Thu, August 13 2026

விடுமுறையை ஜாலியாகக் கழிக்க, தாய்லாந்துக்குச் செல்லும் கல்லூரி நண்பர்கள் குழு, ‘தி டெவில்ஸ் மவுத்’ (The Devil’s Mouth) என்ற மர்மமான கடல் குகைக்குள் சிக்கிக்கொள்கிறது. வெளியேறும் வழி தெரியாமல் தவிக்கும் அவர்களை வெறியோடு துரத்துகிறது ராட்சத சுறா. இறுதியில் அவர்கள் உயிருடன் கரை சேர்ந்தார்களா என்பதே அமேசான் பிரைமில் வெளியாகியிருக்கும் இந்த சர்வைவல் த்ரில்லரின் கதை. (தமிழ் டப்பிங் உண்டு). 106 நிமிடங்கள் ஓடும் இந்தப் படத்தை ஜெஃப் வாட்லோ இயக்கியிருக்கிறார். முக்கியக் கதாபாத்திரத்தில் நடித்திருக்கும் கேத்ரின் நியூட்டன், சுறா துரத்தும் காட்சியிலும், நண்பர்களுக்கு வழிகாட்டும் இடத்திலும் ஸ்கோர் செய்கிறார். துணைக் கதாபாத்திரங்களாக வரும் நண்பர்கள், சுறாவின் வேகத்துக்கு ஈடுகொடுத்து நடித்திருக்கிறார்கள். ஒளிப்பதிவும் பின்னணி இசையும் ரசிக்கவைக்கின்றன. ஆனால், பயமுறுத்தாத சுறாவின் VFX காட்சிகளும், யூகிக்க முடிந்த க்ளைமாக்ஸும் சறுக்கல்! இதே டெம்ப்ளேட்டில் நிறைய சாகசப் படங்கள் வந்துவிட்டதால் இந்த `டெவில்ஸ் மவுத்’துக்குள் விருப்பம் இருப்பவர்கள் செல்லலாம்.

Continue reading …

Fri, July 31 2026

Directed by Jeff Wadlow — who has significant experience in the slasher genre, having made movies such as Cry Wolf and Truth or Dare — The Devil's Mouth, much like its protagonists, loses its way and begins going around in circles.

What if the endlessly affable characters of Manjummel Boys (a 2024 Malayalam survival thriller) were constantly bickering, entitled 20-somethings instead? Chances are, you’d begin to wish that the cave they’re trapped in swallows them whole before rescue services could be alerted. This is the central problem with The Devil’s Mouth, the new survival horror movie on Prime Video. Instead of rooting for its protagonists to make their way out of the mess they’re in, you kinda-sorta-maybe start rooting for their adversary — a lost bull shark in basically the same predicament as they are. Both parties cross streams one day after a series of events that are too boring to get into here.

Continue reading …

Thu, August 13 2026

தண்டனை போஸ்ட்டிங் பெற்று மதுரையில் பணியாற்றுகிறார் காவல்துறை துணை ஆய்வாளர் மூசா ராசா (சசிகுமார்). எட்டுவழிச் சாலை அமைக்க மத்திய அரசு முற்பட, மாநில அரசு அதற்கு எதிர்ப்பு காட்ட, இருந்தபோதும் அரங்கேறுகிறது திட்டத்துக்கான அடிக்கல் நாட்டு விழா. ஆனால், எதிர்பாராதவிதமாக, அதற்காகத் தோண்டப்படும் குழியில் எலும்புக்கூடு ஒன்று கிடைக்க, இந்தச் சம்பவம் அரசியல் வட்டாரத்தில் பெரும் கவனத்தைப் பெறுகிறது. அந்த வழக்கை மூசாவிடம் ஒப்படைக்கிறார் காவல் உயரதிகாரி (அனகா). அதற்கான விசாரணையில் மணியின் (யஸ்வந்த்) கதை வெளிச்சத்துக்கு வர, உண்மையில் அந்தக் குற்றத்தைச் செய்தது யார் என்பதை அலசுகிறது இந்த அமேசான் பிரைம் தொடர். 2022-ம் ஆண்டு, எஸ்.ஜே.சூர்யா, சஞ்சனா கிருஷ்ணமூர்த்தி நடிப்பில் அமேசான் பிரைமில் வெளியான `வதந்தி’ தொடரின் இரண்டாவது சீசன் இது. ஆனால், இது தனிக்கதை என்பதால் முதல் சீசனைப் பார்த்திருக்கவேண்டிய அவசியமில்லை.

