Anuj Kumar

In the pantheon of real-life criminals that Indian filmmakers love to recreate on screen, Charles Sobhraj perhaps tops the list. The serial killer’s exploits are expounded with such reverence that the law enforcers appear pygmies in front of him. The latest being Black Warrant on Netflix. Debutant director Chinmay Mandlekar’s Inspector Zende finally turns the tables on him by revealing what happens after his daring escape from Tihar Prison in 1986. Though a worthy documentary on Madhukar Zende exists, it is surprising that Bollywood has taken such a long time to document the distinguished Mumbai Police officer who nabbed Sobhraj twice, without making a fuss. How it missed the attention of Akshay Kumar is a mystery!

A musical drama loosely inspired by the life of Padma Shri Raj Begum, Songs of Paradise puts into focus the rich poetic culture of Kashmir that often gets buried under the “Files” of jaundiced perceptions. It is the side of Kashmir that we have hardly seen in Bollywood. Set in a time and space when the idea of a woman singing in public was taboo, it follows the struggle of Zeba Akhtar (Saba Azad/ Soni Razdan), who emerges as the voice of freedom because of her talent and tenacity. With the support of her tailor father (Bashir Lone is outstanding), Zeba stitches her musical dreams under the tutelage of Masterji (Shishir Sharma), who urges her to participate in a singing competition organised by Radio Kashmir. She wins the contest, but the social stigma attached to music forces her to assume a pseudonym, Noor Bano.

Early in this romantic comedy, when Param (Siddharth Malhotra), a second-generation businessman who is besotted with data, buys into the idea of a new computer application that promises to find the perfect match for netizens, he wonders, “It looks good in theory, but is it practical?”. An hour into the film, and one realises that Param was inadvertently talking about the screenplay he is part of. The story of a romance crossing regional and cultural barriers might have sounded great on paper, but on screen, it plateaus before it reaches Deccan. In romantic comedies, the destination is usually known; it is the journey that matters. Twelve years after Chennai Express, Bollywood boards a passenger train to Kerala with the same level of ignorance about the South but much more self-awareness. Both liquidate the fun.

For a change, Pakistan is not the pivot of a Bollywood script that has a terror attack at its centre. Based on real events, Tehran draws from the alleged concerted Iranian attack on Israeli embassies in India, Georgia, and Thailand in 2012. Waiting in the wings for a while, Tehran assumes importance at a time when West Asia is on the boil again because of strained relations between Iran and Israel. The film shows how the two countries attack each other’s interests, but in this case, India, which has friendly ties with both Iran and Israel, gets caught in the crossfire between the two countries fighting a war of civilisations.

In childhood, we were attracted to comic digests by their girth. One used to believe that the more the stories, the more the fun. The pages were glossy, and the packaging used to be fetching. However, the excitement often dissipated into disappointment when one discovered that it was a marketing gimmick, where the publishers added only a couple of new adventures of our favourite characters, the rest were just a repetition. Ayan Mukerji’s sequel to War gives the same feeling of a recycled product that shines. It starts with a bang but soon becomes a rudderless star vehicle. In the race to populate the spy universe, screenwriters have compromised on substance, indulging in hero worship and flag-waving to pass the box office test. Yes, the trailer looks attractive, the stars shine bright, and the post-credit scenes are appetizing. However, when it comes to telling a story, the makers prove more successful in highlighting Kiara Advani’s curves than in conveying the contours of the storyline. It features a variety of stunts with a script that appears to be powered by artificial intelligence.

In the march of civilisation, some dear words are in danger of falling by the wayside. One of them is Ghich Pich. It can be loosely translated as cramped space, but it is a state of mind that a single word can’t explain. Much like the nostalgia of the 1990s, young filmmakers continue to revisit it to tell coming-of-age stories. It is a template where the focus is on providing an experience, and in the hands of director Ankur Singla, the emotional and physical architecture feels tangible and honest as he captures a slice of life from three Chandigarh boys grappling with hormonal rush and daddy issues.

It is heartening that, in the pan-Indian wave, once in a while, a socially conscious story from the south also lands on Bollywood’s shores. In Dhadak 2, a remake of the Tamil film Pariyerum Perumal, where caste becomes the villain in a young romance, debutant director Shazia Iqbal struggles to strike a balance between retaining the voice of the original and applying a Dharma polish to a social reality that has been mainly out of the syllabus for Bollywood biggies. The result is a mixed bag. While it is brave for Bollywood standards, the storytelling fails to provide a lived-in experience and becomes a kind of explainer on how Dalit lives matter for the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai audience.

After watching Dhadak, one finds a serious layer in this infantile sequel to Ajay Devgn’s tribute to his Punjabi roots as well. The writing plays on the Bollywood Sardar stereotype, one who is innocent, stands his ground, and doesn’t show his back in a battle. Lest we forget, the makers ensure the word Punjabi keeps popping up in the dhol-centric background score as well. After a long wait for a visa, when the simpleton Jassi (Ajay) comes to London, he discovers that his wife Dimple (Neeru Bajwa) has decided to ditch her. Lost, he strikes a chord with Rabia (Mrunal Thakur), a Pakistani musician who runs a wedding band with a transgender musician, Gul (Deepak Dobriyal), and Mehwish (Kubra Sait), as well as her foster daughter, Saba (Roshni Walia), after being ditched by her philandering husband, Danish (Chunkey Panday).