Fri, March 14 2025

Ibrahim Ali Khan essentially plays a high class escort in Netflix's new film, Nadaaniyan, one of the worst that the streamer has ever produced in India. Couldn’t Dharma(tic) have erased this movie from their hard drives and claimed the insurance money?

Inviting Javed Akhtar to the premiere of Nadaaniyan, and making him sit through it — it doesn’t matter that he had a recliner to relax on — is tantamount to elder abuse. Directed by Shauna Gautam, the Netflix romantic drama singlehandedly demolishes any argument that nepotism apologists might have preemptively constructed in the run-up to its release. Ineptly put together, lacking any insight whatsoever into the human experience, Nadaaniyan is a blot on Karan Johar’s career as a film producer, and one of the most questionable originals ever produced by Netflix India — remember, this is the streamer that deemed Shirish Kunder’s Mrs Serial Killer to be worthy of sharing the same server space as Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma.

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Mon, March 10 2025

Ibrahim Ali Khan and Khushi Kapoor (in her third film) are saddled with the unbearable lightness of a story that rests on vacuous contrivances built around a clash of social strata and personal predisposition.

A sham, short-term romantic dalliance in an elite, no-uniform Delhi school assumes serious overtones and flips and flops its way through predictable ups and downs. That is the crux of Nadaaniyan, a passably lively but spectacularly shallow rom-com produced by Dharmatic Entertainment for Netflix. The strictly superficial buoyancy that the film seeks to exude is as affected as the idea that the plot revolves around. Directed by first-timer Shauna Gautam from a script by Riva Razdan Kapoor, Ishita Moitra and Jehan Handa, Nadaaniyan sputters to life only intermittently, banking on the youthful charm and energy of the young lead actors. The film juggles sundry ideas from Karan Johar’s early blockbusters (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, K3G, et al) and updates them, without much originality, for the consumption of Gen Z social media addicts who would rather die than go off the grid.

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Mon, March 10 2025

Designed to launch Ibrahim Ali Khan into the cinematic stratosphere, the vehicle fails to flatter

A gossamer-thin romantic comedy that comes across as Karan Johar’s latest home assignment for star kids to pass the Bollywood entrance test, Nadaaniyan doesn’t pass muster. Reflecting the armchair sensibility of the Bandra school of filmmaking, the love story strains credibility and tests patience. Its nebulous ideas on education are irritating, and the cultural context of Delhi-NCR is deeply annoying. Moreover, when a dated plot is ploughed by stock characters, it invariably yields meagre returns. Led by debutant director Shauna Gautam, a troika of writers promises to provide insights into adulting. Set in an elite school, the film follows Pia Jaisingh (Khushi Kapoor) as she hires a middle-class student, Arjun Mehta (Ibrahim Ali Khan), as her boyfriend to secure the trust of her BFFs. As they come close, the pretense gives way to a predictable relationship, leading to cosmetic complexities that weigh a few Instagram-worthy reels.

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Fri, March 14 2025

Ram Jagadeesh makes an assured directorial debut with ‘Court: State Vs A Nobody’, relying on an effectively written drama brought to life by able actors

The strength of Court: State Vs a Nobody, debut director Ram Jagadeesh’s Telugu film, lies in its simple yet powerful truth —that the world would be a better place if those in power carried out their duties with sincerity. In this case, the focus is on the judiciary. Through an underdog narrative, Ram, along with co-writers Karthik and Vamsi, highlights how empathy can help deliver justice, regardless of social standing. The drama is anchored by Priyadarshi Pulikonda’s wonderfully restrained performance. The plot is straightforward. Nineteen-year-old Chandrashekhar (Harsh Roshan) falls in love with Jabili (Sridevi), 17. He is the son of a watchman, while she comes from a wealthy background. When her domineering uncle, Mangapathi (Sivaji), discovers their relationship, chaos ensues. Chandrashekhar is slapped with multiple charges, including under the POCSO Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences). The year is 2013, just a year after the Act was introduced.

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Wed, March 12 2025

Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura play two loyal friends whose side lives of petty crime drops them into the big leagues after a drug bust gone wrong.

The eight-episode series Dope Thief takes its main characters on an absolute journey as greed and corruption in law enforcement are exposed through each stage. Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura’s characters are longtime friends who are drawn into this mess and try to emerge on the other side unscathed. The story hooks you in from the start, but with each twist, you’ll find yourself rolling your eyes at the outrageous turn of events. The well-acted crime drama is worth tuning in only for its cast. Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura) became the best of friends in juvenile detention and continued their life of crime undetected as adults. The duo pose as DEA agents and rob small drug dealers of their stash and money. Until one day when they hit the wrong meth house in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly, they are entangled in the larger narcotic crime ring that involves more dangerous drug dealers and even the cops themselves. With no one to turn to and their families now in danger, how do the two friends find an escape?

