Member Reviews

Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video has the eagerness of a standup comic. It is the sort of movie that feels obliged to make a joke before a sentence, between a sentence and after a sentence. Problem is the humour is not just pedestrian, it’s also plain unfunny. It’s a joke, Manjot Singh in a cameo points out early on in Director Raaj Shaandilyaa’s first comedy outside the Dream Girl franchise, as though embarrassingly aware of how unamusing the whole shtick is.

Raat Jawaan Hai unfolds as an uncharacteristically warm and vibrant answer to a question popular Hindi cinema is too streamlined to ask: what happens after the end credits of the quintessential buddy comedy have rolled? Call it “Little Things for young parents” or “Dil Chahta Hai for reluctant adults”, but the fact that Raat Jawaan Hai fuses two seemingly exclusive genres of life — the friendship triangle and the marital drama — is, in itself, a minor triumph.

In the early 1970s, a series of murders left the residents of Manvat terrorized, and people of Maharashtra in shock. A small town in Parbhani district, Manvat saw people, mostly women, being killed over a span of about two years with a black magic ritualistic motive, as the cops would later find out. Ashish Bende’s series attempts to take a deep dive into the case through the eyes of late cop Ramakant Kulkarni’s lens. Manvat Murders is based on Kulkarni’s book Footprints on the Sand of Time, which documented his high-profile cases, including the Manvat case which he was assigned.

Journalist-turned-director T. J. Gnanavel doesn’t seem to care much for any sort of filmmaking subtleties. It’s as though he enjoys dialling up the volume knob to underline his already-dramatic writing, and doesn’t let you rest until you feel the full weight of a scene’s emotions. This was obvious in the way he didn’t stop by just showing you a police officer dragging a beaten-up Manikandan K. into the back of a police jeep in Jai Bhim (2021).

All Rajinikanth films have some default settings. It doesn’t matter who directs him, they have to play by these rules or around it. Experimentations by the director are allowed but within the frame of the boilerplate. The success then comes down to how the proverbial ‘director’s touch’ syncs with the template of a superstar film.

Vettaiyan brings together two cinematic legends—Rajinikanth as Athiyan, a top cop delivering swift justice, and Amitabh Bachchan as Justice Sathyadev Bramhadutt Pande, who questions the very foundation of that justice. Director TJ Gnanavel sets up a thought-provoking premise that wrestles with themes of morality, justice, and redemption, but unfortunately, the film struggles to deliver a compelling narrative.

There are always visual and grammatical cues to determine the origin of any kind of cinema. In India, it differs with language and region but there is one kind of image that is not exactly the pride of Tamil cinema. Simplistic and overused in the last thirty years, its progenitor is probably director Shankar though the image draws power from the long history of Tamil Nadu in post-independent India.

In among the best stretches of Vettaiyan, the friend of an accused—both hailing from the slums—is being interrogated for his assistance in facilitating the latter’s escape, and the police eagerly slap their biases on them. Director TJ Gnanavel quietly, and subtly captures the indignation of these two young men at various times, as they square up to the police forces. It takes a great line about friendship from Athiyan (Rajinikanth) to restore a bit of faith in the young man’s eyes.

A couple of weeks ago, we saw the release of Dharmaveer 2, in which a deceased political hero, Anand Dighe, was used to glorify and popularize Maharashtra’s current Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Now, the same kind of propaganda has become the core of another Marathi movie. Titled Yek Number, the film aims to glorify Raj Thackeray, the chief of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).

Shiboprosad Mukherjee and Nandita Roy’s Bohurupi delivers what it promises: unadulterated entertainment. It is fun watching this mad cat-and-mouse game. The film is lavishly shot, and most importantly, made with care. It excels in almost every department with Shiboprosad’s skillful acting hogging the lion’s share of the limelight.