Category Archives: Reviews

Movie Review: Dhoom Dhaam (2025)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Dhoom Dhaam knows exactly what it wants to be: a light romantic comedy with a touch of adventure that will make you laugh and not feel like you’ve wasted two hours. It delivers exactly that.

Yami Gautam Dhar and Pratik Gandhi star as Koyal and Veer. Their parents arranged their marriage, and they find one another attractive and accomplished enough to agree to the match. Koyal’s clingy family ensures that the couple never has a moment alone in the weeks before their wedding, but everyone seems happy with the arrangement.

Their first awkward moments alone in a hotel room on their wedding night are interrupted by a knock on the door. A pair of gun-toting tough guys barge in demanding to know where Charlie is. Neither Koyal nor Veer know anyone named Charlie, but the thugs assume they are lying.

A daring escape from their balcony reveals that Koyal is much more courageous than timid Veer. That’s further confirmed when they race away from the men in Veer’s car, and he’s more worried about getting a speeding ticket than the fact that their pursuers are shooting at them. Thankfully, Koyal is an experienced street racer.

That’s not to say that Veer is totally gutless. He’s a veterinarian, so blood doesn’t bother him. When their search for Charlie takes them to a male strip club, he does what he has to do and entertains the ravenous patrons with a cartwheel in his boxer shorts. Seeing a bunch of other women lusting after her new husband makes Koyal think that he might be a catch after all.

The action as the newlyweds race all over town is energetic, but not gruesome or too intense. This is definitely not an R-rated movie. Likewise, there isn’t a lot of heat between the couple, but their growing fondness for one another is quite sweet.

The couple’s physical awkwardness relates to the film’s theme: you can’t really know a person until you spend time with them, especially when there is such pressure to be perfect. Social media accounts and dating profiles are heavily curated. When Koyal and Veer meet for the first time, it’s in front of their whole families, with everyone on their best behavior. It’s easy to hide your true self and all your flaws under those circumstances, but it’s hard to do it forever.

What Dhoom Dhaam lacks in sparks, it makes up for in laughs. Gautam Dhar and Gandhi are both very funny and make good use of a solid script by Aditya Dhar, Aarsh Vora, and Rishab Seth, who also directed the movie. The writing team has a terrific handle on context and continuity, mining them for comedy while throwing in some delightfully absurd moments. Quality subtitles ensure that none of the humor is lost in translation.

Sequences are tightly edited, and without traditional choreographed numbers, the story moves at a fast clip. This is a movie intent on not overstaying its welcome, and Seth certainly achieves that. Dhoom Dhaam is really enjoyable.

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Movie Review: The Mehta Boys (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Boman Irani makes his directorial debut with the heartfelt family drama The Mehta Boys. The story doesn’t quite support the moral conclusion the film reaches, but it’s still a meaningful movie.

Irani — who co-wrote the film with Birdman co-writer Alexander Dinelaris — stars as Shiv Mehta. At 71 years old and newly widowed, he faces the prospect of leaving his childhood home and moving in with his daughter Anu (Puja Sarup) in Tampa, Florida. Shiv’s not an easygoing guy during the best of circumstances, but these are a lot of big changes all at once.

Flight issues in Mumbai force Anu to fly home alone and for Shiv to spend a couple of days bunking with his estranged son, Amay (Avinash Tiwary). Amay’s dilapidated apartment has a great view but plenty of leaks. Shiv can’t understand why Amay left home just to live in a rundown place, and he’s not shy of voicing that opinion.

Shiv’s unrelenting criticism has left Amay bereft of confidence, which affects him personally and professionally. He’s an architect at a prestigious firm, but he’s too timid to share his own opinions and designs. Even Amay’s boss is starting to wonder why they pay him.

This unplanned co-habitation brings out the worst in Amay and Shiv. Dad acts like a know-it-all, while son treats his father like he’s senile. Amay’s kind girlfriend Zara (Shreya Chaudhry) sees the dysfunctional dynamic first-hand and is not impressed.

The Mehta Boys does a lovely job depicting just how complicated the relationships between parents and their adult children can be, clouded as they are by entrenched habits and festering resentment. No one in the film is on their best behavior. While the characters are not exactly sympathetic, they are very relatable, and Irani and Tiwary capture that in their performances.

