Streaming Video News: August 18, 2023

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s big premiere of the new Original dark comedy series Guns & Gulaabs, Raj & DK’s first show for Netflix. Earlier in the week, Netflix added a trio of older Telugu films to the catalog: Kavacham, Roja, and Yuddham Sharanam.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with yesterday’s additions of the Tamil film Kolai and the debut of the docuseries AP Dhillon: First of a Kind.

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with the premiere of the Tamil series Mathagam (also available in Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, and Telugu). As of now, only the first episode of the series is available under the “Season 1” tab — a clue that something is wrong since there is only one season. You have to switch to “Season 2” to find the next four episodes of Mathagam. I’m sure Hulu will fix this at some point.

Hulu also added the great 2022 American Desi comedy Four Samosas — a terrific film if you’re looking for something fun to watch over the weekend.

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Streaming Video News: August 10, 2023

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with today’s additions of the Telugu version of Adipurush (Hindi is not one of the additional dialogue options in the audio menu — the Hindi version of Adipurush is streaming on Netflix) and the Tamil film Maaveeran. A Hindi dub of Maaveeran is also available as well as a Telugu version under the title Mahaveerudu. Earlier this week, Amazon released Season 2 of the Hindi series Made in Heaven and launched the trailer for the series AP Dhillon: First of a Kind, which comes out August 18:

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with today’s premiere of the action series Commando, which is based on the excellent Vidyut Jammwal movie of the same name but does not star Jammwal. It’s available in Hindi along with dubbed versions in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu. Earlier this week, Hulu added the Malayalam film Neymar to its catalog, along with versions in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s addition of the Hindi version of Adipurush and the Malayalam movie Padmini. As a reminder, here are some important Netflix expiration dates coming soon:

Bonus: I wrote a piece for What’s on Netflix with all the info you need to know about Guns & Gulaabs, the new series from Raj & DK that comes to Netflix on August 18.

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Movie Review: Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (2023)

1 Star (out of 4)

Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (“Someone’s Brother, Someone’s Lover“) is strictly for Salman Khan fans — but even they might want to give this one a pass.

Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (KKBKKJ, henceforth) is an unofficial remake of the 2014 Tamil film Veeram, which was a big enough box office success to prompt remakes in Telugu and Kannada as well. Khan plays Bhaijaan, the protector of a neighborhood in Delhi and adoptive brother to three younger guys whom he rescued from an orphanage fire when they were little kids.

The film is dense with references meant to signal to Khan’s hardcore fans. This includes nods to his earlier movies and famous roles as well as allusions to his personal life, such as Bhaijaan’s name (one of Khan’s many nicknames) and his bachelor status. Even Bhaijaan’s entry in which he is summoned by the whistles of his brothers and neighbors encourages Khan’s rowdiest fans to do the same upon seeing their hero for the first time.

Bhaijaan’s brothers are all in romantic relationships but don’t want to ask his permission to marry until they’ve found a partner for him as well. Enter Bhagya (Pooja Hegde, who is undeniably charming in this), a beautiful woman visiting Delhi from her home in Telangana. She is inexplicably smitten by Bhaijaan, and the brothers get to work trying to get them together. The film just ignores that Khan is 25 years older than Hedge.

Bhagya’s budding romance with Bhaijaan is interrupted by Mahavir (Vijender Singh), a crooked politician who wants to redevelop Bhaijaan’s neighborhood. But he’s not the only one who’s put the lovers in his crosshairs. In one of the more convoluted, nonsensical subplots I’ve ever seen, there’s a drug dealer named Nageshwar (Jagapathi Babu) who wants to kill Bhagya to get revenge on her brother Balakrishna (Venkatesh) for telling the cops to arrest Nageshwar’s dad who ran a coffee company whose trucks Nageshwar was secretly using to transport drugs, causing Nageshwar’s dad to have a heart attack and die.

KKBKKJ could’ve settled for being just dumb and harmless. But the filmmakers couldn’t resist making a couple of immature homophobic jokes. And Mahavir has a Black bodyguard who appears in one short scene solely so that Bhaijaan can say of Mahavir, “At least he’s not racist”–only for the camera to immediately cut to the bodyguard as monkey sound effects play. The movie clumsily acknowledges that racism exists, and then is super-racist itself!

The movie is also extremely violent, but it tries to seem less violent than it actually is. On three occasions, characters hallucinate being on the receiving end of brutality, including an entire family being shot to death in slow motion. Only after the gruesome sequences end are we shown that the events were not real, just imagined.

