Sat, October 3 2026

Director Abhishek Pathak is firmly in the saddle here

Can third time be the charm, or unnecessary fatigue? As Ajay Devgn’s successful ‘Drishyam’, a remake of Mohanlal’s franchise of the same name, races towards a decisive conclusion, it makes a departure too. In interview after interview, Ajay has claimed that the triquel does not follow the Malayalam original. However, the makers, keenly aware of the truism ‘don’t change a winning combination’, stay with its lead characters and actors.

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Fri, October 2 2026

When will this travesty end? I ask that of almost every Bollywood remake and forced franchise, particularly those anchored by Ajay Devgn. Drishyam: The Conclusion was a rare exception that actually made me curious. Once a line-by-line remake and now an independent continuation, Abhishek Pathak’s film finally steps away from Jeethu Joseph’s Malayalam blueprint. After the second Hindi instalment, that fresh canvas looked like a chance for Devgn’s Drishyam to come into its own. The story picks up six months after Drishyam 2. A distraught Meera Deshmukh (Tabu) is all set to kill herself, and for a moment it looks like the Malayalam film again. Thankfully for us, she aborts her plans soon enough, opens her wardrobe, grabs the make-up box, and returns as the wounded cop and grieving mother the Hindi franchise knows how to deploy.

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Fri, October 2 2026

कहानियां दो तरह की होती हैं-एक वो जो सच होती हैं और दूसरी वो जिन्हें इस तरह से गढ़ा जाता है कि लोग उन्हें सच मान लेते हैं। ‘दृश्यम’ देखने वाले जानते हैं कि हम दूसरे किस्म की कहानी देख रहे हैं जिसे विजय सलगांवकर और उसके परिवार ने इस तरह से गढ़ा है कि वह सच न होते हुए भी सच लगती है, या कम से कम उसे सच मानने को हमारा मन करता है। हमें मालूम है कि समीर देशमुख 2 अक्टूबर की रात सलगांवकर के घर में उनके हाथों मारा गया लेकिन हम भी विजय और उसके परिवार की तरह यह मानना चाहते हैं कि उस दिन तो सलगांवकर फैमिली पणजी गई थी स्वामी चिन्मयानंद जी के सत्संग में, जिसके बाद उन्होंने पाव-भाजी भी खाई थी।

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Fri, October 2 2026

Sundeep Kishan and Faria Abdullah lead debut director Jason Sanjay’s heist-action drama, which has some interesting ideas but ultimately struggles to break new ground

Storylines exploring the nexus between illegal gambling dens and crime networks have been overdone in Indian cinema. Within the heist-action genre, it is rare to find something that feels new. The title of Sundeep Kishan and Faria Abdullah’s Tamil film, Sigma, alludes to the Gen Z idea of a “cool quotient” and an underdog protagonist navigating chaos. The film has been in the news because it marks the directorial debut of Jason Sanjay, son of Tamil actor and Chief Minister Vijay. Like Aryan Khan, Jason has chosen to work behind the camera rather than in front of it for his debut.

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Fri, October 2 2026

Director Shashank Yeleti’s Telugu film has hilarious moments and a delightful lead trio, but dull stretches and repetitive magic tricks keep it from becoming the full-on fun children’s film it could have been

Don’t Trouble The Trouble, written and directed by Shashank Yeleti, marks Fahadh Faasil’s first Telugu film as a solo lead. The film is an example of what it could have been versus what it actually is. Aiming to appeal to children and the childlike in adults, it makes for an easy watch without violence or gore. Some genuinely funny moments had children and adults in the hall cheering, but the narrative also has stretches that offer little excitement. The three principal actors — Fahadh Faasil, child actor Ssara Palekar and the adorable beagle Snoopy — are fantastic. Shashank has some fun ideas, from Aladdin and his magic lamp to an invisible character seen only by two characters and spells that should appeal to Potterheads. But not all of these ideas translate into an immersive experience.

