Member Reviews

Around two decades ago, Paresh Mokashi gave the Marathi theatre audience a play called Mukkam Post Bombilwadi, which revolved around an absurd but hilarious story. For the big screen, Mokashi and team adapt the same premise on a cinematic scale. Set in 1942, Mukkam Post Bombilwadi unfolds in three locations – Adolf Hitler’s office in Germany, Winston Churchill’s war room in London, and the sleepy village of Bombilwadi in Konkan, Maharashtra. Amid mounting tensions of World War II, Hitler (Prashant Damle) gets a call about some innovation in Japan that can help him win the war. In no mood to waste time, Hitler decides to fly to Japan on his own (despite not knowing how to fly a plane). In the meantime, Churchill’s (Anand Ingale) spies tell him about Hitler’s plan and the British PM vows to stop Hitler come what may. The story then shifts to Bombilwadi, where multiple things are unfolding – a play is being rehearsed, a British police officer in love with Hitler’s partner Eva Braun is more focused on staging Shakespeare’s plays than maintaining law and order in Bombilwadi, and freedom fighters are plotting to send the Brits back with the ‘do or die’ slogan. In between all this, Hitler crash-lands in Bombilwadi. How, and what happens later is what the film is largely about.

Since 2018, Netflix has been adapting author Harlan Coben’s catalog in the form of limited series. These have been gaining popularity over the years, and last year’s Fool Me Once with Michelle Keegan broke several records. The newest release, Missing You, revolves around a missing persons detective, Kat Donovan, and a myriad of secrets around her past. Over five episodes, these secrets emerge one by one. Detective Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar), who is already investigating a series of missing people, connects with her former fiancé Josh (Ashley Walters) on a dating app. Josh ghosted her 11 years ago and is apparently living under a new name. Strangely, there is a connection to the missing woman she is currently investigating. Meanwhile, there is also the matter of Kat’s dad, a police officer who is murdered by a hitman. Eventually, Kat has to figure out what in her past and present is real and what is being kept from her.

Dream projects often come with their share of self-indulgence and doses of obsession. Yet, somewhere one gets to feel things expressed right from the heart of the maker, who has immersed his soul in this idea for so long. What one misses amid all the plasticity of Barroz, Mohanlal’s dream project and his debut directorial, is such an expression which hits us right where it matters. It is no wonder then that one is largely left untouched by the fantasy drama that plays out over 150 minutes. Part of the reason for how Barroz turned out in the end could be the abrupt exit of Jijo Punnoose, the brilliant brain behind India’s first 3D film My Dear Kuttichathan, in the early stages of the project. One of his major grouses was the drastic tinkering with his original screenplay. His stand appears to be justified since one of the weakest elements of Barroz is its unimaginative screenplay filled with overdramatic dialogues that spoil every other scene.

Vetri Maaran’s Viduthalai Part 1, told from the perspective of a new police constable Kumaresan (Soori), posted in a rural hillside Tamil Nadu village, explored the story of an extremist organisation named Makkal Padai and its head Perumal Vaathiyar (Vijay Sethupathi). Makkal Padai has a history, but when we entered the world in the first part, the conflict was immediate as the terrorist organisation had just bombed a passenger train killing and injuring several lives. The premise answered both ‘why and why now’ of the film’s existence. It ended with the arrest of Vaathiyar, aided by Kumaresan, who is on the brink of getting disillusioned with the government’s propaganda against the organisation. The effective first part left us with many questions about Vaathiyar and how it will affect Kumaresan.

India’s answer to ER/Grey’s Anatomy is here: Doctors, which is as straight-forward a title as you can get, is about just that, a bunch of medics, ranging from eager new residents to rockstar surgeons, as well as other denizens– nurses, interns, administrators– who make up a busy hospital. It takes a couple of episodes for the 10-part show to get into the groove, which gives us an insider’s look at medical practitioners going all out in high-stress emergencies, as well as dealing with those who are struggling with terminal diseases. These are humans who are also doctors. We see them as people, with their strengths and weaknesses, but who do not compromise when it comes to saving the lives of their patients.

