Tag Archives: 2025

Movie Review: A Nice Indian Boy (2024)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Rent or Buy A Nice Indian Boy at Amazon

A Nice Indian Boy is an adorable romantic comedy about how the way we communicate with our family influences how we interact with everyone else, for good or ill. This adaptation of Madhuri Shekar’s play of the same name is a ton of fun.

Karan Soni stars as Naveen Gavaskar, son of mom Megha (Zarna Garg) and dad Archit (Harish Patel). In the six years since Naveen’s sister Arundhati’s (Sunita Mani) wedding, everyone within the orbit of this Indian-American family reminds Naveen that he’s expected to get married soon, too.

The thing is, Naveen is gay. His mom is supportive, if a little unsure of how to relate. She religiously watches dating shows on a queer cable channel, looking for ways to connect with her son. Dad doesn’t want to talk about his son’s sexuality, so Naveen avoids the subject, which often means avoiding his parents altogether.

While praying to Ganesh at the temple, Naveen notices a handsome white guy come in and do the same. When they run into each other again, it seems like divine intervention. The guy is Jay Kurundkar (Jonathan Groff), a former foster child who was adopted by an Indian couple, who are now deceased. Jay asks Naveen on a date to see a screening of his late dad’s favorite movie: Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.

Jay is as emotionally open and sincere as Naveen is closed off, but their attraction is real. They fall in love, and eventually Naveen has to do the thing he’s dreaded: introduce Jay to his parents. Bringing home a white boyfriend requires understanding and finesse. Naveen bungles this spectacularly.

Lesser movies manufacture conflict from misunderstandings that could’ve been prevented with a simple conversation. Here, the the inability of the Gavaskars to talk with one another about their feelings is the point of the film. The dysfunction extends beyond Jay and his parents and includes Arundhati as well, who’s wilting under the pressure of being the perfect Desi daughter. The fact that none of them feel like they can freely discuss what they want with one another makes all of them miserable and adds a layer of artifice to their relationships.

The centrality of the relationships between the Gavaskars is more than just a source of character development. It’s world building. Naveen’s learned defensiveness informs the life he’s built for himself and the relationships he has with everyone in it. If Naveen can’t be honest with his parents, he can’t be honest with Jay, either.

All of this dysfunction is depicted in a really relatable way. Naveen’s emotional distance is frustrating but understandable, because we know where he comes from. Soni does an excellent job making sure the audience always roots for Naveen to become his best self. Groff’s Jay is sweet but secure enough that he’d walk away if he finds the romance more trouble than it’s worth.

The Gavaskar family is delightful. Garg is an hilarious nosy mom who plays well off of Patel’s taciturn dad. Mani deftly navigates Arundhati through a low moment, made easier to stomach because we understand the family she comes from.

Shekar’s story is truly charming, and director Roshan Sethi and screenwriter Eric Randall do a lovely job adapting it for the big screen. Like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, A Nice Indian Boy reminds us why we love stories about love.

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Movie Review: Loveyapa (2025)

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0.5 Star (out of 4)

Watch Loveyapa on Hulu

Rarely has a romantic comedy been so devoid of romance or comedy. Loveyapa is grim viewing.

The official remake of the 2022 Tamil film Love Today dumps viewers into the relationship of 24-year-olds Baani (Khushi Kapoor, daughter of Sridevi) and Gucci (Junaid Khan, son of Aamir Khan). Kapoor actually is 24, but Khan is 31 and looks it. His older physical appearance makes them a visual mismatch, and it makes the immature antics his character engages in look even more indefensible than they already are.

After 35 minutes of boring stuff — mostly them hiding their relationship from their nosy parents and preparing for the wedding of Gucci’s sister Kiran (Tanvika Parlikar) to shy dentist Anupam (Kiku Sharda) — the movie finally reaches its first plot point. Baani’s strict father Atul (Ashutosh Rana, who must have owed someone a favor) insists that the couple swap phones for 24 hours before he’ll give them permission to continue dating.

Baani doesn’t find anything suspicious in Gucci’s phone because he cleared it of incriminating material before turning it over. However, when Gucci looks at Baani’s phone, he learns that, by virtue of being a pretty woman on social media, Baani is bombarded with pleas for attention from all manner of men (which she politely deflects). However, her messages show that she lied to Gucci in order to meet one of her exes platonically, knowing that Gucci would be mad. He is.

