Movie Review: Sky Force (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Despite its billing as an aerial action war flick, Sky Force is at its best when it focuses on military bureaucracy and the soldiers who serve.

The film from co-directors Sandeep Kewlani and Abhishek Anil Kapur is based on a true story from the Indo-Pakistani air war of 1965. Cinematic liberties were taken — including changing the names of the participants — but the screenplay by Kewlani, Aamil Keeyan Khan, and Carl Austin effectively ties together various threads into a satisfying narrative.

Sky Force opens in 1971, when Pakistani fighter pilot Ahmed Hussain (Sharad Kelkar) is captured by India’s military. Indian Air Force officer Kumar Om Ahuja (Akshay Kumar) seizes the opportunity to ask Hussain if he knows anything about an Indian fighter pilot who went missing six years earlier.

Flashing back to 1965, we get a pretty standard air force flick, with scenes of life on the base and rivalries within the elite group of pilots. The best of the best is T. Krishna Vijaya (Veer Pahariya), who goes by the call sign “Tabby” (all of the call signs are animal names). When the base gets word that Pakistan is preparing for war, Tabby’s the most eager to start fighting. That eagerness worries Ahuja and Tabby’s pregnant wife Geeta (Sara Ali Khan).

The Indian military brass don’t want to be the first to attack. There are surely international legal reasons for this, but there are practical ones, too. India has a limited number of fighter jets and no money to replace them. They don’t want to risk losing trained pilots or planes unnecessarily, especially considering that America just gave Pakistan a fleet of high-tech new Starstriker jets that can easily out-maneuver India’s comparatively ancient planes.

Pakistan launches a surprise nighttime attack on the airbase. The scene is mostly just Ahuja and Tabby running and jumping in slow motion while stuff explodes behind them. The Indian counter-offensive the next morning is far more dramatic. Daylight makes it easier to appreciate the loss of life as Ahuja leads twelve pilots in an attack on a Pakistani airbase. Indian gunners mow down fleeing soldiers, and Ahuja collapses the air control tower in order to destroy nearby Starstrikers. However, only eleven of the Indian pilots make it home.

Back in 1971, Ahuja gets oblique confirmation from Hussain about the fate of the downed Indian pilot, but rules of war limit what Hussain can say. As a fellow soldier, Ahuja understands. His ire is directed instead at the Indian military brass who refuse to act on this new information. Due to their reluctance, it’s more than a decade before Ahuja learns the fate of his lost comrade.

Sky Force is only moderately successful as an action film. Computer graphics technology makes it cheaper and safer to make movies about air battles, but it doesn’t necessarily make them better. The deft blend of actual footage and CGI is a big reason why Top Gun: Maverick is so thrilling. With a budget about a tenth of the size of that Hollywood hit, Sky Force relies much more heavily on CGI, and it shows. The unreality of the events on screen make the fight sequences something to get past rather than something to enjoy.

But as a military drama, Sky Force really works. It takes a comprehensive look at all of the factors that various parties have to consider regarding combat. Tabby — who’s well-played by Pahariya is his very first acting role — has the luxury of being eager to fight because shooting down enemies is the only thing he’s asked to do. He’s not responsible for securing the ammo he uses or organizing military funerals if things go badly. The higher up the chain of command you go, the wider the scope that must be considered.

Ahuja is in an interesting position. He’s ranked high enough to be responsible for fellow soldiers, but not so highly that he can do what he wants. His arc is full of obstacles and opportunities. Kumar plays him as a man who knows that compassion is his best asset. It makes the losses especially painful, but it helps him build relationships that pay dividends in the long run.

Ahuja’s treatment of Hussain is especially important in that regard, and it exemplifies what separates Sky Force from a lot of other recent Hindi war films. The mutual respect between the two soldiers from opposing countries is a refreshing counterpoint to the easy cinematic jingoism currently in fashion.

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Movie Review: Test (2025)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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The Netflix Original Tamil movie Test has an identity problem. Trim 45 minutes, and you’ve got a taut thriller film. Add 90 minutes, and you get a dramatic series about complex characters. As it is, the movie is poorly paced and bloated with material that doesn’t square with the characters’ actions.

At the center of the story is Arjun (Siddharth), a professional cricketer whose career is coming to an end. He’s not ready for that, but he’s in a slump. The national team tries to force him into retirement just before a big match in Chennai against Pakistan, but Arjun leverages his stardom to buy time. Still, he knows this is likely his last hurrah.

