Fri, July 18 2025

Between jokes about duck sex, Kangana Ranaut, and the moral bankruptcy of the Indian middle-class, Vir Das finds quiet moments of poignancy and introspection in his sixth Netflix special.

Throttled by his government and abandoned by his peers — inanimate objects and abstract ideas get more support than Indian comedians — Vir Das seems to be in conflict with his past. His sixth stand-up special for Netflix, Fool Volume, combines his trademark self-effacing delivery with his signature ambition. Fool Volume was filmed in Mumbai, London, and New York, at venues of different shapes and sizes, in front of crowds with different thresholds of tolerance. But the elaborate production and occasional filmmaking flourish isn’t the most impressive thing about the one-hour special. It’s the comedian’s ability to spin a story, to structure a narrative that serves as yet another reminder of his skill. There isn’t a dull moment in the hour-long set, which Das says was rewritten after he lost his voice, literally, six weeks before he was supposed to perform it. He abandoned the material that Netflix had paid him for, and, either by chance or by design, found himself gravitating towards the style of comedy that he does best. In Fool Volume, Das gazes inward; he glances at the world around him, and then, he gets down to business. The show isn’t so much about a comedian finding his voice again as it is about a middle-aged Indian man finding a new voice.

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Fri, July 18 2025

Director Praveena Paruchuri's 'Kothapallilo Okappudu' is a thought-provoking film on faith and belief. While there's a lot to ponder, the film goes through a bumpy ride.

Telugu film C/O Kancharapalem, backed by Praveena Paruchuri, is one of my all-time favourite films. Directed by Venkatesh Maha and presented by Rana Daggubati, the film was fresh, innovative, profound, and exhilarating. All at once. With ‘Kothapallilo Okappudu’, Praveena Paruchuri makes her debut as a filmmaker, with Rana backing her once again. The trailer hinted at a quirky satire and a social commentary wrapped in humour. Ramakrishna (Manoj Chandra) works under loan shark Appanna (Ravindra Vijay), who sexualises women at the drop of a hat. Ramakrishna is smitten by his school love Savitri (Monika), who is the granddaughter of Reddy (Benerjee). Benerjee and Appanna are at odds with each other, driven by ego, caste, and privilege. Yet, both are vying to become the dominant force in the village.

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Fri, July 18 2025

In Eugien Jos Chirammel’s debut, starring Shine Tom Chacko, the patchy writing fails to balance light-hearted scenes with the police procedural angle

Cops without any baggage are so hard to find in movies these days that the police officer protagonist and even the entire police station in Soothravakyamstand out as different, although not exactly in a good way. Neither do they have personal troubles, nor are they challenged much by professional assignments for a good part of the movie. It leaves them enough time to run a tuition centre for school students on the top floor of the police station, with Circle Inspector Christo Xavier (Shine Tom Chacko) doubling up as a teacher. The police are so diligent in their teaching that they even go to the extent of visiting the houses of students who are absent from class. So much so that Nimisha (Vincy Aloshious), the teacher at a nearby school, feels students are losing interest in her class because of the tuition classes at the station. In Eugien Jos Chirammel’s debut directorial, this teaching activity of the police is projected as one of its novelties, but we are never told how it came about. Just like the rest of Soothravakyam, nothing is explored beyond what you see on the surface. Not even a single classroom exchange is shown to convey the equation that the officer shares with the students.

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Fri, July 18 2025

The series adaptation of Jenny Han's trilogy starts off its last season as Lola Tung's Belly aims to find herself while being among the Fisher boys.

The Summer I Turned Pretty’s final chapter takes tentative steps towards adulthood as Belly (Lola Tung) gears up for her senior year of college. Her friends and family around her also go through some major changes. But the real focus of the Amazon Prime Video coming-of-age series will always be about Belly’s choice of partner. Will she choose her first love, Conrad (Christopher Briney), or his younger brother Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno)? In this final 11-episode season, creator Jenny Han puts the trio through yet another roller-coaster summer to remember. A time jump shows Belly and Jeremiah happily together at Finch University. But that happiness is short-lived as Jeremiah’s graduation is delayed and Belly gets chosen for a study abroad program in Paris. Conrad is thriving across the country at Standford where he’s doing well studying to be a doctor. The gang plans to head back to the family home at Cousins Beach for a dedication ceremony for Conrad and Jeremiah’s mother Susannah (Rachel Blanchard). But will the reunion be happy or awkward?