Instead of talking about this with Baani or just breaking up with her, Gucci slut-shames Baani to her father. Gucci is hurt, so he hurts her back — mature behavior for a 31-year-old, er, 24-year-old. But Baani’s dad is no chump. He restores the deleted material from Gucci’s phone and says they’ll need three more days to go through it all.

Baani finds that Gucci messages his exes too, along with lots of other random women. He requests photos of them under the guise of casting for a movie that doesn’t exist. (The fake movie’s title — “Lovelorn Tribal Woman” — is the only funny part of the film). He still has an active Tinder account.

Worse, Gucci is the account holder for a social media handle that he and dozens of other men from his college use to prank each other and harass people, including occasional blackmail and extortion. Someone’s been using the account to sexually harass Baani, in fact.

Gucci’s response to this revelation? “Baani, boys do this.” Boyhood now extends to age 31, er, 24, I guess.

In reality, this is where Baani would dump Gucci’s skeevy ass. They’ve both been miserable since the phone swap experiment started. She has proof that he’s a creep, and he doesn’t trust her anymore anyway. What is there to salvage?

But this is an extremely conventional Bollywood romcom. The “happy” ending is determined from the outset, regardless of what happens in the film. None of the big social problems introduced are interrogated in any meaningful way. The female lead suffers, and the male lead decides the outcome. Roll credits.

To be fair to the actors, there’s no one who could have made Loveyapa into a good movie. Yet it is fair to question their contributions to its awfulness. Kapoor has starred in three movies in her young career, and her performances have been fine. She’s not without potential, but she hasn’t done anything to stand out from her peers yet. When you come from a famous family, you can coast on being cute for a while — but not forever.

Khan’s experience as a stage actor isn’t translating to movies yet. There was an awkwardness to the way he moved in his debut Maharaj, and it’s present here, too. If not for his famous father, I suspect he’d have started in supporting roles or unconventional character parts. Nothing about him screams “Bollywood leading man” yet. Maybe he’ll achieve that some day, but his next career move needs careful consideration.

Again, Kapoor and Khan aren’t solely to blame for Loveyapa. It’s regressive and sexist and devoid of humor. Watching it is a dispiriting waste of time.

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Movie Review: The Diplomat (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch The Diplomat on Netflix

The Diplomat offers a compelling cinematic perspective on India’s relationship with Pakistan, offering an alternative to the usual military conflicts and spy dramas. Though less action-packed than those two sub-genres typically are, the bureaucratic processes in The Diplomat generate just as much tension.

The film — based on a true story — opens in a remote, mountainous region of Pakistan in 2017. Two rustic-looking men and one burka-clad woman drive from a compound to the Indian embassy in Islamabad. As they wait for the office to open, the men tell the woman, “You know what to do.” When the men go out for a smoke, the woman sprints to a receptionist. She begs for help, claiming to be an Indian woman tricked into marriage and held against her will.

Letting her in isn’t an easy a decision. Is she telling the truth? Is she a terrorist? The Indian embassy staff is split on what to do, so they leave the call to Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh (John Abraham). The woman’s name is Uzma (Sadia Khateeb), and she holds to her story of abuse and deception even under J.P.’s fierce interrogation. When her passport details check out, she’s given sanctuary inside the embassy.

Anywhere else in the world, the story ends with Uzma on a plane back to India. However, The Diplomat lays out all the conflicting agendas surrounding what J.P. considers to be a humanitarian case, not a political one. Indian External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj (Revathy) wants J.P. to handle things discreetly. Pakistan’s diplomatic wing seems content with that as well, but their spy branch — led by Director General Malik Sahab (Ashwath Bhatt) — sees the opportunity to stoke public hostility toward India.

With Sahab’s encouragement, Uzma’s husband Tahir (Jagjeet Sandhu) — one of the men from the beginning of the film — files a case that she’s being illegally detained inside the embassy. That leaves the Indian consulate with no choice but to resolve the matter in Pakistani court, where Uzma will have to face her abuser.

Director Shivam Nair and writer Ritesh Shah do a good job handling this aspect of the story. Flashbacks to Uzma’s imprisonment by Tahir don’t explicitly show her rape. Rather, Nair has cinematographer Dimo Popov push in for an extreme closeup on Uzma’s eye during the abuse. Witnessing her fear from such an intimate distance is disturbing.

