Released in Hindi and Telugu versions with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the fantasy/action film “Adipurush” (based on the epic Hindu tale “Ramayana”) features an Indian cast of characters in a world populated by humans and talking creatures.
Culture Clash: A god prince goes on a mission to rescue his kidnapped wife.
Culture Audience: “Adipurush” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching an overly long fantasy film that has terrible visual effects and stupid dialogue.
Saif Ali Khan in “Adipurush” (Photo courtesy of AA Films)
“Adipurush” is a spectacle for all the wrong reasons. Viewers will be watching to see if the tacky visual effects and idiotic plot can get any worse. They do. And at three hours long, this bombastic and mind-numbing fantasy film becomes an endurance test. According to MeaningDB (a database for English-language meanings of Indian words): “Adipurush is a Sanskrit name that refers to the God Ishwara. Adi means first, and Purush means man. The name together denotes First Man/Supreme Person.”
Directed by Om Raut (who co-wrote the atrocious “Adipurush” screenplay with Manoj Muntashir), “Adipurush” is based on the epic Hindu tale “Ramayana.” However, there are enough changes to this movie adaptation, that there’s not much resemblance to the original story. What viewers will see in the movie is just a mishmash of fight scenes and chase scenes that revolve around rescuing a kidnapped princess. “Adipurush” had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.
In “Adipurush” (which takes place in an unspecified time period in India), the main hero is Raghava (played by Prabhas), a god prince who has extraordinary fighting powers. In the beginning of the movie, he’s seen defeating an army of harpy-like demons. Raghava’s loyal and loving wife Janaki (played by Kriti Sanon) soon gets kidnapped by the evil Ravana (played by Saif Ali Khan), a demon king of Lanka. Ravana can sprout 10 heads. The 10-headed Ravana is one of the more laughable (and not in a good way) parts of “Adipurush,” because the visual effects look so fake.
Ravana’s sister Shurpanakha (played by Tejaswini Pandit) actually instigated this kidnapping. Shurpanakha is jealous of Janaki, because Shurpanakha wanted to have a love affair with Raghava, but he rejected her and told her that he was going to remain loyal to Janaki. Raghava’s younger brother Shesh (played by Sunny Singh) also became a target for Shurpanakha’s seductions, but Shesh rejected her too. Shurpanakha tried to harm Janaki, but Shesh thwarted this effort and cut off Shurpanakha’s nose as a result.
Shurpanakha then told Ravana that she wants his help to get revenge on Janaki and Raghava. Ravana sees Janaki and immediately becomes smitten by her beauty and decides that he wants her for himself. This desire led to Janaki being kidnapped and hidden away in the Forest of Panchavati. Raghava, Shesh and many allies then go on a mission to find and rescue Janaki and defeat Ravana and his army.
One of the allies of Raghava and Shesh is a mutant human/monkey named Bajrang (played by Devdatta Nage), who looks mostly like a human, except for his long monkey tail. Bajang also has the ability to grow to the size of a skyscraper building. There are several talking primates in “Adipurush,” and they all look like rejects from director Matt Reeves’ masterful “Planet of the Apes” movies. There are also a few talking bears. The acting performances “Adipurush” range from average to barely watchable.
Perhaps the most ridiculous scene in the movie is when Bajrang finds Janaki in the forest. She is by herself in an open field, where she is unguarded, unrestrained, and not locked up in a room. In other words, it would be easy for anyone to rescue her at that moment. But no. All Bajrang says is that he’s a messenger for Raghava, and the message is that Raghava loves Janaki.
Imagine being a kidnapping victim and a warrior ally has a chance to rescue you, but all he says is, “Nice to see you. I have a message. Your spouse loves you. I have to go now so that your spouse can be the one to rescue you. Goodbye.” That’s essentially what happens in “”Adipurush,” which takes a full hour (the last third of the movie) to show Raghava trying to get to Janaki and the battles he has along the way. Anyone who wants a good adventure story that doesn’t insult your intelligence should steer clear of “Adipurush,” which is nothing but idiotic and very loud movie junk.
AA Films released “Adipurush” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on June 16, 2023.
Pictured clockwise, from left: Thiruveer, Bunny Abhira, Raju Bedigela, Arjun Krishna, Balaji, Anji and Ravi in “Pareshan” (Photo courtesy of Annapurna Studios)
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in India, the comedy/drama film “Pareshan” features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: An unemployed, college dropout spends his days and nights partying with his friends and getting into various mishaps, while his parents and girlfriend want him to live a more mature and responsible life.
Culture Audience: “Pareshan” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching a repetitive movie that consists of a lot of people yelling and fighting with each other, with no real purpose to the story.
Pavani Karanam and Thiruveer in “Pareshan” (Photo courtesy of Annapurna Studios)
“Pareshan” is a badly edited mess of a film that has more screaming and crying from adults than a nursery full of hungry babies. There’s too much of this time-wasting comedy/drama that is absolutely pointless. The only thing that might be more miserable than the characters in this long-winded, 131-minute film is the dreadful experience of having to watch “Pareshan” until the very end.
Written and directed by Rupak Ronaldson, “Pareshan” has no real plot. It’s just a series of scenes showing the shenanigans and conflicts of a group of five young men who are best friends in an unnamed city in India. The movie’s main protagonist is Isaac (played by Thiruveer), an unemployed, college dropout who lives with his parents. Isaac’s four closest pals are Pasha (played by Bunny Abhira), Aagam Sathi (played by Arjun Krishna), Maidak (played by Raju Bedigela) and Balaji, nicknamed RGV (played by Ravi), who all gave the same main interest as Isaac: getting drunk and partying.
Isaac’s parents (played by Muralidhar Goud and Padma) and his girlfriend Shireesha (played by Pavani Karanam) are unhappy that he is living such an aimless life and want him to clean up his act and live more responsibly. Isaac just thinks that they are being nags. Expect to see Shireesha do a lot of crying and whining, since that seems to be the main purpose of this character, who is desperate to settle down and get married. Somehow, Shireesha thinks that Isaac will magically turn into the suitable husband that she wants if she just loves him enough. It’s a pathetic cliché.
Isaac and his friends live in a city where the government-run coal company Singareni Collieries is a major employer in the area. His parents encourage Isaac to get a job at the local Singareni Collieries coal mine, but Isaac doesn’t show much interest in finding a job, especially a job that requires grueling manual labor. There’s much stalemate arguing back and forth between Isaac and his parents. It all quickly becomes tiresome to watch.
Meanwhile, Sathi (who has a chubby body size) is berated by his girlfriend Rajitha (played by Sai Prasanna) about his body size. She expects him to lose weight in order for Sathi to be considered “worthy” of her love. “Pareshan” accepts this horrible and shallow attitude as perfectly acceptable, when any adult with healthy self-esteem would walk away from a partner who makes this superficial demand.