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Thu, July 17 2025

Even by superhero movie standards, which aren’t as low as you’d think, James Gunn's Superman presents a rather racist view of the third-world.

By now, Quentin Tarantino’s hot take on Superman has resurfaced online enough times for it to have seeped into the cultural consciousness. Via one of his onscreen mouthpieces, Tarantino theorised that Superman truly was an alien living among us. The blue suit with the large ’S’ wasn’t a costume for him; it was the attire of his people. The real costume was the suit and tie he wore as Clark Kent. “Clark Kent is how Superman views us,” Tarantino said. “And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak… he’s unsure of himself… he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.” The same theory, funnily enough, could be applied to James Gunn. In his new Superman movie, the filmmaker offers a similar outsider’s perspective on earthly matters. Positioned as a quasi-apology for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel — the most expensive emo music video ever filmed — Gunn’s Superman harkens back to the goofy cartoons of the 1980s. It’s bright, kid-friendly, and energetically performed. It’s also surprisingly contemporary. Not only does this Superman live in the DC Universe’s equivalent of 2025, he also finds himself at the centre of a divided world. The film’s opening titles inform us that ‘metahumans’ like him first arrived on Earth 3,000 years ago. Three years ago, Kal-El ‘came out’ as Superman, and three minutes ago, he suffered his first loss on the battlefield.

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Sun, July 13 2025

Sat, July 12 2025

Following the release of Man of Steel (2013) and the critically panned Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), which failed to perform well at the box office, the Kryptonian superhero was granted a hiatus. This film has been in the works for some time; however, when Justice League (2017) encountered production difficulties, the sequel to Man of Steel was also sidelined. James Gunn, who directed the three Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel, has transitioned to D.C. with this new Superman project. Although Guardians franchise featured a team of superheroes while this one primarily focuses on a solo hero (with the Justice gang making a brief appearance), there is a significant difference in the tone of the two movies. Guardians was predominantly a light-hearted film that utilized humor to navigate its narrative, whereas Superman does not follow the same pattern. He faces a serious mission to thwart the nefarious schemes of Lex Luthor. With Lois Lane present, there is an opportunity to incorporate some romantic elements, and some of the most delightful moments arise from Krypto, the Superdog. . But otherwise, Superman plays it by the numbers.

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Wed, July 16 2025

Even after 40 years, Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan's obsession with The Godfather shows no signs of abating. Their new film, Thug Life, is a disposable gangster movie that makes a bizarre creative choice at the end.

A regular reappraisal of old masters should be made standard practice in all art. Just because someone made a good movie once doesn’t mean that they should be given immunity from bad reviews for the rest of their lives. Sure, making Piku and October and Gulabo Sitabo and Sardar Udham (in a row!) allows you one I Want to Talk, but that’s all. It is only when certain sacred cows are nudged out of (self) harm’s way that they can introspect. Had somebody somebody pointed out the obvious to Sanjay Leela Bhansali years ago, we wouldn’t have had to endure Heeramandi. Had someone criticised Nayakan for what it is — a blatant act of plagiarism — we wouldn’t have had to witness director Mani Ratnam and star Kamal Haasan doing it all over again in Thug Life. The gangster drama was released on Netflix merely four weeks after it flopped in theaters. Thug Life debuted to intense scrutiny, seeing as it marked the filmmaker and actor’s first collaboration in nearly four decades. During those years, the two rose to the pinnacle of Indian cinema, having earned not just a reputation for making hits, but also a certain respect that eludes most of their colleagues. Mani Ratnam is the thinking man’s blockbuster director; Kamal Haasan is the thinking man’s movie star. And yet, the best that they could come up with is yet another tired reimagining of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, injected with a toxic dose of Prashanth Neel.

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Fri, July 4 2025

I didn’t get to catch Thug Life in theatres, thanks to the controversy sparked by Kamal Haasan’s comments about the Tamil-Kannada language connection. It didn’t get a theatrical release in Karnataka. In hindsight, it was a poorly thought-out statement that ignited a pointless feud between two neighbouring states. But that’s a saga for another blog. Thug Life is now on Netflix, and I finally watched it. Short version: I’m disappointed. Not just because it’s a dull slog — though it absolutely is — but because I could see the glimmer of potential in the material Mani Ratnam had in his head, yet he didn’t go all in. It feels like Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan had a mid-production crisis of confidence, veering off into drastic detours that left us with a film stuffed with half-baked artistic flourishes.