Both minister Sushma and embassy employee Seerat (Vidhatri Bandi) explain to J.P. that he may not be the best equipped to understand the fear Uzma feels following her sexual assault. Rather than treat J.P. as a superhero who can fix every problem single-handedly, the story has him defer to the women’s judgment about how to help Uzma proceed.

It’s easy to forget that J.P. is supposed to be an ordinary man, given that he’s played by John Abraham (who also produced the film). With Abraham’s hulking frame and action-heavy filmography, one almost expects J.P. to solve more of his problems with violence. That said, Abraham does a nice job breaking type and playing a character so, well, diplomatic.

Khateeb also does fine work in a challenging role, as does the rest of the cast. Though the film shows the dangers the embassy employees face in keeping Uzma safe, it would’ve been nice to hear more from the peripheral characters about their feelings. For example, Seerat seems nonchalant about acting as Uzma’s body double despite the death threats from Tahir’s people. Maybe an embassy worker’s job description involves less paperwork and more general badassery than I realized.

The Diplomat is noteworthy for how it depicts the Pakistani government’s relationship with terrorism as complicated, as opposed to a film like 2024’s Fighter, which characterized the government as being subservient to terrorists. While Sahab’s spy branch sees terror outfits like Tahir’s as useful tools — albeit unpredictable ones — there are like-minded people J.P. can work with in Pakistan’s diplomatic wing. He has a local lawyer (played by Kumud Mishra) he can rely on, and the court system is portrayed as legitimate. There are a few off-handed remarks about Pakistan being chaotic, but the film resists blanket condemnation. In doing so, it emphasizes the importance of India’s diplomatic efforts and the respect deserved by the people tasked with carrying them out.

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Streaming Video News: May 8, 2025

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s streaming debut of John Abraham’s political thriller The Diplomat. Yesterday, the streamer added the Tamil film Good Bad Ugly and the Telugu comedy Jack. All eyes are on tomorrow’s premiere of the new Hindi Original romance series The Royals, starring Ishaan Khatter and Bhumi Pednekar.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with today’s premiere of the Hindi series Gram Chikitsalay and yesterday’s addition of Tamannaah Bhatia’s Telugu supernatural thriller Odela 2. News broke today that the romantic comedy Bhool Chuk Maaf — starring Rajkummar Rao and Wamiqa Gabbi — is forgoing its planned May 9 theatrical release and instead premiering directly on Amazon Prime on May 16 (or the afternoon of May 15 if you’re in the United States). [Update: The movie’s release on Prime probably won’t happen as scheduled due to a lawsuit. Update 2: Bhool Chuk Maaf will get a theatrical release, but with a shorter exclusivity window. It could come to Prime as soon as June 6.]

Announcement: In light of recent events and the heightened security drills across the nation, we at Maddock Films and Amazon MGM Studios have decided to bring our family entertainer Bhool Chuk Maaf directly to your homes on May 16--only on Prime Video, worldwide. While we were eagerly looking forward to celebrating this film with you in theaters, the spirit of the nation comes first. Jai Hind.

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Movie Review: Costao (2025)

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1 Star (out of 4)

Watch Costao on ZEE5

Producer Sejal Shah makes an uneasy transition to the director’s chair with her feature debut Costao. Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays a principled customs officer in a biographical drama that takes a lot for granted.

Set in the 1990s in Goa, the story follows Costao Fernandes (Siddiqui). He takes his responsibilities as a customs agent seriously, risking his own well-being to investigate tips on illegal smuggling operations.

Goa’s most notorious smuggler is a businessman and aspiring politician named D’Mello (Kishore Kumar G). Costao’s informer (played by Ravi Shankar Jaiswal) lets the officer know that D’Mello is planning to bring in a massive amount of gold without paying duties on it.

A last-minute tip finds Costao staking out the smuggling operation alone and unarmed, with no hope for backup in the pre-cell-phone era. He chases D’Mello’s younger brother Peter (Hussain Dalal) and stops him near a small village. Peter pulls a knife and stabs Costao several times before the agent accidentally kills Peter in self-defense. Bleeding, Costao shows the villagers the gold in Peter’s car trunk and tells them to call the customs office. He runs before the cops arrive, since they’re all on D’Mello’s payroll.