That outcome is certainly better for the characters who imagine them, but the audience is still subjected to witnessing the violence. While it may not be real, I’m not convinced that seeing such gory deaths is harmless. And we’re certainly not better off for it. If those violent scenes have no bearing on the plot, then why must they be there? Was there no other way to generate a spectacle besides watching people have their necks snapped? KKBKKJ is the last place to look for answers to such questions.

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Streaming Video News: August 4, 2023

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s premiere of the docuseries The Hunt for Veerappan and yesterday’s addition of the Telugu film Rangabali. There’s no sign of Jimmy Shergill’s new series Choona, which was supposed to release on August 3. I suspect that’s to leave more space before the launch of Guns & Gulaabs on August 18. Netflix describes both shows as “Offbeat, Exciting” in their catalog entries, and there’s a good chance Choona could be eclipsed by the higher profile new show from Raj & DK.

Netflix released a video announcing a September 1 release date for the new Excel Entertainment movie Friday Night Plan, about two teenage brothers who make big plans when their mom (Juhi Chawla) leaves them home alone for the night.

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

Nothing new on Amazon Prime in the US this week, but journalist Suchin Mehrotra posted a really good interview with Amazon’s Head of Indian Originals, Aparna Purohit, on the latest episode of The Streaming Show podcast.

Movie Review: Afwaah (2023)

3 Stars (out of 4)

A bystander’s good deed puts him in danger in the smart political thriller Afwaah (“Rumor“).

Politician Gyaan Singh runs the town of Sawalpur in Rajasthan. Singh’s daughter Nivi (Bhumi Pednekar) is engaged to her dad’s presumed successor, Vicky Bana (Sumeet Vyas), who has national political ambitions. Sawalpur has avoided inter-religious conflict thus far, but Vicky uses a scuffle at a rally in the Muslim part of town as an excuse for a show of force. His goons beat residents, and Vicky himself is captured on camera giving instructions to his lackey Chandan (Sharib Hashmi), who drags a Muslim butcher into a shuttered shop. The butcher is later found dead.

The melee is more than just a headache for the party. Nivi wants no part of Vicky’s violence, and she runs off while her father is in the hospital. Vicky sends his goons to track her down.

They catch Nivi in the town square right as advertising executive Rahab Ahmed (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is passing through in his Range Rover. He’s on his way from his dad’s house in a village nearby to his wife’s book launch at an historic fort a couple of hours away. Rahab stops when he sees Vicky’s men grab Nivi, and soon the two are fleeing in his car with Vicky’s henchmen in pursuit.

Afwaah takes a comprehensive view of the way political power is exercised through violence and misinformation. When Vicky employs violence at the rally as a display of authority, he unleashes a force into the world that will grow and soon be out of his control. He doesn’t understand that, but Nivi and her dad do. With an army of eager thugs at his disposal and a police inspector Tomar (Sumit Kaul) on the payroll, Vicky thinks he’s untouchable.

That also makes him hypersensitive to being perceived as weak. Nivi’s flight looks bad for Vicky, as does video of him and his cronies harassing her and Rahab. That’s where misinformation comes in. Vicky’s communications guy proposes flipping the video’s narrative to make it appear as though Vicky was trying to save Nivi from being kidnapped by Rahab in an act of “#lovejihad.” Just like violence, Vicky sees bigotry as an expedient tool but doesn’t understand the danger it poses, even to him.

With such loaded themes to explore, Afwaah is very plot-dense. Add to that subplots about a botched assassination attempt on Chandan and Inspector Tomar’s romantic affair with a subordinate officer, and character development takes a backseat. Siddiqui and Pednekar give workmanlike performances, but the movie is more about getting Rahab and Nivi from Point A to Point B. The cast does the job that’s asked, even when that means letting the message command most of the spotlight.

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Movie Review: Bawaal (2023)

0.5 Star (out of 4)

Watch Bawaal on Amazon Prime

Bawaal was constructed in an alternate moral universe. One in which a husband confines his wife to their house because he’s embarrassed by her disability and the marriage is considered “troubled,” not abusive. One in which a teacher’s physical violence against a student can be overlooked if he’s deemed a competent instructor. One in which characters find ways to identify with Adolf Hitler, who is condemned for being greedy, not genocidal. One in which romantic relationship problems are compared to the Holocaust.

The romantic drama from filmmaker Nitesh Tiwari certainly looks nice. Cinematographer Mitesh Mirchandani takes full advantage of filming in picturesque locations in France, Germany, and Poland. But the movie itself is indefensible.

Ajay (Varun Dhawan), is a stereotypical Bollywood male main character who needs to grow up. He peaked in high school and has been trying to maintain his cool image ever since. As a disinterested middle school history teacher, Ajay buys the devotion of his students by giving them good grades despite teaching them nothing.