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Sat, June 7 2025

Directed by Mani Ratnam, 'Thug Life', starring Kamal Haasan and Silambarasan, is a gangster drama with emotional beats. While the film had a great set-up pre-interval, it falls into a deep pit in the second half and there is no turning back – even for a legend like Mani Ratnam.

“You saved me from death. From now on, you and me are one,” says Kamal Haasan in one of the most strikingly shot scenes from Mani Ratnam’s ‘Thug Life’. The dialogue, albeit simple, has a profound touch to it. As the story progresses, you realise he meant what he said. Kamal Haasan’s Rangaraya Sakthivel and Silambarasan’s Amar are indeed one. But, what causes a rift between them in this world of thugs? Mani Ratnam’s ‘Thug Life’ aims to present a full-blown gangster drama rooted in this very question. Rangaraya Sakthivel (Kamal Haasan) is a gangster in New Delhi and has a bunch of trusted aides, all recruited and raised by Manikkam (Nasser). An encounter leads to the death of a local newspaper vendor. Sakthivel, who is deeply disturbed to see the newspaper vendor’s son, Amar, takes him and raises him as his own son (Silambarasan) along with his wife Jeeva (Abhirami).

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Tue, July 15 2025

The candied contrivances and poetic overkill in this Vikrant Massey, Shanaya Kapoor-starrer romance become exhausting

A title like Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan spells trouble. It signals the surge of poetry about to overwhelm the screen. Conversations, voiceovers, song lyrics — everything is tuned to Radio Metaphor in Santosh Singh’s romantic drama. “She saw me not with sight, but insight,” says the hero, a visually-impaired man, of his beloved. A beat later: pyaar andha hota hai (love is blind). The film’s obsession with sight-based metaphors and poetic punning becomes… a blind spot. They meet on the train to Dehra. Jahaan (Vikrant Massey) is a musician and a songwriter, low on inspiration, seeking a creative reset in the hills. The passenger opposite him, in the coupe, is Saba (Shanaya Kapoor), a theatre artiste wanting to break into Hindi films. She’s wearing a blindfold (it’s prep for an important audition, she says) and has resolved not to remove it till the end of her trip. Since her manager bailed at the last minute, Saba has to travel alone and unattended. This means two things: (1) method acting, not family connections, is clearly the key to Bollywood. (2) Saba doesn’t realise that her co-passenger, with whom she’s struck up a lively rapport, is not a sighted person. Curiously, Jahaan plays along.

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Sat, July 12 2025

Sat, July 12 2025

Inspired by a Ruskin Bond short story, the romantic drama starring Vikrant Massey and Shanaya Kapoor takes the ‘love is blind’ adage too far

It’s been years since I’ve laughed so much in a cinema hall. I needed it. Movies are truly the best medicine. There’s only one problem, though. Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan is not a comedy. It’s not supposed to be funny. If anything, it’s the opposite of a comedy — a dead-serious romantic drama that takes an old proverb too far. In an age where most Bollywood films use self-awareness as a front for mediocrity, it’s kind of disarming to watch a bad film that doesn’t know it’s bad. I almost admire it. We often complain that nobody makes timeless Hindi love stories anymore. Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan is why. It’s a high-risk genre: the line between being lyrical and being incapable of touching grass is wafer-thin. One person’s Dreamy is another’s Delusional. But naming the movie after a song from a Sanjay Leela Bhansali classic can’t be a prayer.

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Mon, July 14 2025

Despite its many limitations, 'Maayakoothu' takes you to a new place and leaves you there

The opening shot of AR Raghavendra’s head-scratcher Maayakoothu frames two creators and one creation as they discuss the philosophies of their respective artforms. Our protagonist Vasan (AR Raghavendra) is the writer of pulply serialised novels, and we see him deep in conversation with a sculptor he refers to as his mentor. As they discuss the powers they wield as creators, we see the mentor slowly sculpting away at the bust of a man, explaining how a single stroke of his chisel is enough to both bring life and death to his creation.

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Mon, June 30 2025

When an egoistic writer creates tragic stories that are borderline sadistic, the characters begin to haunt him and demand he do right by them.