There’s a tendency in a lot of stories about this relationship dynamic that frame negative parenting tactics as inherently borne of love, and The Mehta Boys takes that approach as well. Based on what is shown in the film, I’m not sure that’s a fair conclusion to draw from Shiv’s constant doubting of Amay’s competence and judgment. It looks more like ego and pride on Shiv’s part, mixed with his own insecurities. His “never apologize” ethos doesn’t leave much room for caring about other’s feelings.

It’s okay to admit that sometimes parents raise their kids by instincts learned in their own dysfunctional homes, or taught by parents living under very different financial circumstances. Add to that the inflexibility of thought that sometimes comes with age, and you wind up with hurtful behaviors done habitually, without any real thought behind them at all.

In those circumstances, maybe the lesson Amay needs to learn is that his Shiv’s distrust is not based on an accurate assessment of Amay’s abilities. He’s put in the work to become a good architect at a firm that acknowledges his skills. If his dad doesn’t get that, that’s on him.

I’m forgiving of the hopeful conclusion Irani and Dinelaris reach in The Mehta Boys if only because we all want to believe it’s true, especially audiences looking for something uplifting. Irani is a good filmmaker, so here’s hoping he’s got more stories in him.

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Movie Review: Anuja (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Two sisters in Delhi face a difficult choice when one of them is offered a potential way out of poverty. Filmmaker Adam J. Graves uses Anuja‘s brief 22-minute runtime to make a meaningful critique of child labor in this Oscar-nominated short drama film.

9-year-old Anuja is played by Sajda Pathan, who herself lives in a Delhi shelter for children. Anuja and her older sister Palak (Ananya Shanbhag) are orphans who work 14-hour days in a garment factory.

Word of Anuja’s illegal employment has gotten around, as has her natural talent for mathematics. A teacher named Mishra (Gulshan Walia) comes to the factory to invite her to take a placement test for a boarding school, though she’ll have to find 400 rupees to pay for it. But the factory’s owner Verma (Nagesh Bhonsle) isn’t keen on letting one of his employees get away.

The invitation presents a real dilemma for the girls. Palak’s old enough to accept the limits of her own prospects and to understand that this may be her sister’s one chance at a better life. But they are the only family each other have, and it’s not easy to give that up for an uncertain future. Anuja doesn’t even know what a boarding school is, so why would she want to leave her sister to go to one?

Both Pathan and Shanbhag do a really nice job playing the sisters, who are hard not to care about. Much of the film’s short runtime is dedicated to showing their fondness for one another, as well as their protective instincts. Though it makes logical sense for Anuja to pursue her education, the emotional cost for both sisters is very clear.

The most effective moment in Graves’ narrative — which is produced by a host of industry notables including Mindy Kaling, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Oscar winner Guneet Monga Kapoor — is a fleeting one. As Anuja runs through a fancy clothing store fleeing its security guard, she spots a mannequin dressed in one of the garments she sewed. It’s a powerful condemnation of the exploitation underlying the fashion industry, and a it’s a reminder for the audience to become more informed consumers. Ignorance of the plight of workers is no excuse for supporting child labor.

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Movie Review: I Want to Talk (2024)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Director Shoojit Sircar’s drama I Want to Talk features a career-defining performance by Abhishek Bachchan, but the screenplay by Ritesh Shah feels incomplete.

The film is based on Arjun Sen’s autobiographical book Raising a Father, though it comes with the standard opening note that it isn’t a strict retelling. Bachchan plays Arjun, a ruthless marketing executive living in southern California. He’s in the middle of a divorce from his wife Indrani, with whom he shares an elementary-school-aged daughter named Reya (Pearle Dey).

A coughing fit during a business presentation sends Arjun to the hospital, where it’s determined that he has laryngeal cancer. He leaves in a fog of denial, but a follow-up visit finds cancer cells in his colon as well. Multiple surgeries leave him unable to work, costing him his job, right as his divorce settlement costs him his house. He keeps his Cadillac but downsizes to rental home that has seen better days.

Throughout his medical trials, Arjun tries to shield Reya from the seriousness of his condition while maintaining a busy custody schedule of Tuesdays, Thursdays, and every other weekend. This is where the screenplay struggles. According to the movie, Arjun is able to manage all of his appointments and recovery time without ever talking to his ex-wife about Reya. We only ever see Indrani once during a meeting with their lawyers. From a purely logistical standpoint this would be impossible, and that goes double for trying to explain to a kid who isn’t even ten why daddy can’t lift her up after surgery or why he’s so sleepy all the time.