He thought he was getting the ultimate accessory when he married beautiful, smart Nisha (Janhvi Kapoor). She warned him that she had epilepsy, but incurious Ajay didn’t understand what that meant until he witnessed her have a seizure on their wedding night. Fearful of what might happen to his image if Nisha were to have a seizure in public, he made her stop working and forbade her from leaving the house. That was nine months ago.

Now Ajay’s in trouble because he slapped a student. The kid’s dad is a politician who demands the school investigate whether Ajay should keep his job. Ajay plans to repair his image as a lousy husband and teacher by taking Nisha on a two-week trip to Europe to tour World War II historic sites and send video lessons to his students back home. But he makes it clear to Nisha that he’s only doing this for his own benefit, not because he cares about her.

When in Europe, Ajay realizes how worldly his wife is and how attractive other men find her, causing him to reevaluate whether he’s underestimated her value to him. They tour museums and Nisha translates their tour guides’ English narrations into Hindi, helping him to finally gain a shred of empathy.

Even then, Ajay can only sympathize with people from the past by imagining himself in their place (not because they were individuals deserving of life and happiness for their own sake). When he does, the image onscreen changes from color to black and white as Ajay sees himself in events from the past. He stands among soldiers being slaughtered on Normandy Beach, packs a suitcase as Nazi officers urge him to hurry, and calls out to Nisha inside a crowded gas chamber as shirtless men succumb to poison all around him.

The gas chamber sequence is disturbing not because of the imagery but because of the sheer inappropriateness of equating such an evil act to the marital struggles of an abusive husband. Nisha translates an unbelievable speech by a character who is an Auschwitz survivor who says, “Every relationship goes through their Auschwitz.” The Holocaust is not a metaphor.

As seen through the lens applied by Tiwari and his collaborators, World War II is a conflict driven purely by greed for territory. Genocide is never brought up, nor is the Holocaust referred to by name. Very rarely is it even mentioned that the majority of Auschwitz’s million plus victims were Jewish. Instead, Nisha opines that, “We all too are a little like Hitler, aren’t we? We aren’t satisfied with what we have.”

I struggle to understand this interpretation of history. Maybe it’s purely coincidental that a filmmaker from India in 2023 chose to ignore or downplay the Nazi’s systemic persecution and extermination of a religious minority. There’s some irony that Ajay mistreats his wife because of her epilepsy, yet there’s no mention of Hitler’s eugenics program that targeted people with mental and physical disabilities.

Dhawan is competent as Ajay–which he should be, because he’s playing a version of the same character he’s played multiple times in his career already. Kapoor is sympathetic as the neglected wife. But both of them should have bailed on this project once they found out they’d be cosplaying Holocaust victims in a gas chamber.

Either Tiwari and his team have a completely superficial understanding of World War II and didn’t realize the callousness of their story, or they do understand and went ahead anyway because they wanted some novel visuals. Whatever the case, Bawaal is offensive and not worth watching even to see how bad it is.

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Streaming Video News: July 20, 2023

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with today’s world premiere of the Varun Dhawan-Janhvi Kapoor romantic drama Bawaal.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu because Kajol’s new series The Trial: Pyaar, Kaanoon, Dhokha is now available for streaming in the United States — a full week after it debuted in India. Besides the original Hindi version, it’s also available in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with the addition of the Tamil horror flick Asvins, which is also streaming in Kannada, Malayalam, and Telugu. There are also a number of Indian titles set to expire from Netflix in August:

Netflix has produced a lot of Original anthology films and series over the years, so I took a look at directors who have contributed to these anthologies to see which of them have multiple other projects currently available for streaming on Netflix. Check out my piece for What’s on Netflix titled How Netflix Indian Anthologies Can Help You Find Your New Favorite Director.

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Movie Review: IB71 (2023)

1 Star (out of 4)

IB71 is a spy drama with no intrigue. Characters have access to so much information that there’s no sense of mystery, and obstacles are manufactured in silly ways. It’s a forgettable movie that feels designed to be forgotten.

Vidyut Jammwal chose IB71 to be his first film as a producer. He stars as an Indian spy named Dev. It’s late 1970, and Dev and his fellow intelligence officers are monitoring multiple threats. There’s unrest in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and Pakistan and China plan to use that as pretext to take over India’s North Eastern Region. To do so, Pakistan would have to fly its military planes over Indian airspace to reach East Pakistan — an action India is powerless to stop without a formal declaration of war.