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Mon, March 10 2025

Shabana Azmi pulls her weight without missing a beat. She is ably supported by a wonderful ensemble cast that includes Jyotika, Nimisha Sajayan, Sai Tamhankar, Lillete Dubey, Shalini Pandey and Anjali Anand.

Shabana Azmi is the pivot around which Dabba Cartel, a female-driven Netflix crime drama series, swivels. She is in her element. That is half the battle won. Winning the remaining half takes a bit of doing. Happily, it isn’t entirely beyond the team behind and before the camera. Azmi pulls her weight without missing a beat. She is ably supported by a wonderful ensemble cast that includes Jyotika, Nimisha Sajayan, Sai Tamhankar, Lillete Dubey, Shalini Pandey and Anjali Anand. The writing, too, contributes more than its mite to the show by putting a vigorous fresh spin on the genre. Yet, there is no escaping the feeling that the seven-episode Excel Entertainment-produced series, created by Shibani Akhtar, Gaurav Kapur, Vishnu Menon and Akanksha Seda, could have been a little tighter at the seams and a bit lighter at the edges. It falls just a touch short of being an unqualified success.

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Wed, March 5 2025

The seven-episode Netflix series wobbles between coolness and chaos, menace and mirth, never quite finding its pitch

Shabana Azmi is the fiery queenpin of a female outfit. They ply a disreputable trade. Her underlings feel the heat of her glare. She suffers no fools. I’m talking, of course, about a film called Mandi, directed by the late, great Shyam Benegal and released in 1983. Its coolness remains unsurpassed, 42 years on. Dabba Cartel, a new Netflix crime series with Azmi again at the helm, tries its best to be cool. Co-created by Shibani Akhtar, the show has a novel core: a home chef’s dabba (tiffin) delivery business spirals into a perilous drug operation. The pin-balling narrative is tugged along over seven episodes. The characters are stock, but, coming at you in numbers, they keep up a busy rhythm, like players on a revolving stage. It has the mark of an Excel production: ample efficiency, not a lot of excellence.

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Fri, February 28 2025

It’s a motley bunch of characters. Hari (Bhupendra Jadawat) wants a posting in Germany. Wife Raji (Shalini Pandey) and he pretty much talk of Germany more than anything else. Hari’s mother, the Gujarati saree-clad Ba (Shabana Azmi) is more the onlooker than a participant. Only the book she’s reading ‘Poisonous Shadow’ is at odds with who she seems to be. Ravi’s harried boss Shankar (Jisshu Sengupta) makes a stylish, upper crust couple with wife Varuna (Jyothika). Her ambitious garment venture ‘Sitara’ is fashionably losing money. She does seem the nose-in-the-air rich man’s wife living it up on husband’s funds. Shankar and Ravi are a part of the Viva Life building and company, a pharma company that’s been dodgy with a now-banned product called Modella.

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Mon, March 10 2025

The unrest surrounding the oppressive Rowlatt Act culminates in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. London-educated advocate Kantilal Sahni, witnessing the carnage, loses his childhood friends Hari and Allahbaksh amidst the political chaos. Haunted by their deaths, Sahni exposes the systemic injustice of the British Raj that facilitated the massacre, while leading the Hunter Commission inquiry. Taaruk Raina, popular for his lighter roles, makes a welcome departure from his strengths, in a heavy role packed with old-fashioned drama – an arena he’s not fully comfortable with, though he delivers a sincere performance. Sahil Mehta, as the angsty journalist with firm opinions, is at ease with his portrayal and is helped by his strong screen presence.

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Sun, March 9 2025

It was a blood splattered Baisakhi on April 13, 1919. When a jashan (celebration) turned into a janazaa (funeral) for the hundreds gunned down at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar. General Dyer went down in history as the butcher. He was the cruel perpetrator, also the puppet. But mastermind, ringmaster and puppeteer Lieutenant-General Michael O’Dwyer was never formally indicted. (Udham Singh did shoot him dead more than 20 years later.) Is it time for an unwritten chapter to be brought to the fore? Director Ram Madhvani who had shown glimpses of how well he can segue imagination into history when he made the short film That Bloody Line (on how Sir Cyril Radcliffe cut off bits of India on the west and on the east), goes down the same path, same era.This time to recreate the Amritsar of 1919.