Arjun doesn’t know who he is without cricket, but he’s got a life waiting for him in retirement. He and his wife Padma (Meera Jasmine) have an elementary-school-aged son Adi (Lirish Rahav) who’s desperate for his father’s attention.

When Adi struggles at school, it’s not his parents who comfort him but his teacher, Kumudha (Nayanthara). She’s a little too involved in her students’ lives, compensating for her struggle to have a baby of her own. She’s also a childhood friend of Arjun’s, though he ignores her.

While Kumudha focuses on her fertility issues, her husband Saravanan (R Madhavan) tries to find an investor for his hydrogen fuel cell invention. He’s been lying to Kumudha about having a job running a canteen, and now he’s in debt to loan sharks. If he could just secure a contract with the government, he believes all his problems would be solved — he can finally be the next Steve Jobs.

The three main characters have problems they’re trying to address individually, but it takes a very long time before the main conflict at the heart of the narrative is revealed. The inciting incident doesn’t happen until the movie is halfway over, at which point the tone shifts from low-key relationship drama into thriller territory.

Despite the long buildup, there’s little to justify why things happen the way they do. The marketing for Test bills it as a story about choices, but the choices the characters make don’t always follow from what we’ve been shown about them. I suppose the question producer-turned director S. Sashikanth is asking is what one would do when a golden opportunity presents itself. Based on what he’s shown of the characters, the answer is: not what the characters do.

For a movie with such an all-star cast, the acting is kind of flat. R Madhavan gets to chew some scenery, but it’s a long time before he does. Siddharth plays Arjun as so self-focused that he shuts out the audience as much as the people around him. Other than one tear-filled sequence, Nayanthara’s Kumudha is pretty one-note.

The standout performer is Meera Jasmine, who makes her return to Tamil cinema after more than a decade. She plays Padma as her family’s pillar of strength, the one holding everything and everyone together. It’s not a flashy performance, but it feels right for the character. Also, kudos to little Lirish Rahav, who plays Adi as a bit of a brat, but for understandable reasons.

Had Test been structured as a series, there would have been more time to show gradual character evolution — and to better integrate a subplot about the police following the loan sharks. On the flip side, shortening the film’s runtime would have added urgency to the story and made the stakes clearer earlier. As it is, Test is watchable but forgettable.

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Movie Review: Deva (2025)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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Director Rosshan Andrrews makes his Hindi-language debut with Deva, a remake of his 2013 Malayalam movie Mumbai Police. Screenwriting duo Bobby-Sanjay return to update their original script with a different climax, which feels hastily added and unsupported by the rest of the story.

Shahid Kapoor stars as Dev, Mumbai’s most notorious cop. I’m not sure how closely the new lead character hews to the one Prithviraj Sukumaran played in Mumbai Police, but Dev feels like he was pulled out of cold storage. He’s aggressively macho, breaks all the rules, yet is best friends with two upright fellow officers: Rohan (Pavail Gulati) and Farhan (Pravesh Rana), who’s also Dev’s brother-in-law.

The film opens with Dev getting in a motorcycle accident as he’s leaving a voicemail message for Farhan saying that he’s solved a notable murder case. The accident leaves Dev with amnesia, but Farhan chooses to keep that a secret. Dev’s the best cop there is, and Farhan trusts that Dev’s instincts will help him solve the case again, even if he’s starting from scratch.

The action flashes back to before the accident, as chain-smoking Dev roams about Mumbai smashing the heads of informants and drawing his gun on whomever he pleases. As long as Dev wears civilian attire when doing so, none of his superiors seem to care. It’s useful to have someone who doesn’t care about the rule of law to enforce the rules on others.

While the film gives a few nods to police brutality being undemocratic, it still celebrates its use. Dev always looks cool while beating the crap out of people, and the film’s action scenes are quite entertaining. But there’s something grim about Dev telling a crime boss, “Mumbai isn’t anyone’s kingdom. Mumbai belongs to the Mumbai police.” Not the citizens — the police.

Before Dev is able to confront the boss face to face, the police are repeatedly thwarted in the efforts to find him by a mole in their midst. Journalist Diya (Pooja Hegde) is eager to expose the mole’s identity. She takes his subterfuge personally, as her police constable father is injured in the effort to nab the boss. Her dad’s injury brings Diya and Dev closer together, and soon they are in love.