Continue reading …

Tue, August 11 2026

Fri, August 7 2026

Director Andrew Louis' Vadhandhi Season 2, starring Sasikumar, Yashwanth, Vivek Prasanna, Anagha, Aparna Das and Revathi Sharma, begins as an engrossing investigative thriller but loses momentum in the middle before redeeming itself with a satisfying climax.

What starts as the foundation work for an eight-lane highway soon turns into a politically sensitive investigation when a human skeleton is unearthed at the construction site. A punishment posting brings police sub-inspector Moosa Raaza (Sasikumar) to Madurai, where he is entrusted with solving the high-profile case. As Raaza begins piecing together the mystery, the investigation leads him to Mani (Yashwanth), whose past gradually reveals the truth behind the decades-old crime. Although Vadhandhi Season 2 carries forward the franchise name, it tells a completely independent story. Unlike the first season starring SJ Suryah, this one does not require any prior knowledge, making it an easy watch for everyone.

Continue reading …

Wed, August 12 2026

The documentary series doesn't offer much fresh insight on the enigma that is José Mourinho, popularly known as 'The Special One'. For over two decades, the football manager and former player has remained one of the game’s most controversial figures and yet, there is something that draws you to him.

A colourful portrait of one of football’s most complicated characters, Netflix’s Mourinho finds “The Special One” in characteristically charismatic form. It portrays football manager and former player José Mourinho as somehow both psychologically opaque and emotionally transparent; he claims that he has never felt pressure, but he seems to thrive in it; he is capable of forming lifelong bonds with everyone except his own flesh and blood; Mourinho is an enigma, one that would take more than a Netflix series to crack.

Continue reading …

Wed, August 12 2026

The most watched series on Prime returns with a humdinger of a season and its invincible hero who is always the last man standing.

Reacher fans, rejoice. I’m delighted to report that Season 4 of the one and only Jack No Middle Name Reacher, which has him up against a formidable pair of enemies, is a humdinger. Based on ‘Gone Tomorrow’, Lee Child’s 13th novel featuring Reacher, it begins in a Philadelphia subway in which a woman kills herself. It catapults our hero, busy minding his business till someone makes it their business, into a breakneck adventure involving an assortment of characters, including bent cops, incompetent CIA agents, evasive US presidential candidates, and sundry others, all looking desperately for a missing pen-drive. What’s so important on that drive that it needs to be found at all costs? How is it connected to congressman John Samson (Marc Blucas) and his fiercely protective wife (Kathleen Robertson)? What is it that two women from Indonesia, the attractive Lila Hoth (Agnez Mo) and her mother, Amisha (Anggun) are searching for? Why are people being killed in the most ghastly manner, with dismembered corpses strewn all over the place?

Continue reading …

Wed, August 12 2026

Maaran, which is a Gujarati film, is based on the illegal business of flesh trade. The story takes place in a fictitious village called Vaadi. Supplying girls is the main business for Ratan (Yash Soni) but he keeps it in the shadows. For the world, he works as a security guard in a posh tower in the city outside the village. Ratan lives with Birwa (Deeksha Joshi), who he had abducted five years ago. The girl’s younger sister Purva (Tarjani Bhadla) has been searching relentlessly for her. Ratan and Birwa’s life goes through some change when the former’s friend and acquaintance Babu (Shruhad Goswami) abducts Urmi (Prachi Thaker), who turns out to be a tough girl. Meanwhile, Ratan eyes Tara (Druma Mehta), who stays in the tower he works at, as his next target.

Continue reading …

Mon, August 3 2026

Abhishek Jain’s National-award winning Gujarati thriller is a potent and well-performed examination of patriarchy and its psychological scars

One would imagine gender-based violence is the ‘safest’ way to be critical these days. It’s the most acceptable method to scrutinise a country without offending the world and its father(s). But some of the most potent takes on Indian patriarchy come from the voices shaping contemporary Gujarati cinema. It’s not as simple as “the region is full of repressed masculinity and casual sexism”. Given how tricky it is to be politically expressive in the state, there’s an overt sense that the patriarchy in these stories is not isolated from the society that breeds it. The genre itself is political. The characters and craft work harder to catch our eye because they stem from a culture where misogyny and moral policing are normalised as rhetoric by leaders and campaigns.