Sathi dutifully goes to a gym to try and lose weight. Later, he gets into trouble with a local thug named Rakesh Master (played by Sai Kiran) over an unpaid debt. Sathi’s other four friends get dragged into this mess, which leads to a lot of tedious fight scenes and chase scenes. Sathi is the biggest male crybaby of the five pals. Instead of being with Rajitha, maybe he should have been with chronically tearful Shireesha, and they could have self-pitying cryfests together.
Isaac and his friends have another friend named Tiger Seenu (played by Anji), who gets married at one point. The wedding is just another excuse for the movie to show people getting drunk and acting stupidly. Isaac and his friends don’t have cars and get around mainly by scooters or motorbikes. Tiger has a car though. Isaac, Maidak, RGV and Pasha borrow the car to go on a road trip, which is another poorly conceived part of the movie.
The last third of “Pareshan” becomes particularly annoying with several physical and verbal fights over some missing money. The physical abuse in “Pareshan” is constant, with people slapping and punching each other for the slightest of reasons. The movie’s tone is that all of this abuse is supposed to be hilarious to watch. It’s not. There’s nothing impressive about the movie’s acting performances either. “Pareshan” is essentially an irritating showcase of empty characters and an even emptier story.
Annapurna Studios released “Pareshan” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on June 2, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Chennai, India, the sci-fi action film “Pichaikkaran 2” (a stand-alone sequel to 2016’s “Pichaikkaran”) features an all-South-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An evil and greedy businessman, who wants to get rid his rival brother, abducts a street beggar so that the brains of the beggar and the businessman’s brother can be switched through a secret surgery.
Culture Audience: “Pichaikkaran 2” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching an overly long and terribly made movie about greed and swapping human brains through transplants.
Dev Gill in “Pichaikkaran 2” (Photo courtesy of Vijay Antony Film Corporation)
“Pichaikkaran 2” is a sorry excuse for a sequel. This long-winded sci-fi action flick has a terribly conceived plot about brain swapping. This time-wasting junk ironically lacks any brain-power intelligence. The only real brain damage is to the brain cells of viewers who watch this idiotic film.
Written and directed by Vijay Antony, “Pichaikkaran 2” is a sequel to the 2016 film “Pichaikkaran,” which is superior to this sequel in every single way. (The word “pichaikkaran” means “beggar” in Tamil.) The main thing that these vastly different movies have in common is that Vijay Antony has the title starring role in both movies. “Pichaikkaran” was written and directed by Sasi. Antony makes his feature-film directorial debut with “Pichaikkaran 2,” which Antony co-wrote with K Palani and Paul Antony.
In “Pichaikkaran 2” (which takes place in Chennai, India), a wealthy businessman named Vijay Gurumoorthy (played by Antony) is the heir leader to his family’s business, after the family patriarch (Vijay’s father) has died. Vijay’s evil and greedy younger brother Aravind (played by Dev Gill) convinces a reluctant Vijay to keep their father’s death a secret for about a month. Aravind tells Vijay that they need this secrecy so that the company’s stocks don’t go down and so that they have time to prepare for the transition to new leadership.
In reality, Aravind want this month to prepare for a dastardly plan to get rid of Vijay and take over the business. Aravind has heard about a revolutionary surgery that can do human brain transplants. This surgery is an outlawed medical procedure, since the worldwide medical community has issues with the ethics of human brain transplants.
A rogue surgeon named Dr. Shiva (played by Hareesh Peradi) is an advocate of this surgery and has given media interviews saying that this surgery should be legal because it could prolong people’s lives. Aravind tells M. Krishna Iyer (played by Y. G. Mahendran), the loyal secretary of this deceased business mogul, to find Dr. Shiva, who is brought to a secret meeting with Aravind and Krishna. Dr. Shiva is eager to perform this surgery, for the right price.
After Aravind is convinced that this surgery would really work, he hires Dr. Shiva and tells him to wait and see who will be the two people who will have their brains swapped. Aravind then has Vijay kidnapped. Aravind viciously beats and kicks Vijay into unconsciousness. And it just so happens there’s an impoverished beggar named Sathya (also played by Antony), who is a look-alike to Vijay. Sathya, who grew up as a poor orphan, is also kidnapped and made unconscious through violent ways.
Two look-alike people and a brain-swapping plot? You know what this means, of course. Vijay and Sathya end up in a secret operating room, where their brains are swapped. When they both wake up, the body of Vijay has the mind of Sathya, while the body of Sathya has the mind of Vijay. Sathya and Vija still have long-term memories, so they can vividly remember their past.
Avarind’s plan is to kill the body of Sathya (which has Vijay’s mind) and keep the body of Vijay (which has Sathya’s mind), to use as a decoy, so that people will think Vijay is still alive. Avarind thinks that this “fake Vijay” (who has Sathya’s mind) will be such an incompetent leader, the “fake Vijay” will be ousted from the company, giving Avarind a clear path to take over the family business. The problem with this conspiracy is that Sathya, whose mind is in now in the body of Vijay, remembers his real past and isn’t afraid to say so. Even though some people think Sathya is mentally ill for saying he’s trapped in the wrong body, Sathya (in Vijay’s body) is determined to find out why he’s now being told that he is Vijay and has to live Vjay’s life.
After this secret brain-transplant surgery takes place, Vijay’s loyal and loving girlfriend Hema (played by Kavya Thapar), who also works for the company, begins to grow suspicious about the way the “fake Vijay” has been acting, because this “fake Vijay” doesn’t remember a lot of things about their relationship. Will she discover the secret? Will Avarind get away with his moronic scheme? It should come as no surprise that Sathya (in Vijay’s body) is not as gullible and passive as Avarind thinks Sathya should be.
This bloated 148-minute film stretches out the very thin plot with a lot of phony-looking fight scenes and cringeworthy musical numbers. Everything about “Pichaikkaran 2” reeks of mindless filmmaking with a big budget. How stupid is the dialogue in “Pichaikkaran 2”? Aravind repeats the redundant phrase that Vijay is worth “millions and billions.” The acting in this movie is mostly horrendous. The film editing (by Antony) is choppy and amateurish. Antony also wrote the bombastic musical score for “Pichaikkaran 2,” which blasts the music in obnoxious volume levels.
Although “Pichaikkaran 2” tries to make Vijay look like he’s a desirable and admirable person, he’s actually quite terrible. There’s a scene early in the movie (before the brain-transplant surgery takes place), when Hema questions Vijay’s decision to keep his father’s death a secret for a month. In response, Vijay hits Hema hard in the face. It’s all just an exploitative set-up to make the mind of altruistic and compassionate Sathya the better choice for the body of Vijay. Sathya also has a side to him that is a ruthless vigilante, which is the movie’s excuse to have a lot of violent scenes of Sathya as an “action hero.”