With Arjun’s ex-wife being a void in the narrative, he’s forced to find support in other places. That includes his grumpy handyman Johny, played by Johny Lever in a role that shows he’s a more talented actor than we get to see in the over-the-top comic roles he typically plays. There’s also Arjun’s dismissive surgeon Dr. Deb (Jayant Kripalani), who comes to tolerate Arjun’s pestering.

Best of all is Dr. Deb’s nurse, Nancy (Kristin Goddard). She sympathetic but won’t let Arjun off the hook when he gets down on himself. Goddard delivers a short monologue that is equal parts heartfelt and hilarious. It’s a highlight of the film.

Another highlight is the evocative score by George Joseph & Koyna. It’s sparingly used but effective. Sircar relies a lot on ambient sounds and visuals of the stark, mountainous landscape near California’s Lake Hemet to set the scene.

Although the world of I Want to Talk is atmospheric, it doesn’t feel full enough. The plot jumps forward several years, and a lot of information about how Arjun manages his life is lost in the transition. We see little of the growth in Arjun’s relationships with those closest to him; they are suddenly friends instead of adversaries. Even important characters feel like they blink out of existence until Arjun needs their help.

The exception is Reya, who is played as a teenager by capable debutant Ahliya Bamroo. Sircar gives Reya enough scenes to establish her as her own person within Arjun’s story. She’s a kid finding herself while navigating a tricky relationship with her father, one further complicated by by his medical problems. But again, her continuing ignorance about his condition after more than a dozen surgeries beggars belief.

All that said, this is Abhishek Bachchan’s movie, and he carries the weight of it gracefully. It’s a performance that is challenging not just emotionally but physically. His movements are slow and pained, evoking memories of another character burdened by frailty in a Shoojit Sircar movie: Abhishek’s father Amitabh Bachchan in Piku. Sircar shows great compassion for people with physical challenges in the way he directs his actors, and both Bachchans interpreted their characters beautifully.

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Movie Review: Hisaab Barabar (2025)

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1.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Rarely do you find a feature film where one of the complaints is: “I wish there was more math.” Hisaab Barabar (“Settle Accounts“) has some arithmetic highlights in an otherwise corny social issue drama.

R. Madhavan stars as Radhe Mohan Sharma, an upstanding railway ticket collector. He stopped studying accounting when his father died, and then took over Dad’s job to support the family. He gets some small satisfaction teaching basic math to the vendors on the train platform.

While checking his statement from Do Bank, Radhe notices his account is short 27.5 rupees (about $0.30). The amount isn’t significant, but he demands a correction from the bank on principle. As he explains in one of his impromptu platform tutorials, 27.5 multiplied by millions is substantial.

Radhe becomes suspicious when a passenger leaves his Do Bank statement on the train, and a similarly minuscule amount is missing. One of his coworker’s accounts is also short. Radhe realizes he may have uncovered a huge conspiracy.

The highlight of the movie, oddly enough, is a scene in a mall food court where Radhe explains to his co-workers how banks calculate interest based on an account’s current balance and why the shortfall matters. He writes his equations on a window with (hopefully!) erasable marker. It’s really interesting, and the film does a fine job making the accounting understandable.

The audience already knows Radhe is right, because the movie’s opening scene confirms it. At a tacky party with horrible dancing, Do Bank owner Micky Mehta (Neil Nitin Mukesh) openly discusses amassing a fortune from his customers one stray rupee at a time with a corrupt government official named Dayal (Manu Rishi). Mehta keeps his piles of pilfered bills in a warehouse freezer, hidden from regulatory oversight.

After Radhe files a formal complaint with the police department, writer-director Ashwni Dhir over-complicates the story. Mehta uses his connections to muddle the investigation and harass Radhe and his young son Manu (Shaunak Duggal). The police officer assigned to investigate the complaint happens to be Radhe’s new girlfriend Poonam (Kirti Kulhari), whom he apparently didn’t know was a cop. For some reason, Poonam doesn’t recuse herself from the case, even when she’s pressured to charge Radhe himself with some kind of crime. Could she be holding a fifteen-year-old grudge because she and Radhe were paired by a matchmaker, but he rejected her because her math grades weren’t good enough (another thing Radhe has no idea about)?