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Sat, March 8 2025

Ram Madhvani’s period drama lacks the technical finesse to explore the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

In cricket, when the fielding team challenges an LBW (Leg Before Wicket) call, the DRS (Decision Review System) comes into play. This DRS process is a lot like reviewing a film or show. Every stage corresponds to real-world parameters. First, the third umpire checks if it’s a legal delivery — the equivalent of checking if the craft and shot-taking and basic staging are fundamentally sound. Then they move onto Snickometer to see if there’s an edge off the bat or glove — the equivalent of checking if the storytelling is engaging. Finally, Ball Tracking is used to project the trajectory of the delivery. Even here, it doesn’t matter if the ball is hitting the stumps, it has to pitch in line — the equivalent of checking if the intent and politics of the narrative add up. If all checks out, the on-field decision can be reversed and the batsman is ruled out — the equivalent of defying an anti-art industry and making a good show.

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Mon, March 10 2025

Banwari Jha, a teacher in the remote village of Dhadakpur, is anxious to find a husband for his daughter, Roshni. Despite her relationship with childhood friend Amavaas, Roshni accepts a marriage proposal, surprisingly opting for the groom’s brother, Kuber. Kuber’s demand for a five-lakh worth motorbike as dowry sets off a chain of unexpected events. Fresh after his heartfelt performance in Laapata Ladies – Sparsh Shrivastava is back in a familiar avatar (with a few tweaks) but still manages to leave a strong imprint, thanks to his agile body language, ease with humour and drama. Gajraj Rao brings warmth to yet another fatherly role. It’s a pleasant sight to see Shivani Raghuvanshi grow with every project while staying true to the pitch of the character.

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Sun, March 9 2025

Gajraj Rao, Renuka Shahane's ruralcom delivers clean, socially-relevant family entertainment. The show has a determinedly cheerful air -- leaving the viewer smiling is clearly the mandate.

A stolen motorcycle– ‘dupahiya’– in the fictional village of Dhadakpur becomes the fulcrum around which this new comedy and its characters revolve, delivering a melange of Bihari-via-Mumbai accents, loads of quirk and broad life lessons. This is the mix that gave ‘Panchayat’ its mojo, with Phulera’s Sachivji and Pradhanji and their cohorts becoming a byword in the madly-popular OTT-specific ruralcom genre. Here, Uttar Pradesh is replaced by Bihar, but the mood remains similarly overall sunny, as the occasional clouds created by the busy plot (written by Avinash Dwivedi and Chirag Garg) are dispelled by the show’s determinedly cheerful air: leave the viewer smiling is clearly the mandate.

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Sat, March 8 2025

The nine-episode series has its moments, but stays too derivative to make an impact.

I remember watching the first season of Panchayat (2020) and thinking: Wow, this is going to change things. And it did. It altered the way we perceived “comedy” as a serious genre. It was very exciting to see a simple, slice-of-life environment — the iconic fictional village of Phulera and its bittersweet characters — seared into the modern streaming lexicon. But I’d be lying if I said I was blindly optimistic. At the back of my mind, there was this fear — a fear derived from years of watching Hindi cinema overkill a new sensation. Nobody knows how to quit while they’re ahead.

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Sun, March 9 2025

When things go right, the film makes you feel like reading one of those fascinating pulp fiction stories that are not just radical and intriguing, but also knew never to overstay its welcome.

There is a quaint Christian fishing hamlet. There is a raging sea at their footsteps. The villagers haven’t gone fishing in their waters for over two decades. Every single person who has gone out to the sea has come back dead. There is a curse. There is a reasoning. There are overarching themes involving regret, retribution, and redemption. There is a romance track that, thankfully, exists in the periphery. There is a to-and-fro between timelines that moves from the 80s to the 2020s to the 2010s to the 60s to the 80s, and you know the drill. There are multiple backstories for each principal player of this story. There is a folklore. There is a fantasy element, and then… there’s a sea creature. And yet, for the longest time, GV Prakash Kumar‘s latest film, Kingston, seems to move nowhere, and this proves to be the film’s biggest undoing.

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Sun, March 9 2025

Gentlewoman might have been a lot of things, could have been a lot more things, but ends up being a film that reminds people that societal expectations, set by some random people, cannot become the norm for a woman, or for anyone.