Along the way, “Pichaikkaran 2” has a lot of preaching about Anti-Bikili, a social movement that’s against greed, corruption and arrogance about money. There’s also a treacly subplot about Sathya looking for his long-lost sister Rani, who was separated from him in their childhood, when they were sent to different foster homes. “Pichaikkaran 2” is just a horribly made vanity project from Antony. The only real “begging” for “Pichaikkaran 2” is when disastisfied viewers see how bad this trash-dump movie is and beg for it to be over.
Vijay Antony Film Corporation released “Pichaikkaran 2” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on May 19, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1971, in India and Pakistan, the action film “IB 71” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A heroic Intelligence Bureau (IB) agent in India gets involved in saving an airplane hijacked by Kashmir terrorists and thwarting an airspace attack from a Kashmiri militant.
Culture Audience: “IB 71” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching a very fabricated and ludicrous story about the real-life Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
Vishal Jethwa in “IB 71” (Photo courtesy of Reliance Entertainment)
Even by low standards of how ridiculous action movies can be, IB 71 mishandles its depiction of real-life espionage events in 1971. If you believe this movie, then you have to believe one IB agent has a superhero level of fight skills and defense plans. It’s a 117-minute movie that barely has enough substance for a seven-minute film. Most of “IB 71” looks like a sloppy combination of revisionist history and pandering fantasies about what led up to the real-life Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
Written and directed by Sankalp Reddy, “IB 71” (which is set in 1971) is yet another loud and bloated action film that quickly becomes repetitive because it doesn’t have much to say that’s interesting and just wants to show people fighting and yelling at each other. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) agent “hero” from India is named Dev Jammwal (played by Vidyut Jammwal), who has the personality of a spent bullet, but viewers are supposed to believe he’s extraordinary in how he can single-handedly avert an international crisis. The movie’s scenes go back and forth between India and Pakistan.
An early scene in the movie shows Dev at the Ministry of Defense headquarters in Delhi, India. Dev tells officials that the prison camps in India have had at least 10 runaways recently. Dev’s boss is N.S. Avasti (played by Anupam Kher), who is told that the Pakistanis are too busy kiling each other to be much of a threat to India. Dev has a sidekick IB partner named Sangram (played by Suvrat), who is as generic as generic can be.
Meanwhile, the IB is investigating Maqbool Bhat, a Kashmiri separatist, who is said to be planning some type of air raid in 10 days, with China being involved. (China has been helping guard East Pakistan.) N.S. Avasti and other IB officials are told that Maqbool Bhat only cares about gaining control in Kashmir, not India or Pakistan. And so begins the countdown for Dev to figure out what to do about this likely raid.
The movie then gets caught up in Dev being the hero for an airplane hijacking committed by two Kashmiri separatists who are followers of Maqbool Bhat, the leader of the National Liberation Front. The hijackers have taken a small plane (with about 20 to 25 passengers) hostage because they want 36 imprisoned National Liberation Front members to be set free from their prisons in India. These bumbling terrorists don’t know at the time of the hijacking that the airplane pilot is an IB agent named Dev Jammwal.
The hijackers are cousins Qasim Qureshi (played by Vishal Jethwa) and Ashfaq Qureshi (played by Faizan Khan), who make a lot of stupid mistakes. Qasim is the younger cousin. He looks like he’s barely out of high school. And he tries to make up for his youth and inexperience with arrogance and having a bad temper. Qasim gets very angry if anyone acts like he’s too young to be a leader. Ashfaq is a dimwitted follower who doesn’t really question what Qasim says or does.
“IB 71” just becomes a back-and-forth convoluted slog of Dev handling the hijacking and the countdown to the planned air raid, as if he’s the only person in charge of the IB. Everything about “IB 71” looks fake and ill-conceived. There’s really no point in watching bombastic junk like this unless you want to see terrible acting in a soulless and idiotic action film.
Reliance Entertainment released “IB 71” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on May 12, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Syria, the dramatic film “The Kerala Story” features a South Asian and Middle Eastern cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Three nursing students in Kerala, India, have hellish experiences when they are targeted to be brainwashed and abused by ISIS terrorists.
Culture Audience: “The Kerala Story” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching “women in peril” stories that are supposed to be based on real people, but the movie looks like a lot of exaggerations and half-truths for dramatic purposes.
Pranay Pachauri, Siddhi Idnani, Pranav Mishra, Yogita Bihani, Adah Sharma and Sonia Balani in “The Kerala Story” (Photo courtesy of Sunshine Pictures)
Even without the controversy surrounding the dramatic film “The Kerala Story,” the movie seems insulting to the real people whose suffering inspired this exploitative movie to get made. This timeline-jumping, messy melodrama wants to depict how women become human trafficking victims of terrorists. However, the film does it in an irresponsible and deceptive way. “The Kerala Story” goes overboard in excusing certain people of certain crimes.
Directed and co-written by Sudipto Sen, “The Kerala Story” exposes its credibility problems when it’s repeatedly stated in movie that about 32,000 to 50,000 women and underage girls have gone missing in Kerala, India, because they’ve been brainwashed, pressured or outright kidnapped into becoming concubines and accomplices for ISIS terrorists. Kerala (the largest geographical state in India) has a population of more than 34 million people. Although human trafficking for terrorism absolutely exists in many parts of the world, several government officials and independent experts have vehemently denied that 32,000 females have disappeared from Kerala for these reasons.
The filmmakers of “The Kerala Story”—including and Sen and “The Kerala Story” co-writers Vipul Amrutlal Shah (who is the movie’s producer) and Suryapal Singh—have since backtracked and publicly stated that the 32,000 to 50,000 statistic is not entirely accurate. Instead, the filmmakers say they can only verify the stories of the three women who are the basis of the three main victim characters in the movie. (All of these women’s real names have been changed in the movie for privacy reasons.)
“The Kerala Story” has an epilogue with updates on the real-life counterparts of the characters depicted in the movie. One of the female survivors, who is given the alias Nimah Mathews in the movie, is shown speaking in the epilogue, with her face in shadows to protect her identity. The epilogue also states that the families of these victims are still fighting for justice. But “The Kerala Story” does a disservice to justice when it doesn’t seem to care about being completely truthful about the facts.
“The Kerala Story” begins by showing an Indian woman being interrogated in a detention center because she has been arrested for being a suspected terrorist. Her name is Shalini Unnikrishnan (played by Adah Sharma), but law enforcement knows her under another name: Fatima Ba. It’s believed that she changed her name to Fatima Ba after she converted to Islam.