The tone of Hisaab Barabar vacillates between goofy and sinister. A slapstick brawl between bank employees exists alongside Poonam’s superior officer warning her to do what he says, lest something nasty happen to her when she takes the train alone at night.

Ultimately, the balance tilts toward goofiness, but I don’t think that was intentional. It’s all due to Neil Nitin Mukesh giving the most absurd performance of his career as the scheming bank owner. He sings the Do Bank jingle before having his goons nab Manu, and he dances awkwardly with his housekeepers in his mansion. Every line is over-emoted. Mehta’s style and mannerisms are like an out-of-touch boomer’s idea of cool, but Mukesh is only 43.

Mukesh isn’t the only one off his game. Madhavan’s performance as Radhe is mostly flat, but he has this weird half-collapsing, half-retching reaction to a surprising death that is so bizarre as to be laugh-out-loud funny. Kulhari is mostly normal as Poonam, but her character doesn’t make much sense.

Hisaab Barabar‘s point about not letting seemingly small amounts of corruption slide is nuanced and important, but the drama around it just doesn’t add up.

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Movie Review: Jigra (2024)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Filmmaker Vasan Bala’s Jigra (“Courage“) shows the lengths to which a protective older sister will go to save her younger brother. Alia Bhatt once again commands the screen, turning in a complex, emotional performance in this tense prison-break drama.

Bhatt plays Satya, big sister to promising software engineer Ankur (Vedang Raina). When they were still in elementary school, the kids witnessed their father’s suicide. Satya has shielded Ankur from harm ever since. They were raised by a wealthy, distant relative, Mr. Mehtani (Akashdeep Sabir), whose son Kabir (Aditya Nanda) is best friends with Ankur.

While Ankur believes they are one big family, Satya knows the truth. She manages the Mehtani’s household staff, only changing out of her uniform for public events where the appearance of familial unity matters. The Mehtani’s expect reimbursement for her care, and soon they’ll expect the same from Ankur.

Ankur and Kabir ask Mr. Mehtani to help them find an investor for software Ankur built. This project is an ideal opportunity for Kabir to straighten his life out following multiple drug arrests. Mehtani sends the guys to meet a colleague in the fictional island nation of Hanshi Dao, off the coast of Malaysia.

The guys secure the funding and celebrate. Kabir gets caught with drugs, and both are arrested. Drug possession is a capital offense in Hanshi Dao — a fact the Mehtani family lawyer Jaswant (Harssh A. Singh) knows but the guys don’t. Jaswant tricks Ankur into taking the fall for Kabir. When Ankur is sentenced to death, Satya burns bridges with the Mehtanis and heads to Hanshi Dao to free her brother.

Without the expectation of repayment and the double-edged sword of family ties, Satya is finally able to find allies who share a mutual interest. Ex-gangster Bhatia (Manoj Pahwa) wants to get his son Tony (Yuvraj Vijjan) off of death row. Muthu (Rahul Ravindran) quit the Hanshi Dao police force after he accidentally sent an innocent man — Chandan (Dheer Hira) — to prison. With no legal recourse left, the three unlikely allies use their skills and connections to formulate an audacious escape plan.

Though Satya is the main character, the story gives us a glimpse into Ankur’s life in jail, too. His betrayal by the Mehtanis and his painful adjustment to life under sadistic warden Hansraj Landa (Vivek Gomber) shake him out of his prolonged adolescence. He finally becomes a man, one with only a few months to live.

With a big star like Bhatt on board, Bala — who co-wrote Jigra with Debashish Irengbam — takes a slightly more conventional filmmaking approach than with his previous features Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota and Monica, O My Darling. This mostly comes in the form of flashbacks to Satya and Ankur as little kids, meant to reinforce the depth of the siblings’ bond (akin to how many mainstream Hindi films about romantic couples insist on flashing back to how the couple first fell in love). The flashbacks aren’t necessary and slow down the pace of the film. Satya’s love for Ankur is active — we can already feel it in everything she does.

