Member Reviews

Snow White is the new live-action version of Disney’s classic princess story. Unlike the previous versions the film does stick to some of its traditional roots. It is hard to ignore all the controversy that came before and after the film’s release but even with its overwhelming shadow, Rachel Zegler’s performance is commendable. Snow White is not the first time Rachel has been part of a musical and it shows, but the film does take some extra effort to present her as a princess. Most of the weight is carried forward by the young actress who played young Snow in the opening song. The film begins with the introduction to a happy Kingdom where the King and Queen are kind and loving people who believe in thriving along with the people of the village they rule over. The opening song talks about the royals teaching their young daughter Snow the right way to live and the kind of person she should grow up to be — Fearless, Fair, Brave and True.

Written and directed by Vikram Bhatt, the film is a fictionalised version of the story of Ajay Murdia aka the founder of a chain of fertility clinics, Indira IVF. According to reports the film has incorporated some real facts about his life and career in the screenplay. The film explores a legal case, where he is accused of an attempt to murder one of his younger board members, while the memory of his dead wife gives him hope to not give up. With a run time of over two and a half hours, the film feels longer than necessary between, flashbacks, songs and more. Led by Anupam Kher as Ajay Murdia, the film begins with a news montage of how he is accused of attempting to murder, while a court proceeding grants him bail in the matter. His lawyer played by Eesha Deol is seen flying with him to Udaipur, so the family can decide how to move forward with the case. While Ajay wants to brave the storm along, he isn’t left behind by his kids who also decide to stick by him till the end. Soon it is evident, that the young board member is trying to frame Ajay Murdia in the case and his life was never in danger.

Adolescence is a crime drama, yes, but one that isn’t about the crime as much as the boy at its centre, the world that shaped him, and the people left reeling in his wake. If you thought it would be a murder mystery, the idea is put to rest at the ending of the first episode itself (it’s a miniseries and features four episodes) when the said mystery is revealed. It is revealed that (spoiler alert, but not really, for the trailer itself let it slip if one watched it closely) Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) did really kill the victim, Katie. No, Adolescence series is more interested in the motive behind the crime, and it is revealed piecemeal in the rest of the three episodes. Like Kareena Kapoor Khan-starrer The Buckingham Murders, Adolescence capably uses its small British town setting to paint a picture of a community simmering with quiet tensions. But while The Buckingham Murders leaned into grief and personal reckoning, Adolescence sharpens its gaze on something far more insidious, which is the slow radicalisation of a young mind through figures like Andrew Tate.

Neeraj Pandey’s Khakee: The Bengal Chapter is a sequel series to his own Khakee: The Bihar Chapter (2022). As you can undoubtedly guess, the action shifts from Bihar to Kolkata (or Calcutta as it was called then). Across seven episodes, the series tells a pretty focused story about the perils of policing in a volatile sociopolitical environment such as West Bengal, the nexus between politicians and the mafia, and a lot more. Here is everything you need to know about the story and ending of Khakee: The Bengal Chapter’s ending, as well as its release date, cast, and more. The crime thriller series is mostly the story of IPS Arjun Maitra (Jeet) and his struggle against the criminal elements in the city. He is transferred to Kolkata to replace his recently murdered predecessor, Saptarshi Sinha (Parambrata Chatterjee). Now, he is a pretty straightforward cop who deals with crime and its perpetrators as he sees fit, without worrying as to whether the criminal is an offspring of some big-shot politician. However, now he is in Kolkata, where the criminals and politicians are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Is he equipped enough to survive, or will he end up shot dead on the street like Saptarshi?

‘प्रेम कहानी यारों देखी, देवदास की पारो देखी, जर्दा पान का पत्ता देखा, अजब गजब कलकत्ता देखा, किस्सा है गुरदेव का सुर ताल का, एक और रंग भी देखिए बंगाल का’, ये खूबसूरत बोल हैं फिल्ममेकर नीरज पांडे की नई वेब सीरीज ‘खाकी: द बंगाल चैप्टर’ के ओपनिंग ट्रैक के, जो बंगाल का एक अलग रंग दिखाने का दावा करती है। अपनी खाकी फ्रेंचाइजी के तहत बिहार के बाद नीरज पांडे अब इसकी दूसरी कड़ी ‘द बंगाल चैप्टर’ लाए हैं। हालांकि, दावे से उलट कहानी में कोई ऐसा अनूठापन नहीं है। राजनीति, गैंगस्टर और पुलिस के नेक्सस की कहानियां पहले भी कई आ चुकी हैं, लेकिन कोलकाता की गलियों में भागती इस चोर-पुलिस के कहानी में बंगाल की संस्कृति, बोली-बानी और बांग्ला के नामी कलाकारों का समावेश इसे आकर्षक बनाता है। कहानी ‘सिटी ऑफ जॉय’ के ‘सिटी ऑफ भॉय’ बनने की है, जिसे सुधारने का जिम्मा एक ईमानदार और बहादुर खाकीधारी उठाता है। शुरुआत सत्ताधारी पार्टी के एक नेता के पोते की किडनैपिंग से होती है, जिसे खोजने के लिए ईमानदार पुलिस अधिकारी सप्तऋषि सिन्हा (परमव्रत चटर्जी) को एसआईटी में लाया जाता है। सप्तऋषि यहां लोकल डॉन शंकर बरुआ उर्फ बाघा (सास्वत चटर्जी) के आतंक से रूबरू होता है। बाघा अपने दो लड़कों जय-वीरू सागोर तालुकदार (रित्विक भौमिक) और रंजीत ठाकुर (आदिल खान) के साथ मिलकर स्मगलिंग से लेकर दिनदहाड़े किसी का गला रेतने तक, सब कुछ बेखौफ होकर करता है, क्योंकि उसके सिर पर सत्ताधारी पार्टी के ताकतवर नेता बरुन रॉय (प्रोसेनजीत चटर्जी) का हाथ है। चूंकि, इलेक्शन सिर पर है और विपक्ष की नेता निवेदिता बसाक (चित्रांगदा सिंह) शहर के हालात का मुद्दा बनाती है, इसलिए वो सप्तऋषि के जरिए बाघा पर लगाम कसने का दिखावा करते हैं। हालांकि, इस लड़ाई में सप्तऋषि जल्द ही शहीद हो जाते हैं और तब एंट्री होती है, सुपरकॉप अर्जुन मैत्रा (जीत) की। अर्जुन नियमों-निर्देशों को ताख पर रखकर गुनहगारों को सबक सिखाने वाला ऑफिसर है। ऐसे में वह बाघा, सागोर और रंजीत के आतंक से कोलकाता को कैसे भयमुक्त कराता है, यह सीरीज देखकर पता चलेगा।

