Member Reviews

he Diplomat has all the elements of a solid thriller. The drama is Argo (2012) and Bridge of Spies (2015)-coded, where one government agent must negotiate the safe return of a citizen trapped in a seemingly hostile country. The premise is almost ready-made. The film is inspired by the true story of Uzma Ahmed (played by Sadia Khateeb), a woman who arrives at the Indian embassy in Islamabad desperately seeking refuge; she claims to have been tricked into marrying an abusive Pakistani man who kept her captive in the mountains. Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh (John Abraham) takes charge, determined to guide her through a maze of media scrutiny, red tape, court trials and political tensions. All he has are words and aura, in addition to the support of the Minister of External Affairs (based on the late Sushma Swaraj) from New Delhi.

The eight-episode series Dope Thief takes its main characters on an absolute journey as greed and corruption in law enforcement are exposed through each stage. Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura’s characters are longtime friends who are drawn into this mess and try to emerge on the other side unscathed. The story hooks you in from the start, but with each twist, you’ll find yourself rolling your eyes at the outrageous turn of events. The well-acted crime drama is worth tuning in only for its cast. Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura) became the best of friends in juvenile detention and continued their life of crime undetected as adults. The duo pose as DEA agents and rob small drug dealers of their stash and money. Until one day when they hit the wrong meth house in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly, they are entangled in the larger narcotic crime ring that involves more dangerous drug dealers and even the cops themselves. With no one to turn to and their families now in danger, how do the two friends find an escape?

A great concept can be a curse. Take the one-liner of Humans in the Loop, for instance. An Adivasi single mother named Nehma (Sonal Madhushankar) starts working as a ‘data labeller,’ a job that requires her to train AI models to recognise the world in pictures and videos. This one-liner alone is so fertile — so ripe with cultural parables and documentary minimalism — that it’s hard to imagine a fictional film that expands on it. What can a feature-length story express that isn’t already implicit?

Their incredible true story has been in the public domain for well over a decade and a half but the deeds of the moviemakers of Malegaon have never ceased to fascinate. Inherent in the tale is the drama of improbable dreams of nondescript individuals clashing with daunting societal and economic constraints and, in the bargain, engendering phenomenal acts of self-belief. Director Reema Kagti captures it all in Superboys of Malegaon, a matter-of-fact fictionalized retelling. Her film is a classic rollercoaster in which dizzying and sobering, flighty and probing, roll into and out of each other. Superboys of Malegaon, produced by Excel Entertainment and Tiger Baby, is about unremarkable lives made noteworthy by trajectories less ordinary. But, operating firmly within the realms of the real and the relatable, the film steers well clear of the cliches of the genre.

A taut and tense thriller, Crazxy, produced by and starring Sohum Shah, whose choices as an actor have never been conventional, upends genre norms to deliver a 93-minute adrenaline rush that until it ends up in a small puddle of avoidable mush is absolutely riveting fare. Coming to think of it, even the somewhat mawkish conclusion is not wholly out of place in a drama that blends the emotional with the visceral. Crazxy wastes nary a scene in its sustained bid to generate intrigue and suspense centred on the conversations and choices of the protagonist, a successful surgeon with a volatile past making his way through a day on which everything that can go wrong goes horribly wrong. The film rests on a virtuoso solo act that sees Sohum Shah in the guise of a Delhi doctor pulled into a heart-pounding race against time to save his kidnapped daughter, a girl he heartlessly abandoned due to no fault of hers.

Shabana Azmi is the pivot around which Dabba Cartel, a female-driven Netflix crime drama series, swivels. She is in her element. That is half the battle won. Winning the remaining half takes a bit of doing. Happily, it isn’t entirely beyond the team behind and before the camera. Azmi pulls her weight without missing a beat. She is ably supported by a wonderful ensemble cast that includes Jyotika, Nimisha Sajayan, Sai Tamhankar, Lillete Dubey, Shalini Pandey and Anjali Anand. The writing, too, contributes more than its mite to the show by putting a vigorous fresh spin on the genre. Yet, there is no escaping the feeling that the seven-episode Excel Entertainment-produced series, created by Shibani Akhtar, Gaurav Kapur, Vishnu Menon and Akanksha Seda, could have been a little tighter at the seams and a bit lighter at the edges. It falls just a touch short of being an unqualified success.

A sham, short-term romantic dalliance in an elite, no-uniform Delhi school assumes serious overtones and flips and flops its way through predictable ups and downs. That is the crux of Nadaaniyan, a passably lively but spectacularly shallow rom-com produced by Dharmatic Entertainment for Netflix. The strictly superficial buoyancy that the film seeks to exude is as affected as the idea that the plot revolves around. Directed by first-timer Shauna Gautam from a script by Riva Razdan Kapoor, Ishita Moitra and Jehan Handa, Nadaaniyan sputters to life only intermittently, banking on the youthful charm and energy of the young lead actors. The film juggles sundry ideas from Karan Johar’s early blockbusters (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, K3G, et al) and updates them, without much originality, for the consumption of Gen Z social media addicts who would rather die than go off the grid.

The film based on real incidents follows the group of friends who decide to bring real cinema to their small town after realising Mumbai is out of their reach. Directed by Reema Kagti, the film focuses on their progress as filmmakers but also their friendship. It keeps the film rounded and about the people which the story is meant to be about than the industry. However, through out the run time, the film does stray from the point long enough for the ending to feel out of place. In the end, it is the performances that win. The film begins with the story of a group of young boys in Malegaon who would drop everything to get a glimpse of the stars on the big screen. While one of them runs a theater, another is part of a wedding video team, one is a writer and more. However, not all of them are working towards their career is films but still are obsessed with the stories just as much. Nasir when asked to buy film reels for the theatre finds out how to make copies and decides to make his own cut of action comedies to show at his theatre. They become an instant hit in his town but are shut down because of piracy.

Crazxy led by Sohum Shah follows after the actor’s biggest hit Tumbbad. While the new release is nothing close to the fantasy horror, it does bring a new and unique concept to the big screen. However, the promotional material from the film does not line up with the real concept nor does it bring the right expectations from the film. The misdirection adds to the mystery but doesn’t last long as the plot turns predictable early one. The film’s climax also leaves much to be desired despite the concept. The film begins with Sohum Shah getting ready with a massive bag on his way to the hospital, getting bombarded with calls about reaching on time. Early on, the makers establish that Sohum’s character Abhimanyu isn’t the good guy. He is set up at the obnoxious ex-husband, a terrible father and a doctor who does not care much for the patients. He is about to settle a big case, and pay for his life with the 5 crore in his car, and move on with his new girlfriend. However, one phone call changes it all.