Bougainvillea
Mystery, Thriller (Malayalam)
A family entangled in a police investigation surrounding the mysterious disappearance of tourists in Kerala. (more…)
Guild Reviews by Film Page 102 of 112
Tabaah
Drama (Punjabi)
A man seeks solace from developments in his romantic life, turning to alcohol for comfort.
Cast:
Wamiqa Gabbi, Parmish Verma, Dheeraj Kumar, Kanwaljit Singh, Kavi Singh, Harman Brar, Deepak Narang
Director:
Parmish Verma
Writer:
Gurjind Maan
Mon, October 21 2024
Tabaah might not be the greatest love tragedy ever, but it pushes the creative envelope for Punjabi cinema rather successfully.
Unrequited love in the Devdas mould is often the go-to subject of Indian cinema, and now it seems in Punjabi movies too. When singer-actor Parmish Verma picks up the directorial baton and wears the producer’s hat as well for his latest film, Tabaah, you know what to expect. The title of the film literally translates to devastation, ruin or destruction, and the opening scenes establish our hero, Verma himself, in self-destruct mode. Like good-old Devdas, pining for his beloved, he is drinking himself to death. At the very start of the film, the poetic lines by novelist Kristin Hannah establish the tragic mood of the film. Taken from her novel The Nightingale (2015), it goes: “Some stories don’t have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.” Clearly, it’s a love story gone sour. Why? Here, the writer, Gurjind Maan, deserves credit. He has not created any archetype villain in this love story. No family rivalry, no class divide and no parental interference either. Amber’s father (Kanwaljit Singh) is as supportive and caring as fathers are meant to be. So, why has it not ended happily ever after for our hero, Amber, and heroine, Raavi, played by the lovely Wamiqa Gabbi?
Sun, October 20 2024
Cédric Dupire’s ‘The Real Superstar’ spans the actor’s epochal career but is an atypical tribute
Aman in red suede pants and jacket walks down a deserted road at night. Another man in a sky blue jacket over a black shirt races across a bridge as gunfire explodes around him. Yet another, in a deep blue shirt knotted at the waist, staggers out of a warehouse and is immediately carried off by a delirious crowd chanting his name.
The Wild Robot
Animation, Science Fiction, Family (English)
After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island's animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose.
Cast:
Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill, Catherine O'Hara, Boone Storm
Director:
Chris Sanders
Sun, October 20 2024
The Wild Robot takes you back to the early days of Finding Nemo and Wall-E, where the joy is rooted in the innocence of imagination rather than the responsibility of the movie-going experience.
THE WILD ROBOT is about an all-purpose robot that turns sentient in the wilderness. After washing up on a forest island, Rozzum “Rozz” 7134 learns to feel and discern once it mothers an orphaned goose and befriends a red fox. I’d say it becomes human, but in the context of where we are today, “it grows a heart” is more accurate.
Sat, October 19 2024
The Wild Robot, inspired by Peter Brown’s 2016 novel of the same name, is a film that skillfully balances its emotional elements, resulting in a gratifying experience for both children and adults. While the notion of a robot experiencing emotions is not entirely original, it is the narrative and its execution that truly set this film apart. Achieving the right emotional resonance, whether from a human or a robot, is crucial, and Chris Sanders has struck gold with this film.
Wed, October 16 2024
Adapted from Peter Brown's best-selling children's book, the DreamWorks Animation film is a triumph on every level.
DreamWorks Animation turns 30 this year, and its latest presentation, The Wild Robot, is a great example of what the studio gets right. Adapted and directed by Chris Sanders, the animated feature follows the adventures of Rozzum 7134 (voice of Lupita Nyong’o), who discovers a whole new side to herself after she reluctantly adopts a gosling. The family film is filled with humour and meaning, and it teaches you what it means to be kind and love another in need.
Bougainvillea
Mystery, Thriller (Malayalam)
A family entangled in a police investigation surrounding the mysterious disappearance of tourists in Kerala.