The intensity that Kapoor brings to his portrayal of Dev is one of the main reasons this movie works at all. He’s the right actor for the job, but there’s not much to Dev that we haven’t seen in other maverick cop characters before. Andrrews doesn’t provide us with any real critique of violent policing or aggressive masculinity, so the whole film feels a bit stale.

If there’s any revelation to be found in Deva, it’s the evocative, nuanced score from composer Jakes Bejoy. His only Hindi credit prior to this was 2020’s Durgamati. Here’s hoping that other Hindi filmmakers realize this composer’s potential to elevate even tired material.

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Streaming Video News: March 27, 2025

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s streaming debut of Shahid Kapoor’s cop flick Deva.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with yesterday’s premiere of comedian Zakir Khan’s new stand-up special Delulu Express. This is his fifth comedy special for Amazon, following Haq Se Single, Kaksha Gyarvi, Tathastu, and Mannpasand.

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with today’s premiere of the new Tamil series Om Kali Jai Kali (also available in Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, and Telugu). I’ve also continued my process of pruning inactive links on the Hulu page. I’m halfway through the Malayalam Movies section, and I’ve already removed almost 800 entries from that section and above. Yikes.

Speaking of movies expiring from streaming services, more than two dozen Indian shows and films are leaving Netflix in the next month. It’s mostly cartoons, but there are some South Indian movies on the list as well. Here’s what’s leaving and when:

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Movie Review: Be Happy (2025)

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1.5 Stars (out of 4)

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The problem with writer-director Remo D’Souza’s Be Happy is that he doesn’t trust his audience to connect emotionally with his characters.

That shouldn’t be a concern in this father-daughter story. Humans have evolved to feel protective of children, so the second cute kid Dhara (Inayat Verma) shows up, we’re ready to care about her.

Dhara’s an elementary schooler who taught herself to dance by watching videos of celebrity choreographer Maggie (Nora Fatehi). Dhara and her maternal grandfather Nadar (Nassar) binge dance competition shows in the Ooty home they share with Dhara’s father Shiv (Abhishek Bachchan).

It’s been eight years since Dhara’s mother Rohini (Harleen Sethi) died. In that time, Shiv has handled the bulk of the parenting responsibilities, yet he is constantly surprised by things that happen in Dhara’s life. She wins her school’s dance competition, the prize for which is a spot at Maggie’s dance academy in Mumbai. This prize is news to Shiv, who barely seems aware of how important dancing is to Dhara. He refuses the offer, insulting Maggie in the process.

All of the ups and downs Dhara experiences are punctuated with a heavy-handed musical score that practically shouts the little girl’s emotional state at the audience. Verma is a capable young actor — she and Bachchan previously shared a subplot in the Netflix movie Ludo — so it’s not like she needs the help. I suspect anyone who doesn’t feel sad when a kid feels sad or happy when they feel happy isn’t paying attention in the first place.

Shiv relents, and he and Dhara make a temporary move to Mumbai. Under Maggie’s tutelage, Dhara earns a spot in a TV dance competition for kids. She advances to the round where the young dancers are supposed to perform a number with a family member, a development which once again catches Shiv by surprise.

This father-daughter dance is one of the few performances for which we are shown the choreography process, wherein beautiful Maggie teaches stiff Shiv to loosen up. Otherwise, the performance rounds are shown one right after the other, making it seem as though Dhara and Maggie’s other young student dancer Prem (Sanchit Chanana) are coming up with their routines on the fly. Showing them learn and struggle through the choreography process is a missed opportunity for character development.

But that gets to one of the film’s other big problems: it’s not really about Dhara, even if she is the one driving the action. Her character development is limited because Be Happy is really about Shiv’s need to move on from his wife’s death. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but centering the male lead actor is predictable. Just because Bachchan is the most famous cast member doesn’t mean he’s the only one able to play a character we can empathize with.

Reducing Dhara to a prop in order to center Shiv doesn’t even pay off. The little girl helps to foster a romantic relationship between her father and Maggie, but Bachchan and Fatehi have zero chemistry. If there’s any science in their subplot, it’s mortuary science.