When Costao finally turns himself in days later — after the regional head of customs offers him protection — he’s in big trouble. The gold was gone before customs agents arrived at the scene, and D’Mello has made sure that none of the villagers will testify to having seen it. All Costao has is his word as to what happened, but he fled a crime scene. Soon enough, he’s on trial for murder.

The case on which this fictional story is based set an important legal precedent for the protection of civil servants against retaliatory prosecution. It has all the makings of a gripping courtroom thriller. Yet Shah and screenwriters Bhavesh Mandalia and Meghna Srivastava treat the trial portions of the story as an afterthought rather than the point of the film.

Instead, they focus on Costao’s personal life, painting an unflattering portrait in the process. In an effort to depict him as a man who puts his principles first, they portray him as a terrible husband and absent father. He frequently fights with his wife Maria (Priya Bapat), ignoring her pleas to think about the danger he’s put her and their three children in and the upheaval he’s caused by forcing them to move into secure housing.

As Costao’s murder trial proceeds, he’s prohibited from fieldwork and assigned to desk duty. He quickly gets bored and negotiates a transfer to Mumbai, leaving his family behind. Even when he’s eventually cleared of charges, he doesn’t return to them.

Whether or not this is accurate to the man who inspired this story, one could understand some reputation laundering by the filmmaker in this kind of movie. Yet it doesn’t seem like Shah realizes how unflattering his portrayal of Costao is. Rather, the story justifies Costao’s neglect of his family by having the officer’s daughter serve as narrator, closing the film with her praising his heroism without mentioning the price she paid for it.

If Costao is a movie about a man torn between love and duty, we need to see that. If this is about a man whose freedom is threatened by state-sanctioned corruption, we need to see that, too. What we get is a film that expects the audience to side with the civil servant because of his job title, regardless of how much of a jerk he’s portrayed to be. It’s a real disappointment.

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Movie Review: Crazxy (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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It takes guts to make a movie that is essentially just a guy driving around taking phone calls for ninety minutes, but that’s what writer Girish Kohli did with his feature directorial debut Crazxy. The unconventional thriller works beautifully, until a bizarre sequence renders it mostly unwatchable. Still, you’ve gotta admire its gumption.

Tumbbad‘s Sohum Shah — who also produced Crazxy — stars as the film’s only onscreen character, surgeon Abhimanyu Sood. We meet him as he loads a duffel bag full of something into the trunk of his Range Rover in a parking garage. The gloomy lighting and stark shot-framing let us know that he’s probably not packed for a weekend getaway.

Rather than follow the cinematic trend of flashing back to days or weeks earlier, his loading the trunk is where the story begins. It concludes in about as much time as it takes to finish the film, giving the plot a sense of urgency.

Abhimanyu is on his way to drop off money to get him out of trouble, though we’re not sure what kind of trouble at first. It’s the kind of trouble that takes 5 crore rupees (nearly $600,000) to get out of, apparently. En route, he gets a call from an old man (Tinnu Anand) who claims to have kidnapped Abhimanyu’s 16-year-old daughter Vedica (Unnathi Suranaa). Abhimanyu doesn’t have much of a relationship with the girl, so he wouldn’t know where she is anyway.

We learn more about Abhimanyu through his phone calls, as he tries to figure out what’s going on. His ex-wife Bobby (Nimisha Sajayan) can barely stand to talk to him. His girlfriend (Shilpa Shukla) — whom we only know as “Jaan,” based on her contact name on Abhimanyu’s phone — figures the call is a ploy by his ex to shake him down for money. His boss “White Coat” (Piyush Mishra) is anxious that Abhimanyu will be late to his appointment to drop off the bag of cash.

Further contact with the kidnapper assures Abhimanyu that his daughter really has been taken. The man wants 5 crore rupees — exactly the amount Abhimanyu has on him.

Most movie dads would rush to their daughter’s aid without a second thought, but not Abhimanyu. He’s a good doctor and a terrible father. Before Vedica was born, tests determined that she had Down Syndrome. Bobby didn’t care, but Abhimanyu did. He wanted a “normal” child. Hence their divorce. Is he heartless enough to not save his own teenage daughter?

Shah clearly enjoys playing anti-heroes, as he previously did in Tumbbad. He makes the most of this opportunity to have the camera all to himself. One would think it would get old watching a guy driving around taking calls, but Shah brings out all of Abhimanyu’s internal conflicts and calculations while he cruises around. Top notch voice acting by all of the performers on the other end of the phone definitely makes his job easier. Catchy songs by Vishal Bhardwaj and an evocative score by Jesper Kyd set the mood.

