Member Reviews

A small town in South India. A religious festival drumming up nightly fervour. A crime most foul. Red herrings. Confused cops. These elements which made the first season of ‘Suzhal: The Vortex’ such a gripping watch are back in Season 2, except the town is different, and the crime, this time around, is revealed from the get-go: a local lawyer is found dead. Was it suicide, or murder? Two of the lead actors are back, too. Kathir as the cop Sakkarai, is under a professional cloud for something he did in the previous season, and Aishwarya Rajesh as Nandhini, the young woman who slayed her demon in its satisfactory climax, is awaiting trial. Sakkarai has strong filial ties with slain lawyer Chellappa (Lal), and as he delves deeper, past secrets rise to the surface, and everyone connected to the victim comes under the scanner.

Crazxy movie review: The stuck-behind-a-steering-wheel/closed-phone-booth character, hellbent on saving a loved one from dire consequences, has been used in a few films. In ‘Crazxy’, Sohum Shah plays a surgeon, on track for a crucial meeting, poleaxed by a phone call which changes everything: he needs to rapidly regroup and think on his feet, to prevent calamity befalling a member of his family. At 93 minutes, the film is fashioned as an edge-of-the-seat thriller, and Shah’s Dr Abhimanyu Sood does his best to put metal-to-pedal, while fielding calls from a bunch of increasingly agitated people: ex-wife (voiced by Nimisha Sajayan), current interest (voiced by Shilpa Shukla), boss of his hospital (voiced by Piyush Mishra), and a senior teacher (voiced by Tinnu Anand) at his daughter Vedika’s (Unnati Surana, on screen briefly) school, who is empathetic to her special needs.

Dabba Cartel review: A group of Thane-based women come together to fend off multiple elements that are stopping them from being themselves. Sweet housewife Raji (Shalini Pandey), her dour mother-in-law Sheila (Shabana Azmi), mouthy domestic worker Mala (Nimisha Sajayan), unhappy wife-cum-entrepreneur Varuna (Jyotika), smart real-estate agent Shahida (Anjali Anand), all very different from each other, find common cause through an unlikely enterprise: the modest business of daily dabbas with ‘ghar-ka-khana’ laced with a little kick, turns into a ride whose rising profit comes with thrills and danger.

Superboys of Malegaon is inspired by Faiza Ahmad Khan’s terrific 2008 documentary ‘Supermen of Malegaon’, on a subset of residents of Malegaon who had become famous for turning their home-grown spoofs of Bollywood blockbusters into a profitable cottage industry. The filmmakers give credit to the original at the end of their film, which in essence, is a feature film with many elements borrowed from the documentary, which in turn was based on the remarkable enterprise on display in a small Maharashtra town afflicted by communal tensions and poverty, and about the power of dreaming.

Human beings are bound to have a breaking point, the limit till which they can take all the pain and sufferings that life throws at them. Geetha, the protagonist of Fazil Razak’s Thadavu(The Sentence) being screened in the international competition category at the 28th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), does not seem to have one. In the short period from the life of the 51-year old that we get to see in the film, she lands in one crisis after another, the latest one being more grave than the previous that it seems impossible that she would overcome it. But, for the woman scarred by two unsuccessful marriages and a series of unfortunate events, including being blamed for a child’s death for no fault of her own, the question of giving in does not arise.

Written and directed by Mudassar Aziz, the film does bring tones similar to his previous releases like Khel Khel Mein, Pati Patni Aur Woh, Happy Bhag Jayegi series. While his previous films had some aspects working for them, Mere Husband Ki Biwi falls short on most of them. Led by Arjun Kapoor, Bhumi Pednekar and Rakul Preet Singh, the film attempts to explore a good concept about divorce and separated families but the message is lost somewhere between all the twists and turns that don’t add much. The comic timings often work but the screenplay doesn’t support or appreciate the comedy as much. The film begins with Arjun Kapoor’s Ankur Chaddha dreaming about his monstrous ex-wife, Prabhleen Dhilon played by Bhumi Pednekar. Ankur and Prabhleen have separated for over two years but she continue to haunt his dreams, and his reality. Her memories continue to get in the way of his new relationships, however, his one loyal friend refuses to give up even if it lands them in trouble. Ankur is finally able to move on when he visits his hometown to finalise a deal, where he meets his college’s ‘IT’ girl Antara Khanna played by Rakul Preet Singh.