Be Happy might be D’Souza’s safest, most disappointing movie yet. He made better dance films with his ABCD series, and even A Flying Jatt had more to say about parent-child relationships than this. There’s little to be happy about here.

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Streaming Video News: March 20, 2025

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with the streaming debut of Akshay Kumar’s war drama Sky Force. Earlier this week, Prime added the 2024 Telugu film Manamey.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s premiere of the new Original Hindi series Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, the second entry in the crime franchise that began with 2022’s Khakee: The Bihar Chapter. Netflix also made the 2025 Tamil film Dragon available for streaming.

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with today’s premiere of the new Hindi series Kanneda (also available in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu).

If all those are too long for you, check out director Tigmanshu Dhulia’s short film The Promise on YouTube. It stars Jim Sarbh and Priyamani and has a runtime of under 11 minutes.

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Streaming Video News: March 13, 2025

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with the world premiere of the Original movie Be Happy, which reunites Abhishek Bachchan with his cute, little Ludo co-star, Inayat Verma.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with two newly added 2025 theatrical releases: Kangana Ranaut’s historical drama Emergency and the period drama Azaad, starring debutants Rasha Thadani and Aaman Devgan (Ajay Devgn’s nephew).

Also new today is the digital debut of the 2024 Hindi film Vanvaas on ZEE5. The movie stars Nana Patekar and Ashwini Kalsekar.

Neena Gupta’s brand new Hindi film Aachari Baa is supposed to debut today, but it’s not available on Hulu in the United States yet. I’ll update my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with a link if/when it comes out.

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Movie Review: Nadaaniyan (2025)

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1 Star (out of 4)

Watch Nadaaniyan on Netflix

Producer Karan Johar serves up fresh talent in the stalest of offerings — the youthful romantic comedy Nadaaniyan (“Innocence“).

Sridevi’s youngest daughter Khushi Kapoor plays rich girl Pia Jaisingh, who’s in a rough spot as she starts her senior year at an elite Delhi boarding school. Her friends Sahira (Aaliyah Qureishi) and Rhea (Apoorva Makhija) are mad at her for ignoring them all summer and failing to disclose that Sahira’s crush Ayaan (Dev Agasteya) was sending flirty text messages. Pia’s solution? Invent a fake boyfriend.

Thankfully, hunky Arjun Mehta (Ibrahim Ali Khan, son of Saif Ali Khan) just transferred to the school. His dad Sanjay (Jugal Hansraj) is a doctor, and his mom Nandini (Dia Mirza) teaches at the school, making him essentially destitute, compared to his well-heeled classmates. Arjun agrees to pose as Pia’s boyfriend in exchange for money.

If this sounds like a knock-off version of Johar’s 2012 directorial Student of the Year — another star-kid launch vehicle — that’s because it mostly is. More accurately, Nadaaniyan feels cobbled together from material deemed not good enough for SOTY, left rotting on a shelf for more than a decade. For example, the school’s principal Mrs. Braganza Malhotra (Archana Puran Singh, reviving her character from 1998’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai) comically misuses youthful slang, mistaking “LOL” as meaning “lots of love.” Arjun’s big plan to get rich after he spends a half-dozen years in law school and interning is to build an app.

It’s not just that the material feels dated. It feels like it was stitched together without a care for continuity or world-building. Arjun plans to get a college athletic scholarship for swimming, but we never see him compete as a swimmer. The whole plot revolves around his debate team captaincy. Does the school even have a swim team?

The only reason Arjun’s athleticism is even mentioned is as an excuse for Khan to show his abs, which is how he becomes debate team captain (no, I’m not joking). Focusing on Khan’s and Kapoor’s physiques isn’t in itself problematic, since they’re both twenty-four, but they are playing teenagers. The camera ogles both of them in swimwear in a scene that comes before Pia’s eighteenth birthday party. If they had been written as college students, it wouldn’t feel as gross.

Of course, Arjun’s fake relationship with Pia turns into something real, especially as he builds her confidence and encourages her to dream bigger than the stereotypical girl careers like fashion that her family is pushing for. Pia’s dysfunctional family includes mom Neelu (Mahima Chaudhry), dad Rajat (Suniel Shetty), and paternal grandfather Dhanraj (Barun Chanda). The Jaisingh men are salty that Neelu could never give them a son. Neelu beats herself up for it, Rajat cheats on her, and everyone makes Pia feel like nothing more than a pretty ornament. When tensions in the Jaisingh house finally boil over, it happens so explosively that it feels out of step with the frothy tone of the rest of the film.