Cast:
Jyothirmayi, Kunchacko Boban, Fahadh Faasil, Srindaa, Sharafudheen, Veena Nandakumar, Shobi Thilakan, V. T. Vijilesh, Nisthar Ahamed, Athira Patel
Director:
Amal Neerad
Writer:
Lajo Jose, Amal Neerad
Sat, October 19 2024
Amal Neerad’s Bougainvillea features an impressive cast, including Kunchacko Boban, Jyothirmay, and Fahadh Faasil; however, the film ultimately flatters to deceive. Faasil is relegated to a tertiary role, likely either to help out his friends or for a fat paycheck – probably the former. Pitched as a psychological thriller, the film becomes exasperating due to its screenplay and overall execution.
Fri, October 18 2024
The film potently uses the unreliable narrator trope to fully immerse the audience into a story about “gaslighting” and domestic abuse.
Amal Neerad and his co-writer Lajo Jose (whose story this film is based on) know how far to push the unreliable narrator trope. Not only is their protagonist Reethu (Jyothirmayi in her return) suffering from both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, but we’re seeing the film through her perspective for the most part. What makes this film even more complex is how quickly we get the feeling that we cannot rely on the people Reethu relies on to make sense of her chilling universe.
Fri, October 18 2024
Sir
(Tamil)
The people of Mangollai village like Colochi Saami and Saamikannu opposed education for the poor while people like Annadurai and Sivangaanam fought against oppression.
Cast:
Vimal, Saravanan
Director:
Bose Venkat
Writer:
Bose Venkat
Sat, October 19 2024
Directed by actor-director Bose Venkat, Sir is about a family’s relentless and devastating crusade for rural education. Like many such Tamil films, it has 'only' its heart at the right place.
Sir is one of those formulaic Tamil movies with a strong cause or message it wants to put across and doesn’t mind doing so at the cost of being a didactic and dated. The style, writing, brevity, and everything that makes up for a superior form take a backseat in Sir as Bose Venkat prefers coming across as an activist to a fine filmmaker. While Sir has a noble cause at its core, the execution makes it a yarnfest, and instead of getting the catharsis such social commentary aims to provide, the film invokes a sense of guilt for feeling so.
Paris Has Fallen
Action & Adventure, War & Politics (French)
A protection officer and an MI6 operative team up after a terrorist attack. They suspect a mole as they race to thwart a larger conspiracy threatening Paris.
Cast:
Tewfik Jallab, Ritu Arya, Emmanuelle Bercot, Ana Ularu, Nathan Willcocks, Sean Harris
Fri, October 18 2024
The small screen version of the Has Fallen franchise is off to an intriguing start with a daunting villain.
Paris Has Fallen is the first in the franchise that won’t feature Gerard Butler’s Secret Service agent Mike Banning. The actor will continue on with the character in the films; however, this spinoff series forges its own identity with new protagonists and a deadly plot in this European adventure. With only the first two episodes premiering so far, Paris Has Fallen has set up an interesting scenario in which the villain has had the upper hand; it remains to be seen how and when the ‘fall’ will come.
Shrinking S02
Comedy (English)
Jimmy is struggling to grieve the loss of his wife while being a dad, friend, and therapist. He decides to try a new approach with everyone in his path: unfiltered, brutal honesty.
Cast:
Harrison Ford, Jason Segel, Jessica Williams, Luke Tennie, Michael Urie, Lukita Maxwell, Christa Miller, Ted McGinley
Fri, October 18 2024
From the makers of Ted Lasso, the comedy series starring Jason Segel returns to find its characters grappling with life's issues head-on.
Created by Bill Lawrence, star Jason Segel and Brett Goldstein, Shrinking focuses on a grieving therapist who decides to change his approach with his patients. Becoming more proactive, he becomes more involved in the lives of those around, both to his detriment and betterment. The second season of Shrinking charms with its loveable, goofball characters and some unexpected new faces.
Tekka
Drama, Thriller (Bengali)
Tekka is the story of Iqlakh, a janitor who has lost his job and is out to get it back by holding a schoolgirl hostage in a building. ACP Maya comes in, a woman who is trying to conceive. Add to the mix a young journalist pair, Brishti and Tintin, and we have a sentimental thriller in an office building spanning 48 hours, full of melodrama.