अंकुर चड्ढा और प्रभलीन ढिल्लों (जिसे फिल्म में ढिल्लों, ढिल्लोन, ढिल्लन भी कहा गया) का तलाक हो चुका है लेकिन प्रभलीन के साथ बिताए बुरे दिन अंकुर की यादों से नहीं निकल पा रहे हैं। उसे पुरानी दोस्त अंतरा खन्ना मिलती है, दोनों करीब आते हैं कि तभी प्रभलीन लौट आती है और अंकुर को वापस पाने की जुगत में लग जाती है। कौन जीतेगी इस रेस में? हस्बैंड को छोड़ चुकी बीवी या हस्बैंड की होने वाली बीवी? अपने आकर्षक नाम और अपनी कहानी की रूपरेखा से लुभाती इस फिल्म को पति-पत्नी के रिश्ते की पेचीदगियों के इर्दगिर्द बुनी एक कॉमेडी फिल्म का कलेवर दिया गया है। फिल्म अपने फ्लेवर में है भी ऐसी जिससे हल्की-फुल्की कॉमेडी उपजती रहे और रिश्तों की संजीदगियों पर बात भी न हो। अपने ‘बॉलीवुड’ से आने वाली इस किस्म की फिल्में अक्सर यही तो करती आई हैं। आइए, देखिए, टाइमपास कीजिए और जाइए। जिसे कोई सीख लेनी हो ले ले, हम तो मसखरी दिखाएंगे।

In a literal world, ‘Baksho Bondi’ — Bengali words carrying set meanings — need not exist together. When translated to English, ‘baksho’ means ‘box’ and ‘bondi’ is ‘captive’; both denoting the idea of being boxed up. But then again, in a literal world the verbatim translation of ‘Baksho Bondi’ would be a phrase: captive in a box. Yet first-time directors Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi forsake precision in favour of interpretation, choosing Shadowbox (Baksho Bondi, 2025), meaning to fight with an imaginary adversary, as the English title, and in doing so, shrink the subjectivity of a person to the objectivity of an experience. The result is a film that unfolds as an interplay of both titles —imbued with the angst of confinement and the spirit of resistance— while mirroring the ambiguity that comes with it. Maya (Tillotama Shome) lives with her husband and son in Barrackpore, a neighbourhood located at the fringes of Kolkata, a densely populated Indian city. She works constantly although the specificity of her labour takes shape later. She irons clothes and ferries them from door to door on a cycle, and does domestic work for a family. In between, she outlines her husband’s routine and instructs their teenage son Debu to help him with it.

The fine line between journalism and sensationalism is fast becoming wafer-thin. Even those not privy to the world of journalism are aware of the falsehoods the media propagates in search of truth. So, what can the showrunner of ‘Crime Beat’, Sudhir Mishra, tell us what we already don’t know, or go beyond what Hansal Mehta’s ‘Scoop’ or ‘The Broken News’ offered? ‘Crime Beat’, like Mehta’s ‘Scoop’, is very much an insider account of investigative journalism. Based on the novel ‘The Price You Pay’ by Somnath Batabyal, who spent a decade covering crime, it takes us into the heart of news gatherers. Set in 2011 in New Delhi, a journalist, Abhishek Sinha (Saqib Saleem), in pursuit of page one stories even recreates the drama for a story. Of course, before we meet the protagonist of the series, we are introduced to Binny Chaudhry (Rahul Bhat). Hailed as a messiah, he is on the verge of surrendering to the police but before we get to know who he is, he is shot dead.

In his short lifetime of 38 years (1882-1921), Subramania Bharati left an indelible mark on Tamil society. His rousing poetry and prose introduced many to the concepts of patriotism and female emancipation, and enhanced them in those who already possessed it. His love for the country, and towards his Parasakthi, the divine feminine are well-known. The nimirndha nannadai (graceful walk with head held high) and nerkonda paarvai (straightforward vision) he visualised women to possess still serve as an inspiration to some and an aspiration for others. Despite multiple readings of Bharati’s life over the ages, there’s still scope to analyse the various facets of his life. And, that’s what the film Shaktidasan (devotee of Shakti), by director Usha Rajeshwari sets out to do.