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Fri, October 2 2026

With Digger, Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, a multiple Oscar winner (it was five at last count), once again ventures into the territory he is known for — his visceral, psychological filmmaking style exploring gritty realism and raw emotional vulnerability, painful existentialism, all-out redemption, interlinked fates and sweeping stakes. In Digger, he has Tom Cruise for company, with the two taking a wild swing that veers dangerously between ambitious and outlandish. The time is right, more than ever, for a satire on climate change, but Digger is too overstuffed and oddball (not in a good way) to make an impression with lasting impact.

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Fri, October 2 2026

The Oscar-winning filmmaker attempts both to mount a satire on climate and capitalism and to deconstruct it, ultimately landing in a painfully drab soup.

Digger is as depleting as films can get. Watching it is like being flogged mercilessly by its spitfire of self-aggrandising attitudes, a battery of dead metaphors. Alejandro G. Iñárritu is a self-indulgent filmmaker of some other bizarre dimension altogether. This isn’t a complaint. When an artist is as self-absorbed and thrilled by the import of their own statements and themes, it’s the ultimate act of inciting profound annoyance. It wants to say something about the dire state of the world, how we cope with the ever-increasing assault of horrors, the lavish, careless games of the uber-rich casually plunging civilisation into utter chaos. Is satire the only way to find some sort of release from the dread capitalism has forced upon the planet? Is it an evasion or the only honest, fitting response to grief and rage? All are welcome anxieties to examine. But Digger ploughs on and on with the kind of inflated self-regard that instantly spells doom for any undertaking. The final nail in the coffin is the coup casting of Tom Cruise.

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Fri, October 2 2026

Think Ricky Gervais’ legendary Golden Globes monologue, ruthlessly shaming the rich and privileged sitting in the same room, colliding with the manic energy of a lovestruck Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch. If you’re game for this strange and lethal concoction of roast and reality, Digger is quite a ride.

Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise), an aging American oil tycoon, lives in an isolated mansion with his ailing white cat. Accustomed to getting his way and surrounded by people too afraid to disappoint him, Digger is not easily rattled. However, when the consequences of his reckless actions in Greenland threaten to unleash a climate catastrophe across Northern Europe, he is forced to confront a crisis of his own making. With the help of Dr. Ganesh (Riz Ahmed) and the President of the United States, Digger must race against time to contain the damage and halt the unfolding disaster. But can a man who spent his life exploiting the planet and people, find a way to save it?

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Fri, October 2 2026

The flat Hindi remake of ‘Premalu’ stars Vir Pahariya as a weepy slacker who somehow discovers love through the language of rejection

A mainstream remake of a non-Hindi-language movie is often a license to hijack, not adapt. If the original depends more on the treatment and cultural rhythm of an old formula, the imposter has nowhere to hide. Girish A.D.’s Malayalam romcom Premalu was about the scrambled identity of love and ambition for middle-class strivers who enter the adult world; it isn’t perfect (especially a copout airport climax), but the humorous ‘youngness’ of the film sells the point. But Apoorv Singh Karki’s Prem Keetanu is flattened by its Bollywood habits. It is tonally greedy, and the gentrified story is demarcated into genres: it starts out as a TVF-style campus-slacker comedy, morphs into a loud love triangle, collapses into echoes of an obsession tale, briefly flirts with the idea of a coming-of-age drama, and ends as a lightweight romcom. It has the grammar of a music-video montage, where every genre behaves like an entitled lover fending off one another to woo the reluctant viewer.

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Fri, October 2 2026

The over-designed social drama struggles to stay mature about the premise of an ‘imperfect’ woman who is put on trial for the suicide of her boyfriend

Pooja Meri Jaan opens with a dramatic Romeo and Juliet rendition on a Delhi stage. The Shakespearean tragedy ends with both deaths, there is applause, and the lead actors proceed to hijack the spotlight: ‘Romeo’ Aniket (Vikram Singh Chauhan) proposes to ‘Juliet’ Pooja (Mrunal Thakur) in front of a packed theatre. Seconds later, she rejects him backstage. He is devastated, her words hurt, he rides home in the rain like a broken Vishesh Films hero — and kills himself. Pooja is soon booked for abetment of suicide, and the rest of the film revolves around her trial in the court of public opinion.