In the interrogation room, Shalini/Fatima (who has noticeable physical scars on her face) is world-weary but defiant. She tells the interrogators that instead of wondering what her real name is, they should be trying to find out how a former nursing student like herself could end up in this situation. It’s shown in the movie that just two years earlier, Shalini was an eager and naïve student at National Nursing College in Kerala.
The movie then flashes back and forth in a jumbled timeline to show what happened to Shalini and two of her nursing school roommates when they became the targets of ISIS terrorists. There was a fourth roommate who was the catalyst for the three victims to fall prey to the ISIS terrorists who would traffic and abuse the three nursing students in the worst ways possible. This fourth roommate was able to establish the trust that made it easier for the victims to be deceived.
On the move-in day in their nursing school dorm, Shalini meets her three roommates: Nimah Mathews (played by Yogita Bihani), Gitanjali Melam (played by Siddhi Idnani) and Asifa Ba (played by Sonia Balani). All of the women seem outgoing and friendly, by Asifa is the most serious and the most emotionally guarded of the four roommates. Shalini, Nimah and Gitanjali will find out the hard way that Asifa’s friendliness is all a façade, because she is part of a conspiracy to get them to join ISIS.
Asifa is a strict Islamic who always wears a hijab. Shalini and Gitanjali are Hindu. Nimah is Catholic. As time goes on, Asifa begins to lecture her three roommates about how Islam is the only religion where they can have spiritual protection. There’s a scene in the movie where Aisfa outright tells her three roommates that the roommates “will surely got to hell” if they are not Islamic.
This idea is reinforced one day when all four women are at a shopping mall, and the three non-Islamic roommates experience an unnerving attack. Shalini, Nimah and Gitanjali are all sexually harassed and physically assaulted by some young men. One of the men rips Nimah’s shirt off of her. Witnesses who see this attack stand by and do nothing. Shalini, Nimah and Gitanjali don’t know that Asifa secretly arranged this assault.
A humiliated and shaken Shalini, Nimah and Gitanjali go back to their dorm room with Asifa, who lectures them that they probably wouldn’t have been attacked if Shalini, Nimah and Gitanjali had been wearing hijabs to show that they are Islamic. Nimah is a devout Catholic who doesn’t really believe what Asifa is saying. However, Shalini and Gitanjali start to believe Asifa and are eventually convinced to convert to Islam.
Part of this lure includes Asifa introducing Shalini and Gitanjali to two of her handsome Islamic bachelor friends: Rameez (played by Pranay Pachauri) and Abdul (played by Pranav Mishra), who are charming and polite. And it isn’t long before Shalini starts dating Rameez, while Gitanjali starts dating Abdul. Shalini and Gitanjali think that their relationships with these boyfriends are “true love.” Rameez says he’s a medical student who comes from an affluent family in Syria, so that makes him even more appealing to Shalini, who soon starts to think that Rameez could be her future husband.
As shown in secret meetings and conversations that Asifa has with her ISIS cohorts, it’s all part of an elaborate plan to get Shalini and Gitanjali to move to Syria and become concubines and accomplices of ISIS terrorists. Asifa also deliberately gets Shalini and Gitanjali hooked on amphetamines. Asifa explains to Shalini and Gitanjali that these drugs will give them more energy for the rigorous studies of Islam that can bring them closer to Allah. Gitanjali eventually begins abusing alcohol and other drugs too.
Asifa is annoyed that Nimah is the most difficult to brainwash. But later in the movie, Asifa sets up Nimah to go on a date with a man whom Nimah does not know is part of the ISIS group. He drugs and kidnaps Nimah, who is taken to Syria, where she is held captive and gang raped. All of it is shown in flashback scenes, but there’s a long section in the movie where the movie makes it look like Nimah just drifted apart from her three roommates because she was the only one of the roommates who never believed in Islam.
Part of the indoctrination process includes Asifa convincing Shalini and Gitanjali that the families of Shalini and Gitanjali are evil because they are not Islamic. Shalini already had a somewhat strained relationship with her widowed mother (played by Devadarshini), who is distressed and confused over why Shalini has further alienated herself from her. Somehow, Asifa has convinced Shalini that Hinduism could not save Shalini’s father from dying years earlier. In her brainwashed state of mind, Shalini thinks her father might still be alive if her family were Islamic and could have prayed to Allah to save her father.
Gitanjali has loving and supportive parents (played by Usha Subramaniam and Jagat Rawat), whom she treats horribly after she coverts to Islam. Unlike Shalini though, Gitanjali resists her lover’s pleas to move to Syria. In one of the worst scenes in the movie, Gitanjali’s father is in a hospital because he had a heart attack from all the stress over Gitanjali’s radical changes. Gitanjali goes to visit him while he’s barely conscious, just so she can spit on him because he’s not Islamic.
There are many other sordid scenes in “The Kerala Story,” including rape of a pregnant woman, physical abuse, revenge porn and other degradation. And while these terrible crimes are part of the horrors of human trafficking, “The Kerala Story” shows it all with a very Islamophobic tone. The ISIS terrorists in the movie are defined in only two ways: their religion and their abuse. In reality, a lot more goes into this type of terrorism than what is shown in the movie.
Shalini’s story becomes more tangled after she moves to Syria to be with Rameez. She gets pregnant by Rameez, who breaks up with her because he doesn’t think she’s worthy of being married to him. Pregnant and abandoned in a country she does not know, Shalini then gets into a quickie arranged marriage with an ISIS terrorist named Ishak (played by Vijay Krishna), who seems to be a “nice guy” at first to Shalini, but he’s actually a violent sadist. The acting in “The Kerala Story” ranges from mediocre to bad, while the screenplay and direction are schlocky.
Because “The Kerala Story” jumps around so much in the timeline, it’s shown near the beginning of the movie that Shalini is married to Ishak. It’s revealed much later in the film how she ended up in this bad marriage. Shalini tries to escape from Ishak and the ISIS terrorists. However, there’s no suspense in that part of the story, because the beginning of the movie already shows that she’s been arrested for suspected terrorism, which obviously means she didn’t escape from the terrorists.
Time and time again, “The Kerala Story” avoids mentioning or showing why Shalini was arrested. The crimes are serious enough that she could be in prison for years. And yet, the movie makes it look like the worst thing that Shalini did was be gullible enough to get fooled by an ISIS-recruiting roommate and fall in love with the wrong man. This avoidance of mentioning Shalini’s crimes is a huge and noticeable void that makes the movie look like it’s not interested in accuracy (even if the truth is unflattering to people who deserve sympathy) and is more interested in presenting these women’s true stories as a relentlessly tacky soap opera.