Cast:
Dev, Swastika Mukherjee, Rukmini Maitra, Aameya Bose, Tota Roy Chowdhury, Aryann Bhowmick, Sreeja Dutta, Paran Banerjee, Sujan Mukherjee, Anirban Bhattacharyya
Director:
Srijit Mukherji
Wed, October 16 2024
The film’s story is pretty much what you have seen in the trailer. For those who are uninitiated, here is the plot in brief. Iqlakh (Dev) loses his job, randomly kidnaps a young girl Avantika (Aameya) from her school, and takes her hostage. He demands to get his job back. Maya (Rukmini Maitra) from Kolkata Police comes to negotiate. Even after his company’s maintenance manager (Anirban Bhattacharya) verbally promises to give his job back to him, he demands the owner of the firm Anubrata Adhikari (Paran Bandyopadhyay) to come personally. Meanwhile, in a turn of events, little Aratrika’s mother Ira (Swastika Mukherjee) hunts down Iqlakh’s house and takes hostage of his little boy.
Viswam
Action, Comedy (Telugu)
When terrorists target a young girl who witnessed an assassination, a heroic taxi driver comes to the rescue.
Cast:
Gopichand, Kavya Thapar, Baby Iyal, Jisshu Sengupta, Sunil Varma, Banerjee, Naresh, Pragathi Mahavadi, Shaam, Prudhviraj
Director:
Sreenu Vaitla
Writer:
Gopi Mohan, Praveen Varma, Nandu Savirigana, Bhanu Bogavarapu
Tue, October 15 2024
Director Sreenu Vaitla’s Telugu film ‘Viswam’ is a tiresome mishmash of subplots and characters that feels dated by at least two decades
Viswam, directed by Sreenu Vaitla, is a reminder that not everything has changed for the better with mainstream Telugu cinema. In terms of narrative style, character arcs and the plot itself, this Gopichand and Kavya Thapar starrer feels redundant. The film teems with dozen of characters and a handful of sub plots — in the name of offering wholesome entertainment — with action episodes, romance, emotional drama and mindless comedy; it can get tiresome to sit through 155 minutes of an incoherence narrative, even if one does not look for logical reasoning.
Maa Nanna Superhero
Drama (Telugu)
Johnny, a car mechanic, who grew up thinking of his adopted father Srinivas as a superhero, prepared to go to any length to save his father, unknowingly embarks on a journey with his biological father.
Cast:
Sudheer Babu, Sai Chand, Sayaji Shinde, Annie, Aarna Vohra, Shashank, Vishnu Oi, Devi Prasad, Raju Sundaram, Aamani
Director:
Abhilash Kankara
Writer:
MVS Bharadwaj, Abhilash Kankara, Shravan Madala
Tue, October 15 2024
Sudheer Babu and Saichand’s performances anchor ‘Maa Nanna Superhero’, an uneven relationship drama that scores in a few segments
A scene in director Abhilash Reddy Kankara’s Telugu film Maa Nanna Superhero (my dad is a superhero) shows the protagonist Johnny (Sudheer Babu) taking his house owner to task and abruptly pausing when the latter’s daughter comes into the picture. He does not want to make the man seem a lesser mortal to his child. The narrative attempts to ride on the universal emotion of children seeing their father as a superhero. Abhilash wonders how far a son would go to save his father, with whom he shares a tumultuous relationship. The plot becomes more complex as it involves a father Srinivas (Sayaji Shinde) and his adopted son Johnny, and later, the biological father also returns. This idea might seem intriguing at the script level, but the film seems uneven and is held together by a few endearing moments.
IC 814 the Kandahar Hijack
Drama, War & Politics (Hindi)
When IC 814 gets hijacked on its way to Delhi, hundreds of lives are at stake as the country faces its longest and most alarming aviation crisis.