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Fri, October 2 2026

Mrunal Thakur's Pooja is the kind of modern, independent young woman whom the manosphere - desi or elsewhere - hates.

Pooja (Mrunal Thakur) is in the dock. Her jilted boyfriend Aniket (Vikram Singh Chauhan) is dead, and the blame has been placed squarely upon her slender shoulders. Her lawyer Sana (Huma Qureshi) is not well-versed in criminal law, but she’s a friend, something the investigating officer Jatin (Vijay Raaz) is clearly not. He’s convinced that Pooja is responsible, and vows to make her pay. Pooja is the kind of modern, independent young woman whom the manosphere — desi or elsewhere — hates. She has a busy dating life, and doesn’t think that it’s her job to rescue the men she’s with. It’s even-stevens, and if the men have a problem, there’s the door. Which is pretty much how it should be, but of course it’s not, whether it’s in the movies or real life.

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Fri, October 2 2026

लड़के ने लड़की को सरे-स्टेज शादी के लिए प्रपोज़ किया। लड़की भीड़ में तो कुछ कह नहीं पाई लेकिन दो मिनट बाद कमरे में उसने साफ इंकार कर दिया, अंगूठी उतार फेंकी। लड़का बोला-मैं मर जाऊंगा। लड़की बोली-मेरी बला से। लड़का झूल गया। सब लोग लड़की के पीछे पड़ गए-दोस्त, पड़ोसी, मीडिया, समाज और कानून भी, कि उसी ने लड़के को आत्महत्या के लिए उकसाया था। अब बताइए, कौन सही है कौन गलत…? बरसों पहले ‘पिंक’ (Pink) के रिव्यू में मैंने लिखा था, ‘छोटे कपड़े पहनने वाली लड़कियां। दोस्तों के साथ शराब पीने और नॉन-वैज चुटकुले सुनने-सुनाने वाली लड़कियां। रात को पार्टियों में जाने वाली लड़कियां। पर क्या ये होती हैं ‘खराब’ लड़कियां? आसानी से बिस्तर पर जाने को तैयार लड़कियां? क्या हक नहीं होता इन्हें ‘न’ कहने का? और अगर ये राजी न हों तो क्या हक मिल जाता है लड़कों को, समाज को इन्हें दबाने का, कुचलने का, मार देने का?’

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Fri, October 2 2026

The laidback rural satire improves upon a scattered first season, introducing stakes and problems that echo in the real world

Dupahiya is a homegrown series that’s difficult to write about. Not because it’s mediocre or anything, but because it’s the kind of low-stakes, minor-key and watchable satire that strives to be forgotten the second it ends. It’s almost too easy to engage with as ambient and family-friendly entertainment; the cast is likeable; the craft is playful; everyone gets a track (read this in Oprah’s “everyone gets a car” voice); the setting is familiar. Season 1 revolved around a stolen dowry motorbike in the crime-free village of Dhadakpur. The Panchayat hangover was strong, despite a broad storyline connecting its several characters. But Season 2 sheds the hangover — ironically, Panchayat itself has mutated into its own imposter — by being more thematically distinct. Besides the dramedy, it grows up a bit and stays tethered to the India of today. I’ll remember it more than the first season because it’s not as…content. Pun unintended.

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Fri, October 2 2026

The second season of Sparsh Srivastava-Gajraj Rao suffers from a plot which doesn’t thicken till way past the halfway mark, even though it feels timely -- the leaking of exam papers.

One of the reasons that Dupahiya worked was its cheerful focus on the importance of the two-wheeler—its ‘whereof’ and ‘whyfor’. A potential groom demands a dupahiya to marry an excited girl who has fallen, not for his brash charms, but for the promise of getting away from here to there, a fictional Dhadakpur to a real-life Mumbai. It became the dhuri (fulcrum) around which the series revolves, telling the story of a gaon, its people and its politics in a spry and enjoyable way. The second season suffers from a plot which doesn’t thicken till way past the halfway mark, even though it feels timely: the leaking of exam papers is a fraught issue, whose fire has caused unimaginable turmoil.