Before we reach the climax, things get gross. I won’t spoil how or why, but I had to stop watching for about 10 minutes, only stealing occasional glances at the subtitles. Even then, I got way more than I bargained for.

This wild sequence knocks points from Crazxy‘s total score, and the ending didn’t work perfectly for me either. But I admire Kohli’s boldness. We’re unlikely to get any other Hindi movies quite like Crazxy this year, and that’s a shame. The industry needs more risk-takers.

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Movie Review: Jewel Thief – The Heist Begins (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins on Netflix

Netflix kicks off an entertaining new (potential) franchise with Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins, a fun, vibrant caper with a charming leading man.

Saif Ali Khan stars as Rehan Roy, a master thief who’s eluded Indian police for years. The cops follow him all the way to Budapest, Hungary, where he delights in giving them the slip.

Cheeky Rehan isn’t the first character we’re introduced to. That honor goes to Rajan Aulakh (Jaideep Ahlawat), a gangster-turned-art-collector who isn’t as far removed from his former profession as he purports to be. His accountant learns that the hard way when an error costs Rajan money, and the accountant meets a brutal end at his boss’s hands. It’s one of the rare instances of violence in an otherwise mostly bloodless film, but it establishes high stakes for anyone who gets involved with Rajan.

The gangster learns of an upcoming Mumbai exhibition of a rare African diamond called the Red Sun. One of the only people in the underworld who could fence something so expensive is the crime boss Moosa (Loitongbam Dorendra Singh), whom Rajan double-crossed a decade ago. Handing over the Red Sun would finally get Rajan off Moosa’s hit list, but he needs the help of an expert thief to get it.

Rehan doesn’t join forces willingly. He learns he’s been pressed into service when his estranged brother Avi (Gagan Arora, who brings intense emotion to his small role) arrives in Budapest to tell him that Rajan donated dirty money to their father’s charity hospital. Unless Rehan returns to Mumbai to steal the jewel, Rajan will report Baba (Kulbushan Kharbanda) to the authorities, destroying him and his hospital.

From this point on, we see Rehan doing what he does best: executing complicated plans that keep him one step ahead of everyone else. It starts with getting into India before top cop Vikram Patel (Kunal Kapoor) can nab him at the airport. Then Rehan, Rajan, and Rajan’s goons devise a scheme to nab the Red Sun before the museum exhibition opens. These sequences are a ton of fun, giving fans of heist movies everything they want from the genre.

Another necessary genre convention is a beautiful woman to complicate the thief’s plans. That would be Rajan’s wife, Farrah (Nikita Dutta), a painter trapped in an abusive marriage. When she lends a sympathetic ear to Rehan about his family problems, he resolves to steal her away from Rajan along with the diamond.

Having multiple subplots — not always a given in Hindi films — enriches the story and adds depth to Rehan’s character. It gives him more to explore in subsequent movies (which haven’t been officially greenlit by Netflix but are clearly planned by the film’s creator and producer Siddharth Anand).

The good news is that, should Netflix opt out of future films, this franchise could easily transition to a theatrical model because it feels like a big-budget release. International filming locations like Budapest and “Istanbul” (which at one point is represented by a shot of the Griffith Museum overlooking Los Angeles) contribute to the vibe, as do the glamorous sets and vivid color palette. It’s a very pleasing movie to look at.

Best of all is its perfect cast. Khan knows how to blend humor with sincerity, making Rehan a crook you love to root for. Kapoor and Dutta are a bit underutilized, but they do exactly what their roles need to impact the story.

Fans of Ahlawat are in for a treat. He’s menacing in a quiet, controlled way, making him all the scarier. When he unleashes upon someone, it’s quick and devastating. Ahlawat’s dancing in the disco-inspired credits song “Jaadu” grabbed attention because it’s not something he’s done much on screen, but he shows in the film’s few, highly entertaining fight scenes that he’s a skilled physical performer.

Also, kudos to Mohd. Faiz Abrar for really well-executed English subtitles. Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins has real crossover hit potential, and quality subtitles will play a big part if it takes off internationally.