Vasan (Nagarajan Kannan), an egotistical writer with a god complex, makes a living by writing stories for a small magazine. He avoids mainstream magazines, citing the lack of freedom. Even his magazine’s editor (Delhi Ganesan) calls magazine stories a dying art. But Vasan is adamant and relentless. His resolve is also seen in his writing and his choice of creating tragic stories where the oppressed and people on the fringes of society get tortured. Parallel to Vasan’s narrative, we get three other narratives, and it takes a while to understand that the three stories are by Vasan. One is about a gangster, Dhanapal (Sai Dheena), on the precipice of finishing his 50th murder assignment. The second one has Selvi (Aishwarya Raghupathi), a domestic worker struggling to make money for her son’s school fees, and the third is another tragic tale of an aspiring doctor, the daughter of a poor farmer, who doesn’t have the means to attempt the NEET exam. All three stories teem with archetypal tropes of poverty and oppression that cater to a particular gaze of society. Vasan has an air of superiority while weaving their stories of torture, but his characters start tormenting him, demanding he write more responsibly. He claims his characters are after his life, and thus begins a maze of a story where the lines of reality blur.

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Mon, July 14 2025

A German film is fast climbing the global charts on Netflix. Brick, a sci-fi thriller that also doubles as a relationship drama, is the latest addition to the puzzle-box/ escape room movie sub-genre, that over the last few decades, has met with middling success. Brick tells the story of a group of tenants who become trapped inside their building when a mysterious, almost alien-like black brick wall ‘grows’ overnight outside their apartments, completely surrounding it. The wall is impenetrable, its strong magnetic energy even managing to make bullets ricochet off it and kill those it has trapped within their four walls. There is no way to escape, and as the minutes tick by, the group finds that the Internet is down, their phones are out and the water supply has run dry (though the electricity, inexplicably, seems to be still working).

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Sun, July 13 2025

This film with R. Madhavan and Fatima Sana Shaikh has some promising ideas and performances but not enough depth

In Aap Jaisa Koi, director Vivek Soni takes on the delicate subjects of late-blooming romance, masculine vulnerability, modern love, and old-fashioned chauvinism. The film, now streaming on Netflix, stars R. Madhavan and Fatima Sana Shaikh as two professionals navigating a hesitant, imperfect courtship. R. Madhavan plays Shrirenu “Shri” Tripathi, a 42-year-old Sanskrit professor from Jamshedpur whose gentle, brooding nature hides years of emotional repression, social awkwardness, and societal taunts—including from his brother and best friend. He finds an outlet through an app aimed at lonely hearts called ‘Aap Jaisa Koi’. Fatima Sana Shaikh portrays Madhu Bose, a French teacher from Kolkata. She’s confident and open-minded, but carries her own emotional history. Madhu and Shri become an unlikely match, introduced by a kindly intermediary. She is everything Shri is not, and her interest in him makes him suspicious. In the company of Madhu, 42-year-old Shri, for the first time in his life, experiences female attention and intimacy.

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Sat, July 12 2025

The heart of the film is in the right place

Cute girl, nerdy boy — could be a romcom. A Sanskrit teacher meets one who teaches French. He is a virgin at 42, she is 32 and not squeamish about her sex life. Certainly not a cute meet, but unusual enough to pique our interest. On paper, the plot makes for some fireworks. After all, what can be more fascinating than Jean-Paul Sartre and Kalidas coming together! As the love story of Shrirenu Tripathi (R Madhavan) and Madhu Bose (Fatima Sana Sheikh) unfolds, the uncommon premise holds out, but not with magic in entirety. The heart of the film is in the right place. It opens with a tribute to KJo’s iconic ‘dosti pyaar hai’, a nudge to the fact that the film is produced by Dharma Productions’ digital arm Dharmatics Entertainment. Like many of its films in the recent past, it wears its progressive values on its sleeve. Patriarchy is on play in the Tripathi household where elder brother Bhanu (Manish Chaudhary) is every inch a male chauvinist, demanding complete subservience from his culinary-adept wife Kusum (Ayesha Raza) and daughter, whom he constantly beseeches to learn household chores. One scene with reference to ‘silbatte wali chatni’ is a direct nod to the much-acclaimed ‘Mrs’.

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Sat, July 12 2025

With Vivek Soni’s directorial feature Aap Jaisa Koi, both Dharma and Netflix (the streamer) operate on the lowest level of creativity. It unfolds as a masterclass in vacuity.