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Fri, October 2 2026

Karthik Subbaraj’s Dorothy is a cinema of red herrings and foreshadowing.

Karthik Subbaraj’s Dorothy is a cinema of red herrings and foreshadowing. In the beginning, it declares itself as a ballad to the friendship of Karthi (Rishikanth) and Subbu (Sananth), their early childhood in school, their companionship that triumphs caste, and their affection that transcends class. It is an inception that’s familiar to the Tamil audience, one that evokes so many films from the past, from Uyarndha Manithan, Paarthal Pasi Theerum and Alayamani to Sattam, Annamalai, Thalapathy and Friends. Subbaraj sets it closer to his stomping grounds—in and around a village in Madurai in the mid-90s. If the last fifteen years are any indication this points to only one genre—the gangster saga known as 3Ms, Madurai Murder and Mayhem—and so goes Subbaraj, populating the film with familiar tropes and beats, making Karthi and Subbu the muscle for a local thug.

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Wed, September 30 2026

Subbu (Sananth) has just escaped the irate brother of the woman who was comforting him after a loss. Something compels him to seek out the hulking brute and explain that he has no romantic designs on his sister. This goes down badly, and soon Subbu, in an open field, is fighting for his life. His best friend, Karthi (Rishikanth), joins in, just about evening the odds. it’s a strange fight: stop-start, lots of long and overhead shots, action at the edges of the screen or outside it. Though the younger men keep launching into flying kicks, neither they nor their opponent really know how to fight, so the whole thing has a clumsiness that belies the increasing stakes. At one point, a dung beetle carefully rolling a ball is foregrounded, and the silly, deadly fight becomes a blur in the back.

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Mon, September 28 2026

Fri, October 2 2026

Colleen Hoover has filled many of those airport bookstores and this one ought to have stayed there, and never crossed the desks of Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson or Josh Hartnett.

“I don’t read novels one can get at an airport,” declares Lowen (Dakota Johnson). Which is her way of saying that her books are “not popular”, but that they need not be. This is after she has taken up the offer to ghost-write for one very popular writer (Verity, played by Anne Hathaway) because, well, who doesn’t need money? As you may have guessed by now, neither does much writing in this latest Colleen Hoover book to be made into a film. When Lowen does find herself behind a computer, she is mostly rubbing her face or stretching or sighing. She also fills up a room with handwritten notes, laid out across couches and carpet, as part of her “process”.

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Fri, October 2 2026

जैसे हर सिक्के के दो पहलू होते हैं, वैसे ही हर किसी का अपना सच होता है। एक ही बात को अलग-अलग इंसान, अलग-अलग नजरिए से देखते हैं। इसलिए, सवाल यह है कि किसके सच पर भरोसा किया जाए और इसी उलझन में दर्शकों को डूबने-उतरने पर मजबूर करती है हॉलीवुड फिल्म ‘वेरिटी’। ऐनी हैथवे और डकोटा जॉनसन जैसे दो बेहतरीन और हसीन एक्‍ट्रेसेस से सजी यह साइकोलॉजिकल थ्र‍िलर फिल्‍म मशहूर लेखिका कोलीन हूवर के चर्चित उपन्यास पर आधारित है। सच की धुंध इस थ्रिलर की ताकत भी है और कमजोरी भी, क्योंकि कहानी का रहस्य आपको तो बांधता है, पर कंफ्यूज भी करता है।

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Thu, October 1 2026

Verity is one of those psychological thrillers where, once it starts, you find yourself glued to the screen, waiting to see what happens next. And honestly, how often does a thriller manage to do that?

