Member Reviews

There is honour among enemies – sometimes. When the Indian Air Force captures decorated Pakistani officer Wing Commander Hussain Ahmed (Sharad Kelkar) in the 1971 war, Wing Commander Om Ahuja (Akshay Kumar) interrogates him. And learns that Ahmed got his gallantry award for shooting down an Indian aircraft in the Sargodha attack in 1965. But the Pak officer won’t reveal anything more. After the ceasefire, Ahmed is sent back to Pakistan. India has acted honorably with a PoW. The downing of the Indian aircraft in Sargodha opens unhealed old wounds.

Sky Force directed by Sandeep Kewlani and Abhishek Anil Kapur is led by Akshay Kumar and introduced a debutante star Veer Pahariya. The film based on real incident follows the story of Air Force officers O.P. Taneja and Ajjamada Boppayya Devayya. The makers have fictionalized the characters for their onscreen portrayal but the almost raw performances are. The film begins in 1971 when a Pakistani pilot attacking on Indian soil is capture. The Group Captain played by Akshay Kumar aka Ahuja meets the pilot to question him about his plans, and Pakistan’s plans to attack India. However, during a very civil interrogation, Ahuja finds out that he is the same pilot who may have attacked his former colleague who has been missing in action for over six years. The film then turns to a flash back in 1965 where Veer’s character is introduced as Vijya his call name Tabby.

The first time we meet Benji (Kieran Culkin), he’s aimlessly floating around in an airport. Seated in the waiting area with his ear pods plugged in, one can immediately spot the melancholy in his eyes. He appears to be curious about people – observing them closely. There’s a good chance that if someone around him was in need, Benji would be one of the first persons to help. But he’s also a wildcard, who wouldn’t respond to his cousin David’s (Jesse Eisenberg) voicemails, and that too on the day they’re supposed to travel to Poland together. Has he woken up? Has he left? Is he on time? Where is he? Does he remember they have a flight? No response.

After the second season of Paatal Lok (Amazon Prime Video), it’s safe to say that nobody else in India has mastered the police procedural like Sudip Sharma. Known for writing acclaimed films like Udta Punjab (2016) and Sonchiriya (2019) – Sharma became a household name after the first season of the show in 2020, much like his lead actor – Jaideep Ahlawat. Since then, Sharma has written Kohhra (2023), using the mould of a police investigation to uncover the oppressive culture of patriarchy typical to Punjab. In the second season of Paatal Lok, Sharma is still grappling with the larger rot in society using a trail of missing persons and murder probes.

Mother’s Instinct could have been named ‘Mom gone bonkers’. Turning the concept/ idea/ theme of a mother’s selfless love for her child on its head, this 2024 thriller, now streaming on Prime Video, is a pulpy watch, with maternal instinct going into a zone dark enough to result in murder. A couple of them, in fact. Set in the 1960s and headlined by Hollywood A-listers Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain, the directorial debut of acclaimed French cinematographer Benoit Delhomme has a Hitchcockian feel of unease and foreshadowing, but never really lives up to its ultimately pulpy potential.

After the astounding success ofThe Invisible Man, director Leigh Whannell is back to reboot another of Universal Pictures’ most iconic horror titles. While The Invisible Man turned out to be the outing that could have revived the Dark Universe which was shot down after the failure of The Mummy, the filmmaker’s latest film Wolf Man shows why the chances of getting that universe are darker than the films it could have. In the latest iteration of Wolf Man, after getting a “closure” on his father’s sudden disappearance along with the keys to his childhood home, Blake (Christopher Abbott) decides to make a trip out of it to save his strained marriage with Charlotte (Julia Garner). Along with their child Ginger (Matilda Firth), the couple drives to the middle of nowhere when they get attacked by a mysterious creature similar to what Blake had seen 30 years ago. When one of them gets infected while escaping from the monster, the barricaded safehouse turns into a trap.

When Kangana Ranaut announced that she would direct Emergency, many felt it might be another weapon to whip the Congress in the election year to limit the memory of the grand old party’s rule to the 21-month blot that Indira Gandhi inflicted on democracy in 1975. After a long wait and multiple controversies, it turns out that the artist in Kangana has prevailed over the fledgling politician in her to create an ambitious biopic of the former Prime Minister, where the Emergency period is a dark chapter in her storied journey from Anand Bhawan to 1 Safdarjung Road. However, in an attempt to find the roots of dictatorial insecurities in Indira’s psyche, the writers (Kangana and Ritesh Shah) tie the screenplay into knots. The muddled gaze results in a spiritual cousin of The Accidental Prime Minister where a biopic vilifies or dilutes its subject to serve the present dispensation.

Sub inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary (Jaideep Ahlawat) of Jamna-paar police station has become more confident in life after the adventures of the first season. He finds himself entangled in a political murder that takes place in Delhi with its roots in Nagaland. He, along with IPS Iqbal Ansari ( Ishwak Singh), goes into the interiors of North East India to find out a complex society striving for power by any means. So many factions, so much greed and so bizarre situations. They meet Barua (Tillottama Shome) as the local police authority and begin a chase that’s forcing them to move in circles. At least, this is what happens in the first four episodes I watched after the show started streaming on Thursday night.

Betaab, Barsaat, Mirziya… Bollywood somehow loves to launch its kids on horses. Abhishek Kapoor’s Azaad is the latest addition to the list where Ajay Devgn’s nephew Aaman Devgan, and Raveena Tandon’s daughter Rasha Thadani, get a horse ride because of their pedigree.

Hathiram Chaudhary, the permanent resident of Paatal Lok (netherworld) is back, and with him, so is the world of crime and murky dealings that need a desperate cleanup. Paatal Lok Season 1 came out during the first lockdown and blew everyone’s mind with its taut storyline and strong performances. It opened up ways for other similar cop stories that dealt with cases from the underbelly of society. Some were good, some were mere copies, but none captured the attention of viewers the way Paatal Lok had. It took the makers 5 years to come up with a sequel, and after watching season 2 of Paatal Lok, I have to admit it was worth the wait.