At the end of nearly two-and-a-half hours, you want to ask director Abhishek Kapoor and his writing team that includes Ritesh Shah and Suresh Nair, just one question. What was the story you ventured to tell? Was it about a magnificent, Chetak-like horse that could give its life to his master? If yes, then the most-loved animal film remains Rajesh Khanna and Chinnappa Devar’s Haathi Mere Saathi (1971) where entire families had a jumbo-size crush on Ramu, the hero’s pet elephant. But Abhishek and company treat Azaad like a backdrop, never letting the viewer warm up to the animal who is shown throwing off, neighing noisily and kicking the hero, most of the time. Oh, yes, he also likes liquor and breaks wind loudly (humour alert).

It is a misleading title. When it takes off with little Indira in her grandfather’s house at Anand Bhavan in 1929 where her early dislike for aunt Vijayalakshmi Pandit is established, and it tracks her until the day she was assassinated in 1984, it’s not just about the biggest mistake of her political life. What writer-director Kangana Ranaut has made is a full-fledged, political bio-documentary, detailing the defining moments of Indira Gandhi’s public life, before and after the Emergency that she infamously clamped on the country in 1975. In seeking to understand the person behind the Emergency, Ranaut and her writers Tanvi Kesari Pasumarthy, Ritesh Shah and Jayant Sinha, bring to the fore the vulnerabilities of the PM with the iron facade.

“Papa, I want a lal batti gaadi and people to salute me. I want to be a minister,” says a goon with a nose stud to his grotesque dad. He gets it on a platter. In the wake of last year’s Jawan and this year’s Pushpa, the fondly-held theory that south Indian filmmakers have cracked the box-office code, gets busted with writer-director Kalees’ remake of Atlee’s 2016 Tamil film Theri. The exhausting plot in two sentences: fearless IPS officer DCP Satya Verma (Varun Dhawan) is on a collision course when he takes on gruesomely repulsive gangster Babbar Sher (Jackie Shroff) and kills his criminal son. The same one who wanted a lal batti gaadi and maims, tortures and sets on fire, helpless young girls.

We’re in leafy Pune, the idyllic city of the retired. Aadima (Sharmila Tagore), graphics novel illustrator, has her grandson Neel (Jihan Jeetendra Hodar) visiting her while his parents (Sonali Kulkarni,Neeraj Kabi) grapple with their work schedules, their roles as mom and dad and with their marriage. Nana (Mohan Agashe) lives on his own, has his own routine and brushes off his son (Sunil Abhyankar) who wants dad to transfer his flat to his name to facilitate a loan, and move to Mumbai. Not quite lonely, companions like a cat who steals his milk and friendly banter with neighbour Londhe (Pradeep Jeshim) keep life moving for Nana.

The core premise is potent with possibilities for an empathetic experience. When elderly Deepak Tyagi (Nana Patekar), battling dementia, is abandoned in crowded Banaras by his hard-hearted family of three sons and their wives, his journey back home and comeuppance for the callous is an emotional space. Co-writing with Amjad Ali and Sunil Sirvaiya, director Anil Sharma places the family property named Vimla Sadan in a picturesque, snow-laden Palampur in Himachal Pradesh. Tyagi has plans of turning it into a trust. His sons and daughters-in-law who want to get their hands on the money, would rather desert him in faraway Banaras with no papers to identify him than let him sign the deed. It is tough for a man with memory lapses to survive.

We were charmed in 1994. By the story of Simba the lion cub, son of Mufasa, King of the Pride Lands. Scar, the evil force, had provided dramatic confrontation. The freshness of the animated number Circle of Life and the energetic camaraderie of Hakuna Matata have remained on the charts since then. Director Barry Jenkins’ prequel therefore comes with high expectations of a heartwarming, musical entertainer. The screenplay by Jeff Nathanson gives a backstory to Mufasa who died early in the 1994 blockbuster. Who was Simba’s dad?

“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” warn half-a-dozen faces – an assortment of builders, cops, politicians, media colleagues. Similarly, be warned, you don’t know what you’re getting into, if you switch on writer-director Kanu Behl’s ‘thriller’. Loosely patterned on the daylight murder of real-life investigative reporter J Dey of Mid-day in 2011, Behl and co-writer Ishani Banerjee manage so much incoherence that the only takeaway is of a man flawed by contrasts.

In our autograph books way back in school, a favourite verse was, “East is East, West is West. When they meet, it’s the best.” Bandish Bandits makes the same point, embellishing it with blended, mood-elevating music. There’s usually an ambience-fatigue when a fresh premise goes into a second season and struggles to say something new. Kota Factory, Mirzapur, Undekhi and Aarya are prime examples of ambience-fatigue.

Pushpa: The Rise (2021). Writer-director Sukumar had thrown a revenge-seeking SP Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat (Fahadh Faasil) on the trail of Pushpa Raj (Allu Arjun) even as the cheeky red sandalwood smuggler was happily taking his wedding vows with the love of his life, Srivalli (Rashmika Mandanna). Five baits have kept the audience agog for the last three years. What will happen to the sizzling chemistry of Pushpa and Srivalli? How will the face-off between strong opponents Pushpa and Bhanwar play out? Will the item number in the sequel match or surpass the saucy raunchiness of Samantha-Allu’s ‘Oo antava’? Will the dances and songs have risque-naughty moves once again?

How refreshingly different. Writer-director Rahul Dholakia takes his camera into the life-saving heroism of firefighters, so far an unexplored subject in Hindi cinema. Cut through black smoke and scorching flames for a warm story on how Fire Chief Vittalrao Surve (Pratik Gandhi) and his colleagues respond with alacrity and put their lives on the line to save lives day in and day out. Vittal, Avni Purohit (Saiyami Kher), Jazz (Udit Arora) and Mahadev (Jitendra Joshi) are a team that fearlessly go in to bring out those trapped in a fire.