Sunshine Pictures released “The Kerala Story” in select U.S. cinemas on May 12, 2023. The movie was released in India on May 5, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the action film “Afwaah” features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An advertising professional becomes unwittingly involved in deadly political corruption when he agrees to help a political socialite go into hiding.
Culture Audience: “Afwaah” will appeal primarily to people who like watching action-oriented movies about dangerous political feuds and how social media gossip can easily spread to mainstream media.
Sumit Kaul and Sumeet Vyas in “Afwaah” (Photo courtesy of Reliance Entertainment)
“Afwaah” is a flawed political thriller that has enough suspenseful and well-acted moments that outweigh the movie’s shortcomings. The movie has pointed observations about how social media can be used as a way to manipulate mainstream news media. “Afwaah” (which means “rumor” in Hindi) is less skilled at showing realism in this story about two people hiding out from kidnappers and assassins.
Directed by Sudhir Mishra (who co-wrote the “Afwaah” screenplay with Nisarg Mehta and Shiva Bajpai), “Afwaah” is also a story about how two people from different worlds can become unlikely allies under certain circumstances. The two people whose worlds collide in “Afwaah” (which takes place in India) are advertising professional Rahab Ahmed (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and political socialite Nivedita “Nivi” Singh (played by Bhumi Pednekar), who end up going into hiding together.
Rahab, who is Muslim, is a well-respected expert in his profession. He often gives motivational and charismatic speeches to large audiences. Rahab comes from a working-class background (his father was a carpenter) and has been able to elevate his social status from his parents, by getting a college education and earning a high ranking in the advertising profession.
Nivi, who is Hindu, grew up in wealth and privilege. Her father is Chandan Singh (played by Sharib Hashmi), who is the leader of a political party. Nivi works with her father and is expected to spend her life in politics. She is engaged to an ambitious politician named Vicky (played by Sumeet Vyas), who is likely to be named the deputy of the political party because he will be the future son-in-law of Chandan.
But as is always the case in politics, there are power struggles. Some backstabbing plans have been set in motion by police inspector Sandeep Tomar (played by Sumit Kaul) and Vicky, who are is secretly plotting to have Chandan assassinated. Sandeep tells Vicky that Chandan has to die because Chandan has “grown a conscience.”
The assassination plot comes soon after Vicky and three of his cronies were caught on video beating up some political protestors. The video goes viral. Nivi is alarmed and starts to doubt that Vicky has the type of ethics and character that she wants in a husband. Vicky brushes off her concerns and tries to convince her that the viral video is not work making a fuss over, and people will eventually forget about the video.
The relationship between Vicky and Nivi begins to deteriorate. Knowing that Nivi can influence what Chandan thinks, Vicky secretly wants Chandan out of the way so that Vicky will take over the political party. And then, Nivi finds out that she’s in danger too.
One night, Nivi is out by herself in an open marketplace area. A man suddenly starts to harass her. And then, more men show up and surround Nivi, who is no pushover. It’s a kidnapping attempt, and Nivi fights back with kicks and punches.
Rahab happens to be driving his car though this area the same time, and he witnesses this attack. A frantic Nivi runs up to Rahab’s car, opens the door, and tells him to drive away. The kidnappers chase after them on motorbikes, but Rahab is able to lose them by driving down in an alley. Unfortunately, the car crashes.
The rest of “Afwaah” is a tension-filled journey, as Rahab and Nivi go into hiding. Soon after they meet under these stressful circumstances, Nivi tells Rahab who she is and that she doesn’t want to marry Vicky. “He’s lost his mind since the new alliance,” says Nivi. “He’s become nothing but a power-hungry bigot.”
When Vicky finds out that the kidnapping attempt failed and some people on the street took videos of the incident, Vicky takes the advice of a computer hacker named Bobby (played by Appurv Gupta) to twist the story into making Rahab the villain. Vicky plants a story on social media that Rahab was the real mastermind behind the kidnapping. Vicky’s cronies, who were the actual kidnappers, are praised as “heroes” who tried to save Nivi from Rahab.
This lie spreads on social media and is quickly reported as the truth by mainstream media. The lie gets even more warped with the untruth that Rahab (who is married) and Nivi ran off together to elope in a bigamy situation. The lie seems to have credibility because Nivi is still missing. Rahab then becomes the chief suspect in her disappearance.
Why doesn’t Nivi come forward and tell the truth? She’s afraid that people will believe Vicky over her. She knows that Vicky has a lot of allies in law enforcement, and she doesn’t know who to trust. Nivi and Rahab are also aware that too many people believe the lie because the media coverage has been reporting the lie as the truth.
“Afwaah” is at its best in the scenes of Nivi and Rahab together, since they have the best dialogue in the movie. All the “villains” in “Afwaah” tend to be caricatures. There’s also a somewhat unnecessary subplot involving a murder on Vicky’s property. And the movie goes into soap opera territory with a subplot about corrupt police inspector Rahab (who is married) having a secret affair with a female cop colleague named Riya Rathod (played by T.J. Bhanu), who might or might not find out how he’s involved in an assassination plot.
“Afwaah” also doesn’t do a very good job of showing certain aspects of the “fugitive” part of Nivi and Rahab going into hiding. The scenes involving Rahab’s wife Nandita (played by Eisha Chopra) have melodrama that lowers the quality of the movie. However, the performances of Siddiqui and Pednekar enliven “Afwaah” and bring credible emotional gravitas when needed.
There are plenty of movies about ruthless people trying to gain political power. What’s more interesting about “Afwaah” is how accurately it portrays media manipulation. It’s an insightful commentary on how much social media can play a role in shaping news coverage in mainstream media. If you don’t believe it, look at many mainstream news stories cite anonymous and unverified people on social media as “sources,” when that type of sourcing would not have met journalistic standards at a lot of the same media outlets in previous years. “Afwaah” is a fictional movie, but it’s also a cautionary tale of what can go on in the real world when it comes to media, politics and public images.
Reliance Entertainment released “Afwaah” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on May 5, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in India and in Hungary, the action film “Agent” features a predominantly Indian cast of characters (with some African people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A wannabe spy gets his wish to become an undercover agent and proceeds to do a lot of damage in his quest to capture a villain who wants to take over the world.
Culture Audience: “Agent” will appeal primarily to people who like watching overly long and mindless action movies.
Dino Morea in “Agent” (Photo courtesy of Goldmines Telefilms)
“Agent” is an utter waste of time and an assault on viewers’ intelligence. This putrid and idiotic action film has no redeeming qualities. You know it’s bad when the movie’s producer makes a public apology for dumping this cinematic trash into the world. In his apology, Anil Sunkara (one of the movie’s producers) admits that he should have read the movie’s screenplay before signing on to finance the movie.