Based on Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel of the same name, the film has been directed by Michael Showalter, who keeps the suspense alive through a steady stream of twists, secrets and revelations. Dakota Johnson plays Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling writer who gets an unexpected opportunity when she is hired to complete the bestselling series of Verity Crawford, a successful author who is now bedridden and unable to continue writing. Verity’s husband Jeremy and her publishers want Lowen to take over the series, but there’s a catch: she has to move into the Crawford family home in Vermont and go through Verity’s work — her manuscripts, notes, documents and everything she has left behind.

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Thu, October 1 2026

Whenever this film moves away from the train and indulges in a fairy tale about a man and a woman finding themselves and falling in love again and again, Yezhu Kadal Yezhu Malai shows what it could have been...

Eternal. There is so much positivity to the idea of something being eternal. But is it always a great thing? Experiencing a love that transcends time and space is a beautiful feeling, but what if it comes with the pain of separation, the angst of yearning, and the burden of repetition? In fact, the nameless protagonist (Nivin Pauly) of director Ram’s latest, Yezhu Kadal Yezhu Malai, is an immortal being who has been walking through the sands of time for over 8,000 years. He is worldly wise, weary, and anything but winsome. But one can’t blame him for his irritable demeanour because, as Kamal Haasan wrote in Uttama Villain, “Saagavaram pol sogam undo…” (Is there anything sadder than being immortal?) What keeps him walking on the face of the earth? Love. So an immortal falls in love with someone (Anjali); he has met her five times over 8,000 years, and between each meeting, he craves her and lives his life searching for her. Now, this timeless love story has all the makings of a… let’s say timeless love story. But even with the backing of a whimsical idea, it is perplexing to see Ram try to ground his film in a moving train that, unfortunately, chugs around in circles.

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Thu, October 1 2026

The latest retelling of John Steinbeck's classic novel by Zoe Kazan is an ambitious, sprawling saga that attempts to do justice to the author's work.

In 1955, Elia Kazan directed the James Dean starrer, East of Eden, which followed the last part of John Steinbeck’s semi-autobiographical 1952 novel. Dean played Cal Trask, who fights for his father’s love alongside his perfect brother Aron. A new Netflix limited series on the material, written and showrun by Elia’s granddaughter, Zoe Kazan, goes deep into the novel, exploring the Biblical themes, characters and the promise of America at the turn of the century. Backed by a strong cast, East of Eden follows the doomed marriage of Adam (Christopher Abbott) and Cathy (Florence Pugh) that spills over its sins to the next generation. Finely acted, the ambitious and largely faithful period drama really gets into the characterisation from the novel, while also immersing viewers into its self-righteous world.

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Wed, September 30 2026

Any publicity is good publicity. Any act of social reform can be justified if the intent is right. Primetime asks the colder question underneath both slogans: how far can that intent be stretched before the act itself is the product? Lance Oppenheim’s first narrative feature, adapted from Luke Dittrich’s Esquire piece “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die,” does not treat To Catch a Predator as a curiosity from the MySpace years. It treats it as a machine. Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) works the chatrooms, then the doorway, then the camera. NBC has given him primetime. ABC’s Lost is eating the other side of the dial. The numbers have to land.

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Sat, September 26 2026

Fri, September 25 2026

Director Lance Oppenheim turns his lens on the credibility, ethics and moral corrosion of vigilante justice in the reality-TV world. Pattinson is sensational as a man teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Primetime is based on the controversial mid-2000s true-crime series To Catch a Predator, hosted by American broadcast journalist Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson). The psychological thriller follows Hansen and his production team as they conduct sting operations to expose suspected paedophiles who engage in online chats with minors. The team recruits adult volunteers posing as 13-year-olds to lure potential predators into meeting them. Once they arrive, they are ambushed on camera by Chris before being arrested by the police. The show was widely celebrated for its intent of exposing sexual predators but its methods often walked a murky ethical line. That moral ambiguity forms the heart of Primetime. Director Lance Oppenheim examines the credibility, ethics and moral corrosion of vigilante justice when packaged as entertainment. What begins as an ostensibly noble mission gradually becomes a spectacle, where humiliation, outrage and ratings feed off one another. The film also traces the systematic erosion of conscience among those involved, culminating in the suicide of one of the accused.

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