Suchin Mehrotra

It’s a clash between two of the great cinematic faces on the movies this week. In Netflix’s latest original film, Ikka, Sunny Deol goes up against Akshaye Khanna (sort of). Who called it Ikka and not ‘Face-Off’? The courtroom thriller brings Deol back to his Damini days, with a courtroom serving as an arena for him to scream justice at us and fight for the little guy. Director Siddharth P Malhotra’s (Hichki, We Are Family, Maharaj) film is loud, unsubtle, and armed with an emotion-splaining background score determined to do all the feeling for us and leave little to the imagination (or heart).

The question isn’t whether the latest instalment from the cinematic universe of slick superspies and walking, talking action figures can reinvigorate the creatively dead universe. It’s whether we can get even a basically satisfying blockbuster romp. Where Alpha, from director Shiv Rawail (The Railway Men), stands apart from its Spy-verse counterparts (Pathaan, War and Tiger films) is that it packs in what feels like more plot in its first 15 minutes than all those films combined. From swapped babies to separated twins to super soldiers, more happens than can be summarised in a single review, but here goes. The program is shelved, and he’s forced to close it down, but not before his senior officer, Colonel Vikrant Kaul (Anil Kapoor always understands the assignment), injects his dying pregnant wife with the serum in the hope of saving her life. He fails. She dies. But, unbeknownst to the good Colonel, their newborn survives. But she’s confiscated by (the bad) Colonel Lakhawat because “she’s now India’s property” as a result of the Alpha superserum coursing through her veins.

Samant’s film is a slick, playful thriller that knows how to have a good time, in the vein of the worlds of Sriram Raghavan or Vasan Bala. Meet deaf and mute sharpshooter Baby Karmarkar (Huma Qureshi, who also serves as producer, is in fine form). Alongside her “colleague” Manu (a sincere Marudhar Shekhawat), she’s a contract killer who works for a man known as Papa (It’s always good to see Chunky Panday taken seriously as an actor and not forced to squeak his way through some inane comedy). Papa, in turn, works for the nefarious builder Zafar Bhai (Sikander Kher is never not a joy to watch), who has Papa and his team take out any business rivals or minor obstacles to his shady dealings.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A pill-popping, alcohol-swigging, chain-smoking detective is forced back on duty to catch a killer terrorising a decrepit, dingy city. Before the bodies pile up, she must track down and stop the devil whilst confronting her own demons, wading through the ghosts of her past and navigating a moody murder mystery. The air is thick with despair and grief. The (female) victim was found mutilated. The list of suspects is long, ranging from shifty family members to shifty exes to shifty stalkers. Everyone’s fractured, broken, carrying a truckload of trauma.