Written and directed by Surender Reddy, “Agent” is nowhere near the level of “it’s so bad, it’s amusing.” It’s just a non-stop bombardment of stupidity, loud violence, aggressively moronic characters, horrible acting, choppy editing and vapid musical numbers. Being stuck watching “Agent” for the movie’s unbearably long 156-minute run time is like being stuck in a quicksand sewage dump: The more you try to resist it and want to get away, the worse it gets.
The first 10 minutes of “Agent” shows a meeting where a group of Indian spies are having a meeting about group of corrupt business people who call themselves The Syndicate. One of the members of The Syndicate is Jai Kishnan who masterminded a scam where he profited from a terrorist attack that he planned. Meanwhile, The Syndicate is maintaining the safest bank that the group can find to hide the money made from the group’s evil deeds.
A ship owned by The Syndicate gets seized by the Mozambique government, which leads to lots of gun shooting and people getting killed. But surprise! All of this is really a dream coming from a wannabe spy named Rammakrishna, nicknamed Ricky (played by Akhil Akkineni), who lives somewhere in India. He wakes up this dream, which has no relevence to the overall story. It’s just a complete waste of time.
Ricky is a dimwitted lug, but the movie wants viewers to believe that he’s also a brilliant computer expert. Ricky lives at home with his father (played by Murali Sharma) in a modest home that viewers are supposed to believe has a vast and intricate computer lab that looks like a movie set. Ricky has a robotic dog named Max.
Ricky’s dream is to become the top spy for the RAW Agency, which is headed by Colonel Guruji Mahadev (played by Mammootty), who is a tough taskmaster. Ricky has applied for the RAW Agency three times and has been rejected every time. Expect to see Ricky whining a lot about these rejections. A spiteful Ricky hacks into Colonel Mahadev’s computer to get revenge.
One day, Colonel Mahadev changes his mind about Ricky, who keeps pestering him to join RAW. Colonel Mahadev says, “You are untrained, unpredictable and unprofessional. No one would believe you’re an agent.” But when you hire an inept and bungling person, don’t be surprised if that person is inept and bungling on the job.
One of the first things that Ricky inexplicably does as a RAW agent is gun down 60 people (all men) from the RAW Agency. Why? Don’t expect any logical explanations in this vile movie. This mass murder scene is just an excuse to show the ridiculous action-movie cliché of one person taking on a large group of armed opponents and winning, even though in real life the opponent would easily outnumber and defeat one person.
Ricky has been sent on a mission to capture a villain named Dharma (played by Dino Morea), who is described in the movie as “born as a human, worked like a machine, and is now a beast.” Dharma has metal decorations over and above his left eyebrow. Don’t expect an explanation for these ridiculous-looking face accessories, except for some vague implication that Dharma was part of a scientific experiment and may no longer be fully human. Dharma is a former RAW agent who has formed his own crime syndicate in Budapest, Hungary.
At any rate, there’s some nonsense about Dharma being involved in a biotechnology plot to take over the world. The plot is called Mission Rabbit, and it’s about introducing “super cells” to gain power. One of the people who does battle with Ricky is ruthless Deva (played by Vikramjeet Virk), a generic assassin who doesn’t say much. And that’s probably a good thing for Deva, because the lines of dialogue in “Agent” are relentlessly foolish.
In every stereotypical action movie, the “hero” has a love interest, who is usually pretty but treated in the movie as no more than eye candy. In the case of “Agent,” the love interest is Vidya (played by Sakshi Vaidya), who adds nothing interesting to the story. Vidya is written in every sexist possible way, as someone who doesn’t deserve to have her own identity apart from being the “love interest” of the hero.
Here’s an example of how wretched “Agent” is: When Ricky first meets Vidya, he says to her: “Shall we make babies?” She looks insulted. But then he rewords his crass pickup line to say: “Will you be the mother of my kids?” Vidya then giggles. And then Vidya and Ricky begin dating each other.
There’s really not much else to say about “Agent,” which was a huge flop in India during the movie’s opening week. There’s an audience for stupid, big-budget action flicks. But apparently, even this audience thinks that “Agent” is a major turnoff and too worthless to watch.
Goldmines Telefilms released “Agent” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on April 28, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the action film “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan” (a remake of the 2014 film “Veeram”) features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A marriage-phobic vigilante teams up with his three foster brothers to fight crime, including trying to stop a murder plot against the family of his love interest.
Culture Audience: “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of “Veeram,” the movie’s headliners, and mindless action movies that are aggressively stupid.
Siddharth Nigam, Pooja Hegde, Raghav Juyal and Jassie Gill in “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan” (Photo courtesy of Zee Studios)
Get ready for your hearing and your brain cells to be assaulted when watching the loud, bombastic and idiotic “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan.” Note to filmmakers who make this type of trash: Stop the madness. Cast people who can act. It’s the same junk: a ‘hero’ in fake action scenes, a pretty love interest, revenge plots, murders. No one respects overly long, boring, and unoriginal garbage.
Directed by Farhad Samji (who co-wrote the mindless screenplay with Sparsh Khetarpal and Tasha Bhambra), “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaa” is yet another unnecessary remake that is inferior to the original movie. “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaa” (which means “someone’s brother, someone’s lover” in Hindi) is a remake of the 2014 Tamil-language film “Veeram.” There’s so much bad acting in “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaa,” you have to wonder if the filmmakers made these choices as a way to torture viewers, who will already have their endurance tested by the movie’s 144-minute total running time and the excessively loud sound design throughout the entire film.
In “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaa,” the dimwit protagonist with a lot of muscles but very little charm is Bhaijaan, nicknamed Bhai (played by Salman Khan), a never-married bachelor who doesn’t seem to be doing anything with his life but being a violent vigilante who fights crime in his home city of Delhi. As shown later in the movie, Bhai has this to say about men who cry tears when expressing emotions: “Crying is for losers.” Bhai has three sidekicks in his crime-fighting efforts: Ishq (played by Raghav Juyal), Moh (played by Jassie Gill) and Love (played by Siddharth Nigam), who all call themselves brothers of Bhai.
These four men are actually not biologically related to each other. It’s revealed in a flashback shown early on in the movie that Ishq, Moh and Love were orphans. Bhai rescued Ishq, Moh and Love from an orphanage fire when Ishq, Moh and Love were about 6 or 7 years old, and Bhai was about 16 or 17. Bhai raised Ishq, Moh and Love as if they were his brothers.
In the flashback, Bhai only looks about 10 years older than Ishq, Moh and Love. In the present day, Bhai looks about 20 to 25 years older than his “brothers.” It’s one of many examples of how the movie is sloppily made. Salman Khan’s mother Salma Khan is the main producer of “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaa,” which is obviously a family vanity project. It’s a lot easier to get cast in the starring role of movie, no matter how terrible your acting is, if you have a parent who’s paying for the movie to get made.