One of Bala’s superpowers is staging his heroines in fight scenes. Too often, “strong” female characters in films have some sort of elite training or physical prowess — qualities that allow them to fight like men, essentially. Bala’s leading ladies — Satya in Jigra, Supri in Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota, and Monica in Monica, O My Darling — aren’t like that. They are scrappy, ordinary women who prevail over their male adversaries through sheer determination (though Supri’s black belt helps). Satya’s unpolished fight scenes are all the more riveting because of what they say about her personality. She won’t let anything get in her way.

Through her depth of talent, Bhatt conveys so many of the emotions roiling within Satya even when her expression is stone-faced. It’s a remarkable performance in a career full of remarkable performances.

Pahwa and Ravindran play perfectly off of Bhatt. Because of their performances and the stakes for their characters, Satya’s relationships with Bhatia and Muthu are probably the most emotionally impactful in the film. Few actors portray heartbreak as well as Manoj Pahwa.

In only his second feature role, Raina acquits himself very well as Ankur. He undergoes more of a character transformation than Satya does, while still needing her as much as he ever did. Raina also does a nice job singing the film’s title track.

Vasan Bala’s filmography is among the best among working directors, and Alia Bhatt is Hindi cinema’s top actress for a reason. Put them together, and you get something very special.

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Movie Review: Fighter (2024)

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1.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Fighter is just what you’d imagine when you think of a Bollywood version of Top Gun. The predictable action flick about a reckless jet pilot is mostly fine until an aggressively patriotic climax that veers into jingoism.

Hrithik Roshan stars as Shamsher “Patty” Pathania, ace pilot among the Indian Air Force’s “Air Dragons” squadron. Fighter director Siddharth Anand also directed Roshan in the action flick War, the highlight of which was Roshan’s character’s epic entry scene. Anand tries to give Roshan a similar introduction in Fighter, but it feels derivative.

The Air Dragons team includes fellow jet pilots Taj (Karan Singh Grover) and Bash (Akshay Oberoi), and also helicopter pilots like Minal “Minni” Rathore (Deepika Padukone). All of the other male pilots are married or have facial hair, so obviously Minni and Patty will fall in love.

Commanding Officer Rakesh “Rocky” Jaisingh (Anil Kapoor) thinks Patty takes dangerous risks, but the force needs all the help they can get to combat a rising wave of terrorism in Kashmir (the film is set in 2018, before Article 370 was revoked). The squad’s training is interrupted when a terror blast takes out several buses full of Indian soldiers on their way to the region.

If you’ve seen either of the Top Gun movies, you can more or less guess where Fighter is going. The Air Dragons retaliate for the explosion, and Taj and Bash are shot down by Pakistan’s ace pilot: “Red Nose.” (They just had to give him a stupid call sign.) Rocky blames Patty, demoting him and shipping him off to be a flight instructor. But when a recovery mission goes sideways, Patty returns to (hopefully) save the day.

The story is serviceable enough. The actors generally give decent performances, despite Anand’s preference for heavy-handed sentimentality. Padukone and Roshan are at their best in a scene where Patty packs following his demotion, leaving not just the Air Dragons behind but Minni as well.

But Fighter is a movie that says one thing and does another. Characters speak broadly about the Indian public and the military fraternity at large, but every plot point is directly connected to Patty or Minni by either romantic or familial connections. Note that Patty only plots revenge against Pakistan for his dead fiancée — another helicopter pilot (he has a type) — not for any of the other Indian soldiers killed in action that he doesn’t know personally.

Patty states repeatedly that the Indian military has nothing against Pakistan as a country, only against terrorists working within its borders. But the movie immediately follows Patty’s speech with a scene of terrorist mastermind Azhar (Rishabh Sawhney) marching into the offices of the Pakistani military and giving orders. Multiple times, the Pakistani government is depicted to be collaborating with, or controlled by, terrorists.

Fighter‘s militant brand of patriotism takes an extreme turn in the climax (which is full of ambitious but silly stunts and corny closeups). Patty claims that India is the rightful owner of all of Kashmir, and he promises that soon Pakistan will be known as “India-Occupied Pakistan.” Ending what should have been a feel-good movie with what amounts to a declaration of war needlessly pushes this triumphant moment into a dark place.

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Movie Review: Agni (2024)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Agni has novelty on its side, as Hindi films about firefighters are rare. The film’s action scenes are exciting, but the family drama interspersed throughout drags.