‘कन्नेडा’ वेब सीरीज के नरेटर मोहम्मद जीशान अय्यूब के शब्दों में कहें तो इसे समझने के लिए कनाडा देश को समझना होगा, जहां दो देश बसते हैं। एक गोरों की फर्स्ट वर्ल्ड कंट्री ‘कैनेडा’ और दूसरा थर्ड वर्ल्ड कंट्री से आए प्रवासियों का ‘कन्नेडा’, जिसके निवासियों को सेकंड क्लास सिटीजन समझा जाता था। यह कहानी इसी तबके के एक ऐसे बंदे निर्मल चहल उर्फ निम्मा (परमीश वर्मा) की है, जो कनाडा और कन्नेडा के बीच की इस दूरी को मिटाने के लिए कुछ भी करने पर आमादा हो जाता है। साल 1984 के दंगों के बाद अपना पिंड पंजाब छोड़कर वैंकूवर में बसा निम्मा पढ़ाई, खेलकूद, म्यूजिक हर चीज में अव्वल होता है। स्कूल में वह गोरों के खेल रग्बी में सिलेक्ट होने वाला पहला ब्राउन मुंडा बनता है, मगर गोरे साजिशन उसे ड्रग रखने के जुर्म में फंसाकर टीम से निकाल देते हैं। इसके बाद निम्मे को यकीन हो जाता है कि वह कितनी भी मेहनत कर ले, खुद को सुपीरियर समझने वाले कनाडा वासी उसे वह इज्जत नहीं देंगे। इसलिए वह ताकत और पैसा हासिल करके यह इज्जत कमाने का ठान लेता है।

The Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute is largely centered around the city of Belagavi, aka Belgaum. While the city is in Karnataka, for years, allegations of suppression of the large Marathi-speaking population there have been doing the rounds. This issue forms one of the cruxes of Harshad Nalawade’s debut feature Follower. However, the larger part of the film, which premiered at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam in 2023, revolves around a disillusioned and disgruntled youngster, who joins a small media company that works to further a local politician’s agenda via social media. Raghavendra Pawar (Raghu Basarimarad), a well-educated Marathi-speaking resident of Belagavi, quits his job at a college after he’s allegedly sidelined by the Kannada-speaking authorities and denied a promotion. While searching for another job, he takes over his father’s gift shop after his father dies in an accident. Unemployed and constantly looked down upon by people around him, Raghavendra blames the socio-political scenario for his plight, villainising all Kannada-speaking people, including his friend Sachin (Harshad Nalawade), a YouTuber. He is eventually influenced by the local politician’s ‘fight’ for the Marathi-speaking community in the area and takes up a job that he believes he’s doing for the service of his community, thanks to the polarising words of the politician he idolises. But influenced and unthought decisions often have a way of rebounding, which is exactly what happens with Raghavendra. What, how and why are questions that Follower aims to address.

Sexual crimes have become the go-to place for filmmakers to find easy conflicts. It has become a license for all the on-screen violence of the protagonist and the viewer is expected to get a cathartic release seeing such revenge stories. In the end, the victim or the sexual violence itself is just reduced to nothing more than a conflict or a reason for the story. Trauma is yet another addition to the list of such Tamil films, which are on the rise now. However, director Thambithurai Mariyappan should be lauded as he at least doesn’t capture such violence with an exploitative gaze, which has become the norm. Such maturity is shockingly absent in other aspects of Trauma, which comes across as the work of a novice short-filmmaker. As far as the story goes, Trauma follows three narratives because it wants to be a hyperlink film, which is in vogue now (thanks to Lokesh Kanagaraj). We have two petty thieves who go about stealing cars. They are straight out of Tamil black-and-white comedy dramas because they seem to not even know how much a second-hand car would sell for. They wonder whether an SUV would sell for twenty thousand rupees, and that’s supposed to be funny.