The brotherly bond between these four men is so tight, it’s affected all of their love lives. Bhai is commitment-phobic when it comes to love and romance. He has said he never wants to get married. Ishq, Moh and Love crave Bhai’s approval, so they say the same things. However, Ishq, Moh and Love secretly have girlfriends, who are growing frustrated that they can’t be open about their respective relationships with Ishq, Moh and Love.
Ishq’s girlfriend is Sukoon (played by Shehnaaz Gill), Moh’s girlfriend is Muskaan (played by Palak Tiwari), and Love’s girlfriend is Chahat (played by Vinali Bhatnagar). Sukoon, Muskaan and Chahat don’t have a lot of screen time. But when they do appear, it’s only to whine about their love lives.
In fact, “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaa” cares so little about women, the only women characters with significant speaking roles in the movie mainly exist for the purpose of being love interests for the men. It’s all very backwards and unimaginative filmmaking, just like many other aspects of this very outdated-looking movie.
Ishq, Moh and Love want to go public with their girlfriends, so they hatch a plot to find a girlfriend for Bhai. The idea is that if Bhai falls in love, he will ease up on his rigid view that these four “brothers” cannot have serious love relationships. Ishq, Moh and Love know that Bhai had a serious romance when he was younger with a woman named Bhagyalakshmi, nicknamed Bhagya.
Ishq, Moh and Love heard that Bhagya currently lives in Mumbai. And so, these three “Brothers” decide to find her and play matchmaker. But these three dolts don’t do what most people in modern society would do: an Internet search to find out first what Bhagya’s relationship status is. When they get to Mumbai, they find out that Bhagya is happily married with a child. Once again, it’s outdated filmmaking and stupidity on display.
This matchmaking farce just wastes time in this already bloated movie. The next unrealistic thing that Ishq, Moh and Love do is try to find a woman named Bhagyalakshmi, nicknamed Bhagya, who is attractive enough to date Bhai. That’s how Bhai meets Bhagyalakshm “Bhagya” Gundamaneni (played by Pooja Hegde), who works as an “antiques researcher.” Bhagya, who also calls herself “Bhaggy,” lives in Andhra Pradesh, India.
Bhai and Bhagya have their “meet cute” moment when she bumps into him at an outdoor market in Hyderabad, and she drops an antique vase that goes crashing on the ground. Bhai is immediately smitten with the new Bhagya in his life, but she predictably plays hard-to-get. Bhagya is probably one of the most annoying characters in the movie because she’s a stereotype of a helpless and ditzy “damsel in distress” who’s waiting to be rescued by a male love interest. It doesn’t help that Hegde’s terrible acting is hard to watch.
Bhagya tells Bhai up front that any man she dates has to get the approval of her brother Balakrishna Gundamaneni (played by Venkatesh), who is domineering and overprotective. Balakrishna, who is married with a young daughter, also hates violence. And since Bhai leads a very violent life, much of the movie is about his trying to hide the truth from Bhagya and her family.
Every action movie at least one villain. And in “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaa,” there are two villains: First, there is Mahavir (played by Vijender Singh), who is the type of villain who wears a lot of business suits. Mahavir hates how Bhai and his sidekicks are ruining his criminal enterprises, so he wants to kill all four of these vigilantes.
The other villain is Kodati Nageshwar (played by Jagapathi Babu), a thug who wants to kill Balakrishna and all of the members of Balakrishna’s immediate family. This revenge killing was already planned before Bhai and Bhagya started dating each other. The reason for this murder plot is so obvious, because the movie has no subtlety in showing and repeating how fanatical Balakrishna is about being against violence.
“Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaa” has some standard musical numbers which further drag out an already vapid story. The songs in these musical scenes are forgettable and trite. Salman Khan is not a skilled dancer, so it’s somewhat amusing to see him try to keep up with the backup dancers in these musical scenes. That amusement is slight though, and it will just give way to more irritation as “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan” keeps piling on scenes that are idiotic and don’t really go anywhere, including some scenes that have obnoxiously blatant product-placement shilling of Pepsi.
Filmmakers will continue to churn out dreck like “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan” if they think it will make them any money. That doesn’t mean that people who like movies automatically have to watch this type of relentless insult to viewers’ intelligence. Avoid “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan” at all costs. Your brain cells will thank you.
Zee Studios released “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on April 21, 2023.
Dev Mohan and Samantha Ruth Prabhu in “Shaakauntalam” (Photo courtesy of AA Films)
“Shaakuntalam”
Directed by Gunasekhar
Telugu with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the fantasy film “Shaakuntalam” (based on Kalidasa’s ancient play “Shakuntala”) features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy royalty.
Culture Clash: A king and his wife are driven apart by a curse and might or might not get back together after the curse is lifted.
Culture Audience: “Shaakuntalam” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of “Shakuntala” and tacky movie versions of classic fairy tales.
Mohan Babu in “Shaakauntalam” (Photo courtesy of AA Films)
The best thing that can be said about the bloated fantasy drama “Shaakuntalam” is that the costumes are eye-catching. Everything thing else is terrible, including the acting and fake-looking visual effects. It’s too much money spent on hackneyed filmmaking. With a total running time of 142 minutes, and with scene after scene filled with mind-numbingly stupid dialogue, “Shaakuntalam” will quickly induce boredom and/or irritation with viewers who know this could have been a much better movie with the right filmmakers.
Written and directed by Gunasekhar, “Shaakuntalam” is based on the ancient Indian play “Shakuntala,” written by Kaludasa. It has all the elements of old fairy tales (usually written by men) that are told in many other cultures. In these stories, dashing royal men meet, fall in love, and court beautiful women whom the royal men want to marry.
The women in these stories tend to be too good to be true: always kind, always patient, and always with the implication that their royal suitor is the “first, only, and greatest love” of the woman who’s being courted. We all know that these stories have inevitable “happily ever after” endings. But the journey to get there—and how it’s presented—determines if a fairy tale is a classic or not.
“Shaakuntalam” looks like a movie where the filmmakers cared more about cramming in as many phony-looking, obviously computer-generated animals in scenes, rather than in crafting a good story. This entire movie could have been 80 minutes or less, but it’s dragged out to 142 minutes of repetitive and moronic scenes. The original songs in the movie’s musical numbers have incredibly basic and soulless lyrics that could have been generated from any old computer program.
The maiden-turned-queen in “Shaakuntalam” is Shakuntala (played by Samantha Ruth Prabhu), who was abandoned as a baby. The movie’s opening scene shows baby Shakuntala being found in a forest and adopted by a kind of loving guru named Kanva Maharishi (played by Sachin Khedekar), who raises her along with several of his young male disciples. Kanva, who names the baby Shakuntala, is so wise, he already knows who are the parents of this abandoned baby is the daughter.