Set in 2017, Agni follows the crew of a Mumbai firehouse, led by their chief, Vitthal (Pratik Gandhi). A series of high-rise fires cause massive damage and the death of a firefighter. It’s not long before the station’s investigator Avni (Saiyami Kher) finds a connection between accelerants found at multiple scenes. It looks like the city has an arsonist on the loose, and a skilled one at that.

Meanwhile, the police are looking for the perpetrator of a daring daytime assassination of a politician. The investigation is led by Vitthal’s brother-in-law Samit (Divyenndu), one of Mumbai’s top cops. Samit and his officers beat and threaten to kill suspects until they get a lead connecting them to some of the burned buildings. If the police and firefighters work together, they can solve the case in no time, right?

Not so fast. In the film, the police look down on firefighters, who get a much smaller share of public accolades and government funding compared to the cops. This feeling of disrespect is heightened for Vitthal, whose pre-teen son Amya (Kabir Shah) idolizes his uncle Samit.

As someone who lives outside India, I feel at a disadvantage because I’m not sure if public disrespect for firefighters is real and if there’s a rivalry with the police or they are just conceits of the movie. If they are, then the story may have had an underlying levels of context easily understood by locals. If it’s not, filmmaker Rahul Dholakia’s script — co-written with Vijay Maurya — needed to elaborate on how this disrespect manifests. The film is light on specifics.

Most of the inter-agency disrespect in the story comes from mean-spirited jokes directed at Vitthal at a housewarming party in Sumit’s new luxury apartment. That party scene is awkward, as is a family dinner at a Japanese restaurant. The rivalry between Sumit and Vitthal isn’t interesting, and it takes away from the real source of Vitthal’s hurt: the fact that Amya has grown up and no longer sees his dad as the coolest guy on the planet. The father-son angle has much more emotional appeal but doesn’t get enough screentime.

Even more time is wasted on scenes inside Sumit’s police station, where he and his cronies beat confessions out of people. If the story is about firefighters, focus on the firefighters.

Agni is at its best when Vitthal’s crew is actively battling blazes. The action scenes are well-executed and exciting, with lots of real flames. Any CGI is integrated so well as not to draw attention to itself, and the editing makes it seem as though the characters are in real danger.

Gandhi does a fine job as the character holding all the narrative threads together. He’s at his best in scenes with other firefighters like Avni, his friend Jazz (Udit Arora), and fellow station chief Mahadev (Jitendra Joshi). Sai Tamhankar gives an understated performance as Vitthal’s wife Ruku. I wish she’d played a bigger role.

Despite some slow parts in the first half, Agni‘s story pace picks up as it nears its conclusion. Dholakia’s screenplay sprinkles enough action scenes throughout to reward one’s continued attention.

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Movie Review: Devils Stay (2024)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

Note: I sometimes branch out from reviewing Hindi films. The Korean horror movie Devils Stay opens in US theaters December 6, 2024.

Had the story of Devils Stay been told chronologically, it could have been a compelling examination of guilt and faith leading up to a climax with terrifying consequences. Instead, the asynchronous timeline hampers character development and fails to build tension.

Devils Stay — directed by Hyun Moon-seop — opens with a typical exorcism movie scene. Teenage girl Cha So-mi (Lee Re) is tied to the bed in a befouled room. Young priest Father Ban (Lee Min-ki) prays over So-mi, who levitates and screams for her dad’s help. Cha Seung-do (Park Shin-yang) breaks down the door to get to his daughter, just in time to watch her die.

A flashback shows So-mi and her father gazing at the stars atop the roof of the hospital where she is a heart patient and he works as a cardiac surgeon. He says that they’ve found a donor heart for her, promising her that everything will be all right after her surgery.

Back in the present, her family gathers at the funeral hall for the start of three days of mourning. A despondent Seung-do thinks he hears So-mi calling to him and sees apparitions of her, convincing him that she’s not really dead. Meanwhile, Father Ban worries that his exorcism was incomplete and that something evil still lurks within So-mi’s body.

One feature of South Korea that makes Devils Stay interesting is that hospitals often have their own funeral homes, usually in the basement near the morgue. That makes it convenient if, say, a heart surgeon who thinks his deceased daughter is secretly alive wants to grab her days-dead body and take it up to a surgical suite to apply the defibrillator pads one last time.