Gentlewoman starts off as a tale about a gentle woman. She wakes up. She makes coffee. She has her bath. She wears her saree. She cooks. She packs. Her husband wakes up, prays to God, and gets ready for work. He reads philosophy. On the outset, he is that perfect husband. But scratch just a couple of layers, we understand that he has made her a creature of habit. She wakes up, makes coffee, has her bath, wears her saree, cooks, packs, and also has to stand in the balcony and bid him goodbye as he leaves for work. But what does he do for her? Well, never once in the film does he do anything for her. And this is not registered by an elaborate scene, but just a simple callback that is effective and subtle. Probably why when director Joshua Sethuraman suddenly decides to get all preachy and rub our faces in the film’s ideology with verbose monologues, and random conversations that feel out of place in this world, it feels like a let-down.

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Sat, March 8 2025

Gentlewoman could have been an ode to Sriram Raghvan’s crime thrillers, but it is a bit didactic and unrefined to be linked to such excellence.

Gentlewoman is one of those films that leaves you with the frustration that rises out of lost potential. It could have been the perfect free-hand circle, if not for the last wayward bit. The circle is not all that misshapen, but you can’t look past the botch made either because when things are going well, it is seamless, until it is not. The mistakes, even though just a few, become conspicuous when everything else is perfect. Now, the film, directed by debutant Joshua Sethuraman, is good. The lamentation is about how it could have been great as it kicks off with a brilliant premise and subtlety that is rare in crime thrillers of Tamil cinema.

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Sun, March 9 2025

Mithya explores layers of grief in a young boy’s life, but it also reflects a growing desire within the Kannada film industry to tell stories that offer real value to audiences.

Mithya is an intimate story of a young boy struggling to make sense of his life, which has been shattered into countless pieces after his parents pass away. It marks director Sumanth Bhat’s feature film debut. Previously, he helmed the Kannada web series Ekam, also co-produced by Rakshit Shetty. Mithya sheds light on the internal turmoil of an 11-year-old boy, Mithun. Taken in by his aunt’s family after his mother dies by suicide — leaving him and his younger sister orphaned — he is uprooted from Mumbai, where he was born and raised, and placed in the slow, quiet countryside of Udupi. He prefers to be called Mithya, but adjusting to his new reality is far from easy.

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Sat, March 8 2025

Starring a wonderful Athish Shetty, filmmaker Sumanth Bhat's drama is about a boy in transit — not just physically but also emotionally.

How much does a young boy have to go through to be allowed the freedom to have an emotional breakdown? When we first meet Mithya (Athish Shetty), what we see is his back turned towards us as he travels on a train from somewhere to somewhere else. We later learn that he’s not travelling out of choice. He’s being displaced from his home in Mumbai to Udipi in Southern Karnataka where he will live with his uncle, aunt and their two daughters. Like Mithya, the film about him too has its back turned towards us. It’s not a film that grants you the solace of having empathised with its broken protagonist. Instead, it reveals these broken pieces so sparsely that we feel as lost and helpless as he does.

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Fri, March 7 2025

Sumanth Bhat’s debut feature Mithya is an aching look at an orphaned child and his relationship with the world.

Many a time in Sumanth Bhat’s Mithya, conditioned by today’s happenings and a generally unsafe world, the stomach knots up with uncertainty, wondering what would befall a child that seems to trust adults. You heave a sigh of relief, only to realise that the child can still be injured through other means — what he hears and how he’s treated — especially when he’s too young to remember it all, but also too old to forgetfully. Snatches of these conversations linger and play on in his head like scabs being yanked off.

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Thu, March 6 2025

सोनी लिव पर आई नौ एपिसोड की इस वेब-सीरिज़ के पांचवें एपिसोड के अंत में जब नायक ऋषभ नायिक सुरभि से कहता है-‘मुझ से शादी कर लो प्लीज़’ तो उसकी आंखें नम होती हैं। यह सुनते हुए सुरभि की भी आंखें नम होती हैं। इस सीन को यहीं पॉज़ कर दीजिएगा और गौर कीजिएगा कि एक हल्की-सी नमी आपकी आंखों में भी होगी। अब याद कीजिएगा कि आपकी आंखें इससे पहले के एपिसोड्स में भी कुछ जगह पनियाई होंगी और ध्यान रखिएगा, अभी आगे भी आपकी आंखों में कई बार नमी आएगी। बल्कि कुछ एक बार तो यह नमी झरने का रूप भी लेना चाहेगी। जी हां, यह इस कहानी की ताकत है, उस सिनेमा की ताकत है जो ऐसी कहानी को आपके सामने इस तरह से लाता है कि आप, आप नहीं रहते बल्कि इस कहानी के किरदार हो जाते हैं, कभी मुंबई, कभी उज्जैन तो कभी रतलाम हो जाते हैं।