Continue reading …

Tue, August 11 2026

Locarno Film Festival 2026 | Gay cruising and evangelical terror clash in The Secret Agent editor Matheus Farias and Enock Carvalho’s startling, scorching main competition title.

Premiering in main competition at the Locarno Film Festival 2026, Matheus Farias and Enock Carvalho’s The Riverbank (A Margem do Rio) pulses with dark, tropical atmosphere, a heated, shivering bundle of racy desire and cavernous menace. It buzzes with this strange, scary, sinister and sensuous personality of its own, aware of the subterranean networks of power undergirding desire. The filmmakers thrust us in Brazil’s Recife, a city recently on vivid display in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Cannes winner and Oscar-nominated breakout, The Secret Agent. Farias himself co-edited the Wagner Moura starrer that took a heady dive into Recife’s past. The Riverbank situates Recife in a stealthy stream of intrigue, deception and intoxicating seduction.

Continue reading …

Mon, August 10 2026

Sun, August 9 2026

‘DC’, starring Lokesh Kanagaraj and Wamiqa Gabbi, is part gangster melodrama, part pulpy grindhouse noir

Tamil cinema’s current epidemic is directors auditioning themselves as leads, and Lokesh Kanagaraj is its latest carrier. In Arun Matheswaran’s DC, Kanagaraj is Devadas, a wronged hero discarded by society. He beats, shoots, maims and kills, but doesn’t like to be called a rowdy or a gangster. There are no backstories in DC; Das and his gang are a strange mix of delinquents with revolutionary blood running inside them. They have a leader, Arasu (Thalaivasal Vijay), whose aims and ideologies are equally nebulous, but in the first few scenes in the film the gang accosts a police vehicle to steal a weapons consignment. An inadvertent act by a cop leads to the gang exacting revenge by savagely murdering him, which in turn launches a more stringent manhunt. The police officer giving orders to the team entrusted with this task signs off with two words: be brutal.

Continue reading …

Sat, August 8 2026

Sat, August 8 2026

Madhavan delivers a compelling performance as inventor GD Naidu in an ambitious biopic that does not fully realise its emotional potential

Men and machines. It’s a love story that defies logic. The soulful 2024 Tamil film Meiyazhagan explored the relationship between the protagonist and his cycle, and what the vehicle really meant to him. “In a way, this cycle coming into our lives changed it completely,” a teary-eyed Karthi tells Arvind Swamy in the film.G.D.N kickstarts proceedings with this fascinating emotion. A young Gopalaswamy Doraiswamy Naidu (GDN) follows an Englishman around for two years — not because he wanted to be friends, but because he was besotted with the motorcycle that he was riding. A few minutes into the film, a star-stuck Dorai asks the Englishman (who he ironically also calls ‘Dorai’ which means ‘master’) if he can sell him the motorcycle.

Continue reading …

Sat, August 8 2026

By turning a colourful life lived on the ire of multiple governments into a flat, tiresome portrait, this biopic thrusts Gopalswamy Doraiswamy Naidu into a second oblivion.

When storytellers say they have made a film to inspire people — red flag! Abort! For the kind of people who make movies to inspire others are, perhaps, those least capable of evoking inspiration — or worse, they feel like they are catering to a baseline stupidity. People aren’t inspired by formulas, or at least people with half a mind aren’t. At best, it can make them simper in theater halls, whacked over their heads with a background score that can even turn a dead man into a pound of goose flesh. But when you return to the thick materiality of your life, you forget that goosefleshing. To truly inspire people, you have to recognise that nothing moves mountains like honesty, like humanity. The best biopics — a genre we are facing a glut in, including Madhavan’s limp Rocketry: The Nambi Effect (2022) — know that ideas can never do the heavy lifting of a life well lived. At best, it can serve as a placeholder.