Success improves most things except Hindi cinema. Past proves that acceptance of a certain kind of film often spawns inferior versions of the same. Many are guilty, but perhaps none more than Dharma, the production company that has made a business model out of a single premise: youth sparring with age. In Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), filmmaker Karan Johar, also the co-owner of Dharma, played with traditional trappings as a young man resisted parental pressure without standing up against it. Success followed, and so did similar iterations; in 2023, he fortified the defiance of young love in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) and two years later, his banner has bankrolled Aap Jaisa Koi, a shell of a film that is all framing. The point of contention remains the same: tradition holds the sword to love. But Vivek Soni’s film is also generously influenced by Rocky Rani, and as a result, the discord comprises as much old order stacked against new as the new carrying the vestige of the old. And, yet again, women and the Bengali community (I will circle back to this) shoulder the responsibility for the moral rehabilitation of the men.

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Sun, July 13 2025

Another gangster film, you ask? Yawn… stretch… cue eye-roll? Well, hold that sigh! Because Maalik isn’t just another entry in the long line of blood-splattered, dialogue-heavy desi crime sagas. This time, it’s Rajkummar Rao—yes, our usually understated poster boy for indie angst—getting absolutely ripped and unleashing his inner baddie, all while juggling social commentary like it’s part of a gym circuit. Directed by Pulkit, Maalik is set in Allahabad, in the turbulent years between 1988 and 1990—a time when moustaches were thick, tempers were thicker, and justice was mostly served with a hockey stick. Rao plays Deepak, a humble farmer’s son whose slide into the underworld is triggered by the usual recipe: a cocktail of caste-based humiliation, wounded family pride, and a healthy dose of “Why should I till the land when I can rule it instead?”

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Sat, July 12 2025

Despite the familiarity of the plotline, director and writer Pulkit keeps us invested in Maalik urf Deepak’s tale of unbridled ambition

The year is 1990, the place is Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, and violence is the running theme of ‘Maalik’. Though Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee’s swag as a police officer is on ample display, the film belongs to Rajkummar Rao. As and in ‘Maalik’, he is menace personified, a gangster who kills without flinching, who rules through dread and fear. Rajkummar has donned a new avatar, far removed from his usual romcom films. The incredible actor that he is, he lives the character, channels the anger within, seethes, fumes and kills like never before. But when the hero is also the anti-hero, the makers could not resist the temptation to give him a romantic backstory, in this case his wife Shalini (Manushi Chillar).

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Sat, July 12 2025

Directed by Pulkit, ‘Maalik’ lacks both single-screen soul and multiplex gloss

Maalik opens with a shootout in 1990, Allahabad. A dacoit-like gangster named Deepak (Rajkummar Rao), a.k.a Maalik (“owner”), is wounded and bullet-riddled. The police have surrounded the hideout. The Bengali superintendent (Prosenjit Chatterjee) cracks a movie joke on the loudspeaker while telling him to surrender. Maalik shoots back through the window. The film then rewinds to a few years ago, starting in earnest to show how Maalik reaches this moment. It’s a narrative older than time. You’d think that if something evokes memories of Satya, Agneepath, Vaastav, Sarkar and every other popular mafia-origins movie, it must be a solid contender. But the opposite is true here: Maalik feels like a childhood film-making wish being fulfilled — an all-you-can-eat genre buffet assembled from scraps of classics — rather than an inventive or original shot in the dark.

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Sat, July 12 2025

Director Molly Manning Walker's coming-of-age film will be particularly satisfying to anybody who felt that the show was neglectful of the victim's experience.

Director Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex hums with life. It’s both dreamlike and dreadful, unfolding with a tenacity that few first-time filmmaker can conjure. The coming-of-age movie follows three teenage British girls on a summer trip to Greece; it’s their final week of freedom before they’re hurled into the ‘real world’ to look for jobs, partners, and perhaps a purpose. But the trip takes a dark turn when Tara, the liveliest of the trio, has a distressing experience. More a tone poem than a conventional, narrative-driven film, How to Have Sex shares much in common with fellow British masterpiece Aftersun. Like that movie, which was also directed by a first-timer and unveiled at Cannes, it has the hazy impact of a suddenly remembered dream. Manning Walker based the story on her own experiences, as did director Charlotte Wells with Aftersun. The Mediterranean setting is their only superficial similarity; both stories deal with trauma and revisit incidents that shape the lives of their protagonists.

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