Other than the understandable sentiment of a father who lost his child and a priest who failed his parishioner, there are few emotional hooks in Devils Stay. There’s simply too much missing information to really become invested in the characters. We don’t know how much time elapsed between So-mi’s heart surgery and when she started exhibiting symptoms of possession. We don’t see her interact with her classmates, who appear in just one scene to say she wasn’t behaving like herself in school. We don’t know whose idea it was to summon the exorcist or what other interventions they tried first.

Father Ban has his own thin backstory that is shown in dramatic flashbacks that lack context. The particular dangers to him as an exorcist and the theological consequences of So-mi’s possession could have been more developed, rather than dismissed with an out-of-left-field explanation that’s merely an excuse to put Lee Min-ki into a fight scene.

The choppy timeline also makes it hard for any of the performances to stand out, since we don’t really get a sense of how the characters grow. Other characters like So-mi’s mom and younger brother are afterthoughts from a plot standpoint, and their mere existence doesn’t do enough to give shape to the world the three main characters inhabit.

Reorganizing the timeline and fleshing out some of the characters could have made Devils Stay feel more meaningful than it does in its current form. As it is, the film is more like a random collection of mandatory exorcist-movie scenes without a strong point of view.

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Movie Review: Stree 2 (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank (“Woman 2: Terror of the Headless“) works very well as a sequel, but its place in a shared movie universe presents complications.

Stree 2 begins with a well-executed refresher on the events of the original film from 2018. The ghost from Stree arrives at the outskirts of Chanderi, the town she used to terrorize by abducting men who were out after dark. Seeing the statue erected in her honor, she turns away and leaves. Inside Chanderi, she’s further celebrated at a festival where the town’s oddball bookseller Rudra (Pankaj Tripathi) delightfully recounts her story in song form.

Unfortunately, Stree’s absence opens the door for another threat to take her place. The ghost of the conservative village leader who murdered Stree hundreds of years ago visits the town at night, abducting all the “modern” women with aspirations beyond cooking and cleaning for their husbands. Having been beheaded in life, the ghoul rolls his detached dome at his victims, coiling them in his long hair and dragging them away.

The responsibility for dispatching the monster and rescuing the missing women falls to the “Hero of Chanderi,” Vicky the tailor (Rajkummar Rao). However, Vicky is preoccupied, pining for the beautiful unnamed woman (Shraddha Kapoor) who disappeared after helping him drive off Stree years earlier. Even Vicky’s dad (Atul Srivastava) is worried enough about his lovelorn son to give him money to pay for some “friendship.”

Thankfully, the unnamed woman returns to help Vicky, Rudra, and their friends Bittu (Aparshakti Khurana) and Jana (Abhishek Banerjee) vanquish the new threat. But will she stick around after this job is done or vanish into thin air again?

Stree 2 comfortably picks up where Stree left off. Amar Kaushik returns as director, and Niren Bhatt does a fine job taking over writing duties. The film’s world-building is terrific, and the actors fall right back into their familiar characters. It’s fun to hear Vicky’s dad speak about sex only in euphemisms again, and Banerjee’s gullible Jana is as charming as ever.

The main issue with Stree 2 comes from it being a part of the Maddock Supernatural Universe of movies, which besides Stree includes 2022’s werewolf flick Bhediya and 2024’s monster movie Munjya. Jana is a major character in Bhediya opposite Varun Dhawan’s lead werewolf Bhaskar, and both cameo in the closing credits of Munjya. What’s important is that Bhaskar plays a major role in the climax of Stree 2.

Nothing about this is inherently problematic. There’s tons of crossover within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the YRF Spy Universe promises more going forward. What those universes have going for them is that all of the properties are available on a single streaming platform (Disney+ for Marvel, Amazon Prime for Yash Raj Films). If you missed a film during its theatrical run on want a refresher before a new release, it’s easy to catch up.

That’s not the case for the Maddock Supernatural Universe movies. Stree and Stree 2 stream on Amazon Prime, Munjya is on Hulu (in the United States, Disney+ Hotstar in India), and Bhediya is on JioCinema — a service that isn’t even available in the US. If Maddock wants to embed such crossover into the narrative these movies, then it needs to make them all easy to access without unnecessary overhead and costs. You can’t weave these movies’ plots together but sell the streaming rights to each title to the highest bidder.

It’s a shame that an operational choice by the studio is the only major knock against Stree 2. It’s otherwise a fun, enjoyable movie.

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