However, Dev thinks they might be able to trick Pakistan into committing an act of war, thereby allowing India to close its airspace. The intelligence bureau knows that separatists in Kashmir plan to hijack a plane in order to draw international attention to their cause. If India can get the separatists to hijack a plane of the Indian government’s choosing — one full of Indian spies, including Dev — they can trick the hijackers into landing in Pakistan and pin the blame on their neighbor to the west.

This plan gets rolling very early in the film thanks to India’s spy network already having access to all the relevant information. When there’s actual spying to be done, it’s goofy. Dev and his partner Sangram (Suvrat Joshi) make it very obvious that they are tailing one of the prospective hijackers in a Kashmiri town that seems like it only has a couple dozen residents, yet the guy being followed never notices them. When a Pakistani spy named Sikander (Danny Sura) needs to report to his superiors, his phone is out of service. He drives for hours to report in person instead of just finding another working phone.

Jammwal is renowned martial artist, but IB71 only has two major fight scenes. One scene is shot in a hallway during a blackout, so it’s hard to see what’s happening. In the other, Dev and the other characters wear baggy winter garb that obscure their movements. Jammwal’s fight scenes are usually the highlight of his films, but these feel utilitarian.

If Jammwal opted to get into production to expand his body of work beyond action films, IB71 was a poor choice because it offers him little to do acting-wise, despite his being onscreen almost the whole time. Dev appears to have no connections to anyone outside of work. His relationship with his partner Sangram is the closest we get to anything resembling friendship. Unfortunately, Sangram’s wife is pregnant, which bodes about as well for Sangram’s survival odds as if he were two days from retirement. Yet even that relationship lacks emotional impact.

IB71 feels so flat because the only emotion that matters in this kind of pro-India historical film is uncritical patriotism. The same problem plagued Mission Majnu earlier this year, but the main character in that movie had a wife, which raised the stakes for him and created internal conflict. Dev has nothing to choose between, since his life revolves entirely around his job. If he died, would anyone besides his co-workers even notice?

On top of that, the film is so pro-India that there’s a total mismatch between the countries involved. There was never a chance that Pakistan was going to achieve its goals, what with its unreliable telephone network and inferior pop music (something Dev scolds a Pakistani soldier about while in disguise). With the outcome telegraphed from the beginning and no emotional hook to the story, there isn’t much reason to watch IB71.

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Movie Review: Ponniyin Selvan – Part 1 & Part 2 (2023)

3.5 Stars (out of 4)

This is a review of the Tamil versions of Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1 and Ponniyin Selvan: Part 2, both available on Amazon Prime.

Mani Ratnam’s two-part historical epic Ponniyin Selvan is a stunner. The adaptation of Kalki Krishnamoorthy’s novel is full of tremendous performances and an absolute delight to look at.

Since I waited to watch Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1 until Part 2 was also available on streaming — and because both films are of similar quality — I’m reviewing the two of them together.

The Chola Dynasty rules over South India in the 10th century, but a blazing red comet in the sky portends calamity. While Aditha (Vikram) — crown prince and eldest son of Emperor Sundara Chozhar (Prakash Raj) — expands the empire via military campaigns, other noble families plot treason. They aim to use Madhurantaka’s (Ramesh) legitimate claims to the throne to install him as the new emperor, but only after killing Aditha, Sundara Chozhar, and his younger son Arulmozhi (Jayam Ravi), who is nicknamed Ponniyin Selvan.

Aditha suspects there’s funny business afoot, so he sends his comrade Vallavaraiyan Vandiyadevan (Karthi) to gather information and pass it along to the emperor and to Aditha’s politically savvy sister, Kundavai (Trisha). The first half of the first film is mostly a road trip adventure, with Vandiyadevan getting into trouble alongside his new pal Nambi (Jayaram), a pot-bellied holy man. The two make for a very funny duo, but Vandiyadevan is the real star of the films. Karthi plays him with a mischievous twinkle in his eye and an irresistible charm. He pledges his undying devotion to every pretty woman he meets (and there are a lot of them), and they all take him into their confidence anyway. He’s a terrific character played perfectly.

One of the beautiful women he meets is Nandini (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), whom Nambi knew when she was a young temple servant. When Nandini and Aditha were teenagers, they fell in love, but his family disapproved and she was driven out. Years later, Aditha ignored her pleas to spare the life of the man who took her in, driving a permanent wedge between the former lovers. Vandiyadevan agrees to act as messenger for her as well, even though her loyalties are initially unclear.

With so many characters — many of whom have additional nicknames, titles, and family affiliations — it is hard to keep track of everyone and their relations to one another. There were a few things I didn’t understand until seeing the Part 1 recap that starts Part 2. The source material is dense enough that this could’ve easily been a television series, so some confusion is perhaps unavoidable. Still, it made it a little hard for me to get fully into the story until well into the second film.