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Sat, February 8 2025

It’s the 90s world of Rajshri. A mansion. A joint family. A starchy patriarch/matriarch whose word is writ, everybody else shivers, cowers before the family dictator. Karan Johar put Amitabh Bachchan in that stern position in K3G and reversed the gender to give Jaya Bachchan the same unbending top place in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. Step into the sprawling mansion of the Rathi parivar in Ratlam where Taoji (Kanwaljit Singh) is the stiff principled head of a large joint family. Like Karan Johar’s joint family in RARKPK, the Rathis too are renowned for their famous mithai. But Taoji’s rules are anything but meetha. More than four decades ago, there was a film called Ek Hi Bhool (1981). Those same 80s sentiments and ambience may be transplanted into the Rathi mansion and labelled, Ek Hi Jhooth. Taoji can never forgive a lie. His sister (Anjana Sukhani) is still paying the price for having fallen in love with someone outside their community. ‘It wasn’t about the community, it was her lying about it that Taoji cannot forgive,’ is underlined a couple of times. And in that claustrophobically tradition-bound ambience, the family is eternally grateful to Fufaji (Rajesh Tailang) who did them all a big favour for saving their reputation and marrying the tainted sister, now referred to as “Bua”.

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Fri, February 7 2025

Rajshri Productions and filmmaker Sooraj Barjatya venture into the world of streaming with this promising but muddled love story.

We don’t usually see love stories on film or OTT much these days, so our eyes were peeled for Rajshri Production’s Bada Naam Karenge. The ambitious SonyLIV series unfolds like a feature film rather than a series. It’s easy to get invested in the romance between Surbhi (Ayesha Kaduskar) and Rishabh (Ritik Ghanshani) in a story set in Madhya Pradesh. But once we get to the heart of the matter, Bada Naam Karenge becomes jumbled under the weight of so many characters and remains a bit dated. The romance features two families: the wealthy Rathis of Ratlam and the middle-class Guptas of Ujjain. A possible rishta is floated between Rishabh Rathi and Surbhi Gupta. As the families explore their union through an arranged marriage, the audience learns about a hidden secret between the two. Will Rishabh and Surbhi get together, or will the expectations of their families get in the way? The story and screenplay of Bada Naam Karenge has been penned by S Manasvi. Vidit Tripathi has also helped out with the screenplay and co-written the dialogues. Moving to the past and returning to the present, the initial batch of episodes holds promise as the young couple’s story goes from enemies to lovers. Once the large cast of supporting players gets involved, it feels too behind the times. The main conflict between the two families also gets dragged out over the last few episodes, only to be quickly resolved over a big emotional scene.

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Thu, March 6 2025

The film examines Dylan’s emergence at a time of great political and social ferment in America.

The first time we meet Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet) in A Complete Unknown, he’s uncomplainingly laying in the back of a wagon amongst a pile of luggage. He’s just hitched a ride to New York City to see his hero, folk musician Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), who has been hospitalised after being diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. Dylan overhears an impassioned discussion trying to determine if Guthrie is a folk or a country musician. “There’s no need to box him,” one of them says. It’s 1961 and a particularly tense period in America, as the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) is summoning people for their alleged communist ties. The celebrities of Hollywood are understandably first in line, just like the musicians of the time like Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), who was critical of the American government. Social justice is becoming a street-side topic among many, as America is sinking deeper into the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement is picking up steam. Two years later, a president will be assassinated during a motorcade, fuelling the paranoia of the public and future governments alike.

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Wed, March 5 2025

The new compelling reboot series takes fans back into Hell's Kitchen as Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) square off once again.

The first Daredevil series was launched nearly a decade ago on Netflix and lasted for three seasons. Much has changed in the Daredevil universe, and we’ve seen Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, pop up in the MCU to interact with other characters. However, it is great to see him back in his own show, Daredevil: Born Again, tackling new cases and standing up to Kingpin, aka Wilson Fisk, again. The actors who play these characters step right back into it as the nine-episode series sets up a new collision course for Daredevil and Kingpin. The relative peace of the law firm Nelson Page and Murdock is shattered by a tragic event in the premiere, which spurs Matt (Charlie Cox) to retire his Daredevil persona for a bit. Meanwhile, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) returns after an assassination attempt with a renewed sense of responsibility and decides to run for mayor of New York City. A more sober Matt is focused on his law firm, while Fisk wants to be the people’s politician who wants to rid the city of all its vigilantes. The former rivals have their radars set on high again as events keep pulling them back in each other’s orbit.

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