churns out on an annual basis. Indeed, Mutiny is a lot like an extended level of a Hitman video game, played by a child who has no interest in stealth, but would rather complete the mission with brute force.

A week after Emraan Hashmi utilised visa-free entry privileges in Thailand (in last week’s Bollywood release Awarapan 2), it’s Jason Statham’s turn. What’s more unexpected is that Statham’s new movie, Mutiny, has essentially the same plot as that of Awarapan 2 — minus the songs of yearning, of course. Both films involve unpredictable scions of Bangkok businessmen, women and children in need of rescuing and a spunky heroine who teams up with the protagonist. Unfortunately for Statham, his new film is as disposable as its Bollywood counterpart. Directed by Jean-François Richet, Mutiny races along like a speedboat across 95 breathless minutes, but there’s little that sets it apart from the dozens of other action movies that Statham churns out on an annual basis.

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Fri, August 21 2026

Jason Statham is back with Mutiny, another action film that gives him exactly the kind of role his fans expect. Statham plays Cole Reed, a former Special Forces operative framed for his billionaire boss's murder — and his search for the truth leads to a massive ship and a much bigger conspiracy.

Jason Statham is back with Mutiny, another action film that gives him exactly the kind of role his fans expect from him. Statham plays Cole Reed, a former Special Forces operative who is now working in private security. His billionaire boss is murdered and Cole is quickly made the prime suspect. He knows he has been framed and sets out to find the people responsible. His search eventually takes him to a massive ship, where he discovers that the murder is connected to a much bigger conspiracy. The story is familiar, and the film doesn’t really try to reinvent the action genre. There is a lot of chasing, fighting and shooting, with Statham moving from one dangerous situation to another.

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Fri, August 21 2026

Sparks indeed fly and the film becomes an equal parts comedy as the desperate search for consummation leads Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner into several sticky situations.

In One Night Only, Allie (Monica Barbaro) says it’s the “build-up” that is the best part of sex for her. Owen (Callum Turner) says it’s the “after”. Quite like those predictable responses, this latest film by Will Gluck (with other bawdy modern romances behind him, such as Anyone But You, Friends with Benefits, Easy A) is a nice-enough rom-com that pretends very hard to be somewhat radical. And while it is beating about the bush, the film’s “build-up” — despite all the kissing and petting and lovemaking going on around the two leads — is hardly a turn-on. While the “after” is not the movie’s concern.

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Fri, August 21 2026