Shakuntala grows up to be a young women who has never met her parents: mother Menaka (played by Madhoo) and father Vishwamitra, who died before Shakuntala could meet him. Through a series of circumstances, Menaka ends up back in Shakuntala’s life and becomes a domineering force in trying to control Shakuntala. Menaka only seems to care about what Shakuntala can get out of Shakuntala’s relationship with a wealthy king.
Meanwhile, Shakuntala meets the powerful king Dushyanta (played by Dev Mohan), who charms and seduces her. There’s a very over-the-top scene of Dushyanta being a one-man army in fighting of a group of rampaging tigers who invade Shakuntala’s village. This fight scene is one of many in “Shaakuntalam” that look like scenes from a video game. It isn’t long before Shakuntala and Dushyanta get married, and she becomes pregnant.
Shakuntala has two best friends named Anasuya (played by Ananya Nagalla) and Sarangi (played by Prakash Raj), whose personalities are indistinguishable from each other. The purpose of Anasuya and Sarangi in the movie is to hang around and be like a “Greek chorus” for Shakuntala. Anasuya and Sarangi are supportive pals to Dushyanta, but these two sidekicks also spread gossip and misinformation.
One day, a pregnant Shakuntala meets a guru named Durvasa Maharishi (played by Mohan Babu), who is the guru of anger. Durvasa asks Shakuntala some questions that he thinks she doesn’t want to answer. In reality, Shakuntala has tuned out Durvasa’s attempts to start a conversation with her because she is lost in her thoughts about the impending arrival of her baby.
Durvasa thinks Shakuntala is being arrogant and disrespectful to him, so he curses her by saying that her husband will forget all about her. And sure enough, the next time that Shakuntala sees Dushyanta in the palace court, with several of the king’s court members in attendance, Dushyanta says that he doesn’t know who Shakuntala is, even though she insists that they are married and are expecting their first child together.
Dushyanta thinks that Shakuntala is pregnant with another man’s child and is trying to fool him into making this child his heir. Dushyanta publicly humiliates Shakuntala and banishes her from his kingdom. The curse, which caused temporary amnesia, is eventually lifted. Dushyanta is heartbroken to find out that Shakuntala has disappeared because of his own cruelty. He then goes on a mission to find her.
The rest of “Shaakuntalam” plays out exactly like you think it will. However, it’s done in such a lumbering and long-winded away, you could fall asleep or do other things in the middle of the film and you really won’t miss anything substantial. “Shaakuntalam” is an unfortunate example of filmmakers thinking that a movie with a “barely there” plot will somehow be better if the movie is more than two hours long. That lengthy time just shows up the movie’s flaws even more and makes it more obvious that watching this dreadful dud is a waste of time.
AA Films released “Shaakuntalam” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on April 17, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Delhi, India, the drama film “Gumraah” (a remake of the 2019 movie “Thadam”) features a predominantly Indian cast of characters (with a few white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Police have to figure out which one of two identical-looking suspects has committed a murder.
Culture Audience: “Gumraah” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of “Thadam” and murder mysteries with plot twists.
Mrunal Thakur in “Gumraah” (Photo courtesy of Pen Marudhar Entertainment)
Once the first big “plot twist” is revealed in “Gumraah” about halfway through the movie, it’s a murder mystery that’s very easy to solve. However, there’s plenty of suspense and good acting to keep most viewers interested and invested in the outcome. “Gumraah” (which means “astray” in Hindi) is a worthy but not exceptional remake of the 2019 Telugu-language film “Thadam.”
Directed by Vardhan Ketkar, “Gumraah” was written by Aseem Arora and “Thadam” screenwriter Magizh Thirumeni. The movie (which takes place in Delhi, India) begins by showing the murder that is the center of the police investigation. A man in a hooded yello raincoat breaks into the high-rise apartment building home of another man and stabs him to death. This killer was caught on a phone camera by someone who happened to be taking a selfie photo on a balcony opposite of the room where the murder took place.
The murder victim was Aakash Sardana (played by Aditya Lal), who wanted to launch his own tech start-up company. After going through a divorce, Aakash had recently moved back to India from the United States. Police find out that 20 lakhs (or $2 million, in U.S. dollars) is missing from Aakash’s safe.
The main police investigators for this murder case are assistant commissioner of police Dhiren Yadav (played by Ronit Roy) and sub inspector Shivani Mathur (played by Mrunal Thakur), who has been newly appointed to the position. Shivani ends up doing most of the investigating and deductions. The diligent sub inspector in “Thadam” was also a woman.
Police soon identify the man in the video as 28-year-old Arjun Sehgal (played by Aditya Roy Kapur), who is an unlikely suspect. Arjun is a civil engineer with no history of violence or arrests. He also doesn’t appear to have a motive or any connection to the murder victim. Arjun is arrested anyway because he looks exactly like the suspect, and Arjun doesn’t have an alibi that can be verified. Arjun vehemently denies committing the murder.
Not long ater Arjun’s arrest, police apprehend a hooligan named Sooraj Rana (also played by Roy), a thief who currently works with some cronies to steal ATMs. Sooraj has been arrested for drunkenly assaulting a police officer. Sooraj has a history of arrests in other cities. After he is arrested, Sooraj is brought to the sam police station as Arjun.
It doesn’t take long for police notice that Sooraj and Arjun look exactly alike, even though they say that they don’t know each other. Sooraj doesn’t have an abili for the time that Aakash was killed. Now, there are two suspects for the murder. All the evidence indicates that only one person committed the murder. Who did it? And where exactly is the stolen 20 lakhs?
There comes a point when it’s explained why Sooraj and Arjun, who look identical, have led completely opposite lives. It’s the most obvious reason. Much of “Gumraah” shows Arjun and Sooraj, in separate interrogation rooms, telling their life stories.
And once Sooraj and Arjun find out that a look-alike suspect is also custody, Sooraj and Arjun are quick to blame the other for the murder. There will be times when one suspect looks guiltier than the other, but then the other suspect will look just as guilty. Arjun’s fiancée Jahnvi (played by Vedika Pinto) insists that Arjun isn’t capable of murder.
“Gumraah” has solid direction and capable acting, with Kapur being the obvious standout. Kapur is riveting in the two look-alike roles of Arjun and Sooraj. His acting is made easier because Sooraj and Arjun have different personalities. What’s a bigger challenge, which Kapur and the “Gumraah” screenplay admirably accomplish, is keeping viewers guessing about who is the real murderer and why the murder was committed. “Gumraah” doesn’t let up on the plot twists until the last five minutes of the movie.
Pen Marudhar Entertainment released “Gumraah” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on April 7, 2023.