कोलकाता शहर में मर्डर हो रहे हैं-एक के बाद एक। सिर्फ अकेली रह रही लड़कियों के मर्डर। हर लाश दीवार पर टंगी मिलती है। ज़ाहिर है कि यह किसी सीरियल किलर का काम है। डी.सी.पी. कनिष्क चटर्जी हैरान है क्योंकि बिल्कुल इसी पैटर्न पर 12 साल पहले भी कई मर्डर हुए थे लेकिन वह कातिल तो कैद में है। तो कौन कर रहा है ये मर्डर…? और इससे भी बड़ा सवाल यह कि क्यों कर रहा है वह ये मर्डर…? इस किस्म की रहस्यमयी मर्डर-मिस्ट्री वाली फिल्मों में अक्सर कहानी का फोकस ‘कौन कर रहा है’ के साथ-साथ ‘क्यों कर रहा है’ पर भी होता है। सीरियल किलिंग आमतौर पर मनोरोगी, मनोविक्षिप्त लोग किया करते हैं, सो ऐसी कहानियों को सस्पैंस थ्रिलर के साथ-साथ साइकोलॉजिकल-थ्रिलर का बाना पहनाया जाता है। लेखक प्रतिम डी. गुप्ता ने यहां भी ऐसा ही किया है और बखूबी किया है। इसके साथ ही उन्होंने इन हत्याओं की तफ्तीश में जुटे चार पुलिस अफसरों की निजी ज़िंदगियों में भी बखूबी झांका है। ऐसा करने से ये लोग ज़्यादा ‘मानवीय’ लगे हैं और वास्तविक भी। यही इस फिल्म (चालचित्र Chaalchitro) की खूबी है कि यह अपना धरातल नहीं छोड़ती। इसे देखते हुए यह नहीं लगता कि आप फिल्मी मसालों में डूबी कोई कहानी देख रहे हैं। हालांकि कुछ एक बैक स्टोरीज़ कहीं-कहीं कमज़ोर पड़ती है और कहीं-कहीं स्क्रिप्ट भी हौले-से लड़खड़ाई है, लेकिन एक लेखक के तौर पर प्रतिम जहां हल्के पड़े, एक निर्देशक के तौर पर वह उसे संभाल लेते हैं। उनके निर्देशन में कसावट है और वह फिल्म में ज़रूरी तनाव, भय, रोमांच व इमोशन्स रच पाने में कामयाब रहे हैं।

If you are one of those die-hard cinephiles who believe Die Hard is a Christmas film (along with the first two Home Alone flicks), then Netflix’s latest offering may very well make it to that coveted list of yours. Jaume Collet-Serra, the mastermind behind some simple yet efficient nail-biting action thrillers is back and while he’s not teaming up with Liam Neeson this time, he’s got an efficient Taron Egerton and a cast-against-the-grain Jason Bateman facing it off in Carry-On.

‘Baby John’ has all the trappings of a mass entertainer, having been produced by Atlee, the record-maker ‘Jawan’ director whose remake of Tamil film ‘Their’ it is. Headlined by a fairly bankable star, Varun Dhawan, who can certainly act, he does try to energise the proceedings. South Indian sensation Keerthy Suresh is making her Bollywood debut and yesterday’s ‘Hero’ Jackie Shroff plays the vilest of vile badman. On the side is the beautiful and talented Wamiqa Gabbi.

Like it happens with the follow-up for any successful show, I entered the Squid Game 2 with a fair bit of trepidation. What worked in the first season was the shock value of the setting that posits the innocence of childhood games, sophisticated Western classical music with a kind of savagery few would be able to stomach. Where unsuspecting debt-ridden civilians are lured onto an island to play a series of games – for which they stand to win an obscene amount of money, or pay for it with their life. A cruel, but clinical simulation of our lives in a hyper-capitalist society, the appeal of Squid Game lay in how it studied human nature – especially the ones with limited means, who are driven to take desperate measures. How far would you go to survive/get paid? As the first season showed: to any length.

It often takes no more than five minutes to tell that a ten-episode series is going to be … not good. Yet, it’s my job to watch the whole thing. I can’t just abandon it the moment I realise it’s fundamentally flawed. So, I spend a day or two watching the next 395 minutes, hoping against hope that a miracle changes my mind. But, of course, it never comes—the craft is all wrong, the writing is dated, the music is uninspired, and the acting is everywhere. Yet, when a series is so long and stubborn and voluminous, one tends to develop a strange attachment to it. There’s no escape, so I simply make peace with—and normalise—the mediocrity at hand. It’s a reluctant bond, the kind you have with a month-long cough. But it’s a bond nevertheless, and when it ends, a part of your life ends. That’s what Doctors became to me.