Cast:
Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Arvind Swamy, Dia Mirza, Patralekhaa, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Amrita Puri, Dibyendu Bhattacharya
Director:
Anubhav Sinha
Writer:
Anubhav Sinha, Nikhil Ravi, Trishant Srivastava
Tue, October 15 2024
भारतीय इतिहास में 1999 के कंधार प्लेन हाईजैक की घटना आज भी एक काले अध्याय की तरह याद की जाती है। सारी दुनिया जब नई सदी Y2K के आने के उत्साह में मगन थी, क्रिसमस से एक दिन पहले 24 दिसंबर 1999 को करीब 175 लोगों को लेकर काठमांडू से दिल्ली के लिए रवाना हुए इंडियन एयरलाइंस के हवाई जहाज IC 814 को आतंकियों ने हाईजैक कर लिया। हाईजैकर्स के कब्जे वाला यह प्लेन पहले अमृतसर और फिर लाहौर और दुबई होते हुए कंधार में लैंड हुआ। सात दिन बाद भारतीय जेलों में बंद तीन आतंकियों मौलाना मसूद अजहर, मुश्ताक अहमद जरगर और अहमद उमर सईद शेख को छोड़ने के बदले इन यात्रियों की सुरक्षित घर वापसी करवाई गई। अब इसी घटनाक्रम पर आधारित वेब सीरीज ‘IC 814: द कंधार हाईजैक’ से चर्चित निर्देशक अनुभव सिन्हा ने ओटीटी पर दस्तक दी है।
Mon, October 14 2024
'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack', streaming on Netflix, honours the captain, his crew, and the passengers
Since the arrival of OTT platforms and binge-watching, Indian series have shown a marked improvement in craft and skill at telling fictional stories. But when it comes to mounting real-life stories for OTT, most have floundered, sometimes because they follow Netflix’s formulaic template, and sometimes because of who is telling the story. Delhi Crime, for example, the riveting show on the Nirbhaya rape case, was made with the help of Delhi’s former commissioner of police, Neeraj Kumar, and it naturally made heroes out of cops when it should have interrogated them.
Zindaginama
Drama (Hindi)
An Anthology series that highlights the stigmas around mental health and mental illness in India. According to the latest World Health Organization report on depression, almost 7.5% of Indians suffer from major or minor mental disorders that require expert intervention. The brainchild of Dr. Neerja Birla, Zindaginama strives towards creating an environment where mental health dialogue is encouraged. It's okay not to be okay. Six different stories from six creators with a common theme - to encourage us to be sensitive to our environment and peers and to show openness to acknowledging mental health struggles in our lives.
Tue, October 15 2024
मेंटल हेल्थ हमारे समाज में लंबे समय तक एक टैबू रहा है। हालांकि, अब कुछ साल से इसके बारे में खुलकर बातें होने लगी हैं। विश्व मानसिक स्वास्थ्य दिवस (10 अक्टूबर) पर आई एंथॉलजी सीरीज ‘ज़िंदगीनामा’ इसी मेंटल हेल्थ के प्रति जागरूकता की ओर एक मजबूत कदम है। यह सीरीज 35-40 मिनट की छह कहानियों का गुलदस्ता है, जो ईटिंग डिसऑर्डर, गेमिंग एडिक्शन, सिजोफ्रेनिया, ओसीडी, पीटीएसडी, जेंडर डिस्फोरिया जैसी अलग-अलग मानसिक समस्याओं के प्रति लोगों का ध्यान आकर्षित करती है।
Mon, October 14 2024
Not all six are equal in depth and complexity, but it doesn’t stop us from acknowledging the importance of these kinds of stories, which go a long way in keeping informed conversations around mental health in play.
Zindaginama tackles a set of mental health issues through six episodes, targeting a different one each time. What happens when a human begins believing in an alt reality? Purple Duniya’s protagonist, a terrific Tanmay Dhanania, sets out ostensibly to go to work, like regular folks do. But that’s all a sham. His total focus lies in the game he plays obsessively, constantly, forgetting to eat or drink. Or communicate with his sister. Therapy can help, but to what extent? And who wins finally, man or machine? Sahaan Hattangadi writes, and co-directs with Danny Mamik.