Continue reading …

Sat, August 8 2026

Madhavan delivers a compelling performance as inventor GD Naidu in an ambitious biopic that does not fully realise its emotional potential

Men and machines. It’s a love story that defies logic. The soulful 2024 Tamil film Meiyazhagan explored the relationship between the protagonist and his cycle, and what the vehicle really meant to him. “In a way, this cycle coming into our lives changed it completely,” a teary-eyed Karthi tells Arvind Swamy in the film. G.D.N kickstarts proceedings with this fascinating emotion. A young Gopalaswamy Doraiswamy Naidu (GDN) follows an Englishman around for two years — not because he wanted to be friends, but because he was besotted with the motorcycle that he was riding. A few minutes into the film, a star-stuck Dorai asks the Englishman (who he ironically also calls ‘Dorai’ which means ‘master’) if he can sell him the motorcycle.

Continue reading …

Sat, August 8 2026

Sci-fi films are not something that happens often in the Malayalam film industry, which has relatively smaller budgets, with the subgenre of sci-fi comedies appearing even less frequently. Even the rarity of the genre does not really work to the advantage of Pluto.

Just like Vicky (Neeraj Madhav), the protagonist of the sci-fi comedy Pluto, who befriends an alien, the movie also does not know what exactly to do with the alien character. This has to do with the nature of the alien. In an attempt to break alien stereotypes, Pluto does not have superpowers, except for two skills which are only sparingly used. So, there are only so many exciting things left for the alien to do. Probably due to tight budgets, the alien also lacks elaborate design elements. Just a spandex suit with a human face (Althaf Salim) does the job. By extension, this would mean that the alien would do familiar Althaf Salim things. One interesting touch that screenwriter Niyas Muhammed and filmmaker Adithyan Chandrasekhar bring to the table is the similarity between Vicky and Pluto, the alien. Both are considered losers in life. Hence, Pluto cannot be of particular use to Vicky, who is down and out after failing with one ill-advised business idea after another.

Continue reading …

Sat, August 8 2026

Director Merlapaka Gandhi’s ‘Korean Kanakaraju’ offers a few laughs, but the Telugu horror-comedy struggles with an uneven screenplay

Telugu cinema has repeatedly turned to the horror-comedy genre to deliver crowd-pleasers. Often, a handful of genuinely funny stretches have been enough to carry narratives that are otherwise uneven. As long as the laughs land, audiences have been willing to overlook the rest. Director Merlapaka Gandhi returns to this familiar template, this time throwing K-dramas and K-pop into the mix in the hope of lending the genre a fresh twist. The premise of Korean Kanakaraju is intriguing. The ashes of a Korean man somehow end up in an unassuming bar in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district. Through a bizarre turn of events, Kanakaraju (Varun Tej) accidentally mixes alcohol with the ashes, drinks it and becomes possessed.

Continue reading …

Fri, August 7 2026

Contrary to its stated purpose of instilling hope, the film, directed by Louis Leterrier and starring Greta Lee and Wagner Moura in lead roles, reveals itself as quite a distressing harbinger of the future.

What if the Covid-19 lockdown never ended? What if the world’s entire population was forever imprisoned in their homes, with family members as their cellmates? What would happen after three weeks, three months, or three years? Netflix’s new original movie, The Last House, doesn’t take this admittedly intriguing premise to its potential. What if the Covid-19 lockdown never ended? What if the world’s entire population was forever imprisoned in their homes, with family members as their cellmates? What would happen after three weeks, three months, or three years? Netflix’s new original movie, The Last House, doesn’t take this admittedly intriguing premise to its potential.

Continue reading …

Thu, August 6 2026

Two childhood friends turn a painful but inevitable corner in this likeable and bittersweet film

The opening of Bobby Beauty Parlour is a charm offensive. The 19-minute short is dedicated to the loving memory of Cheese, one half of the talented acting duo Mac and Cheese, a pair of pretty-finned Siamese fighting fish that appear in the film (Cheese, presumably, died during or after the shoot). The voiceover that greets us immediately after is styled like an All India Radio weather broadcast, in prim, sonorous Hindi. “Aaj ka mausam kuch iss prakaar hai…” If the cuteness meter wasn’t already into the red, the colours on screen are in a gentle and lovable scheme: yellow, magenta, pink. This is a film that wants the audience in its corner, and wants it quick. It lulls you before you’ve met the primary characters or reached the titular setting.

Continue reading …