With three films under her belt now, Kapoor still has much to learn, but she has potential. As in The Archies, she’s shown herself an attentive performer that plays well off of others. Khan’s future is less certain. He doesn’t feel fully engaged here, though director Shauna Gautam is also partially responsible for that. The weak screenplay by Riva Razdan Kapoor, Ishita Moitra, and Jehan Handa doesn’t give anyone much to work with.

The only people who come out of Nadaaniyan looking good are Mirza and Hansraj as Arjun’s parents. There’s a real tenderness in the way they deal with their angsty son and his friends. Too bad the movie wasn’t about them.

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Streaming Video News: March 7, 2025

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s premiere of the Original romantic comedy Nadaaniyan, starring Ibrahim Ali Khan and Khushi Kapoor. Earlier this week, the Telugu film Thandel was added to the catalog.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with the English-language comedy series Deli Boys and the streaming debut of Sonu Sood’s 2025 theatrical release Fateh.

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with the new English romcom Picture This and the new Hindi series Dupahiya.

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Movie Review: Mrs. (2023)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Mrs. on ZEE5

A bride’s newlywed bliss is slowly crushed under household demands and unattainable standards set by her new husband and his father in the relentless drama Mrs.. The film isn’t presented as a thriller, but it elicits some of the same oppressive feelings as movies in that genre.

Mrs. is Cargo-director Arati Kadav’s adaptation of Jeo Baby’s 2021 Malayalam movie The Great Indian Kitchen (which I haven’t seen). The Hindi version stars Sanya Malhotra as Richa Sharma, the leader of a dance troupe. Through an arranged marriage, she weds Diwakar Kumar (Nishant Dahiya). He’s a handsome doctor who is kind and attentive in the run-up to their wedding.

Upon moving into Diwakar’s family home with her in-laws, Richa notices that her mother-in-law Meena (Aparna Ghoshal) spends her day in near-constant labor, waking before everyone and going to sleep last. Father-in-law Ashwin (Kanwaljit Singh) is particular about his meals, so Meena has to do a lot of work by hand that could be done by a machine more quickly.

Diwakar’s sister lives far away and is expecting her first baby. Richa offers to take over the household chores so that Meena can go help with her new grandchild. Meena happily takes Richa up on the offer, but she knows that her daughter-in-law is in for a hard time.

A learning curve is to be expected, but Richa’s lack of familiarity with the house is not the problem. Even when she does as she’s asked, her father-in-law finds flaws. When she executes a recipe perfectly, he invents problems. She just can’t seem to do anything to his satisfaction.

That’s exactly the point. Giving Richa approval would give her leverage, and that’s the last thing the Kumar men would ever do.

The relationships between men and women in Mrs. are defined by power imbalances. The methods used for maintaining that balance are less obviously villainous than, say, locking Richa in a closet, but are just as abusive nonetheless. It’s the cumulative weight of indignities, insults, and lack of agency — designed to make Richa too exhausted to resist — that reveal them as the control tactics they are.

That’s even before mentioning the fact that Diwakar subjects Richa to daily, painful sexual intercourse. He’s never noticed that he’s hurting her or cared that she’s not having a good time. It’s more important for him to get her pregnant, giving her yet more to do and making it that much harder for her to leave.

Kadav is careful not to be too heavy-handed with the tone of her film. She lets the audience draw their own conclusions from the actions of the characters, without relying on things like melodramatic music. It’s clear what’s happening.

Kadav also knows how to use her greatest asset: Sanya Malhotra. An opening dance number show’s Malhotra for the star she is, and she’s just as skilled through the rest of the film. She portrays Richa as a woman who is sincerely doing her best while she being pulled farther and farther away from the woman she was before marriage. She’s not a quitter, so it takes her a long time to accept that her best will never be enough.

Dahiya and Singh deserve a lot of credit as well for playing their characters with restraint. The point of the film would be lost if Diwakar and his dad were cartoon villains. Everyone knows them to be upstanding citizens and devoted family men, and that’s how they see themselves. They act in a manner that will get them what they want while still maintaining that image.

I really enjoyed Kadav’s film Cargo, which is delightful to watch. Mrs. is anything but delightful, but it’s an impressive achievement all the same.

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