That said, Ratnam gives viewers more than enough to keep them hooked. Ponniyin Selvan is stunning to look at, with the director using the natural environment to compose shots of incredible beauty. He also knows how to make his already very good-looking cast look exceptionally good-looking at all times. Many of Rai Bachchan’s scenes take place in dim, candlelit rooms, yet her face is always bathed in an angelic glow.

Rai Bachchan’s reserved but emotionally expressive performance is the perfect counterpoint to Vikram’s intensity. He plays Aditha like a tiger in a cage, pacing back and forth and ready to lash out. Vikram displays some impressive horsemanship in a couple of scenes where he circles a vanquished foe on horseback or guides his mount in tight loops, essentially having the animal do the pacing for him.

That’s an example of another thing that Ponniyin Selvan does well — so much of the world is created from real, tangible things. Living things like horses, elephants, and hundreds of extras, and real objects like bamboo scaffolding for characters to run on and hats decorated with dozens of peacock feathers. The tangible stuff is so good that it makes the instances of CGI stand out as such (at least on a television screen).

For all the excitement of battle sequences, chase scenes, and musical numbers, the most memorable parts of the films are the quieter moments filmed at smaller scale. For me, the absolute best scene in either film is a meeting of the emperor’s three children. Aditha punctuates his conversation with his brother and sister by pulling Kundavai and Arulmozhi in for hugs, with the actors perfectly hitting their marks so as to not block each other’s faces in the shot. It’s a very precise kind of choreography that allows the audience to experience the emotions of the scene to its fullest. Even in a movies as large-scale as Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1 and Part 2, the details make all the difference.

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Movie Review: Tarla (2023)

3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Tarla on Zee5

A new biopic about late celebrity chef Tarla Dalal offers meaningful insight into the important role food plays in family life and what it means to be a truly supportive partner.

Dalal’s story begins when Tarla (Huma Qureshi) is a college student. She wants to make something of herself, but she’s not sure what. Her parents’ insistence that she get married threatens to close the door on her undefined ambitions, but her groom-to-be, Nalin (Sharib Hashmi), promises to support her whenever she finds her passion.

Twelve happily married years and three kids later, Tarla remembers the dreams she once had for herself, though she’s no closer to figuring out how to make her mark on the world. Inspiration finally comes when — in a very funny sequence — pure vegetarian Tarla drops off lunch for Nalin at work, only to spot him in the company canteen gorging on the mutton another coworker brought from home. Horrified, Tarla decides to cook vegetables in the sauces traditionally reserved for meat dishes. Chicken 65 becomes Gobi 65, a cauliflower dish. Nalin is suitably impressed and gives up his secret carnivorous ways.

Word of Tarla’s vegetarian innovations spread throughout her apartment complex, and soon she’s teaching her speedy, tasty recipes to all the young women of marriageable age. Though the girls’ moms see the lessons as a way to boost to their daughters’ marital prospects, Tarla sees it as a means for the girls to secure themselves as much freedom and as many opportunities as they can. All the women understand that many aspects of their lives will require their husband’s permission (it is the early 1970s, after all), and knowing how to cook demonstrates responsibility. As a bonus, making tasty food keeps husbands and in-laws in a good mood. Tarla jokingly calls one of her dishes, “The recipe to let you wear jeans after marriage.”

Besides, even a single girl has to eat, so why not learn how to make delicious food for oneself?

Nalin recognizes his wife’s talent as a chef and a teacher. When his factory shuts down, he uses his free time to type up Tarla’s recipes, turning them into a cookbook that the couple self-publishes. The book eventually takes off, and a culinary star is born.

The movie gets to a point where things almost feel too easy. Tarla and Nalin are both kind people we want to see succeed, but every story needs some uncertainty. This is where things get especially interesting. With Tarla focused on starting a TV show, things begin to fall apart at home, even though Nalin is not working and they employ a maid and a cook. The characters have a realization about the way in which household management and the emotional labor it entails is too often considered woman’s work, even by a husband as otherwise progressive as Nalin.

Tarla explores aspects of gender roles that are nuanced and often ignored in mainstream Hindi films in favor of generic “all mothers are superheroes” pablum (looking at you, Mrs. Undercover). Filmmaker Piyush Gupta trusts his audience to get the message without dumbing it down.

Qureshi and Hashmi do a lovely job portraying two caring people who want one another to be happy while sometimes struggling to define happiness for themselves. Their performances are endearing and convey the qualities that must have drawn audiences to Tarla’s TV show in real life. Gupta’s film about the late celebrity chef is thoughtful and thoroughly enjoyable.

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