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Streaming Video News: April 24, 2025

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with today’s streaming debuts of two Hindi theatrical releases: Sohum Shah’s kidnapping drama Crazxy and director Reema Kagti’s Superboys of Malegaon (which I really, really liked). Earlier this week, Prime added the Tamil film Veera Dheera Sooran – Part 2.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s streaming debut of the Telugu film MAD Square. The Netflix Original action flick Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins makes its world premiere on Friday. I previewed the new Hindi film for What’s on Netflix.

Here’s one final reminder that this is the last weekend to watch any of the 35 Hindi movies by UTV Motion Pictures expiring from Netflix on April 30.

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with the streaming debut of the Malayalam film L2: Empuraan (also available in Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu). Hulu also added the 2018 Hindi horror flick 1921 earlier this week.

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Movie Review: Mere Husband Ki Biwi (2025)

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0.5 Star (out of 4)

Watch Mere Husband Ki Biwi on Hulu

The question at the heart of any love triangle movie should be “Who’s going to win?”, not “Why are they fighting over this guy?”. The women in Mere Husband Ki Biwi (“My Husband’s Woman“) would’ve been better off staying single.

The man in the middle of this unfunny comedy is Ankur (Arjun Kapoor), who has no defining character traits. Two years after his divorce from Prabhleen (Bhumi Pednekar), he still hallucinates her everywhere. Even the opportunity to have sex with a Russian stripper at a bachelor party can’t take his mind off Prabhleen.

Ankur’s long-suffering best friend Rehan (Harsh Gujral) suggests that Ankur leave Delhi and go sell real estate for his dad (played by Shakti Kapoor) in Rishikesh. There, Ankur runs into his former college classmate, Antara (Rakul Preet Singh), who’s now a physiotherapist with a passion for adventure sports. Ankur immediately falls for her, and Rehan encourages him to be open about why his marriage failed.

Based on the way Prabhleen haunts Ankur, we assume she must have been a nightmare to live with. But in Ankur’s own retelling of the relationship, he’s obviously the villain. He expected her to clean up after him, even though she worked full-time as a journalist — a job he didn’t respect, going so far as to assault her boss and getting her fired. She makes a drastic decision unilaterally, but only because she was in a time crunch and Ankur refused to speak to her.

Even in this recounting, Ankur never owns up to his role in the breakup, seeing himself as a victim only. (We’ve also seen that he’s still a slob.) Antara’s takeaway is not concerns that he’ll repeat his mistakes with her. Instead, she’s worried that he won’t be able to top the grand romantic proposal he made to Prabhleen, should he propose to her.

Ankur being messy seems somewhat trivial, but it’s symbolic of his relationships with women. In the case of his marital home with Prabhleen, he covers their beautifully decorated living room in pizza boxes and empty bottles. It smells bad and attracts pests, and (most importantly) he knows it bothers his wife. He says that their maid can clean it up the next morning (which isn’t kind, either), but he surely knows that Prabhleen won’t rest until her beautiful home is tidy once more. He reduces her to his servant not just as punishment for her working outside the home, but simply because he can.

There’s nothing wrong with working as a house cleaner, but Ankur was attracted to Prabhleen because she was ambitious and educated. Yet once he married her, he wanted her to stop being who she was and slot into the role of “one of the women who cleans up after me.” Given that Antara is just as driven and accomplished as Prabhleen, it’s almost as if he’s choosing this type of woman deliberately — another beautiful thing for him to make a mess of.

Of course, none of these gendered relationship dynamics are interrogated in Mere Husband Ki Biwi. On the day Ankur proposes to Antara, Prabhleen gets in an accident and loses the last five years of her memory. She thinks the current day is the day Ankur proposed to her. The doctors warn everyone not to tell her the truth, lest it set back her recovery. Thus everyone has to pretend that Ankur and Prabhleen are still in love until the climactic reveal.

Just kidding! Within a few minutes, Prabhleen’s dad (played by Mukesh Rishi) tells her about the divorce, and that whole plot setup is abandoned. Prabhleen decides she wants Ankur back as a do-over.

The writing and direction of Mere Husband Ki Biwi — both the fault of Mudassar Aziz — are terrible, but the English subtitle translations don’t help. I’m not sure if the subtitles included with the version of the film showing on Hulu are the theatrical originals or if they are new for streaming, but they don’t even hint at what’s supposed to be funny in much of the dialogue. For example, when Rehan questions how Ankur has managed to get two women chasing after him, he asks, “Got some magical asphalt or something?”.

Bhumi Pednekar infuses more charm into Prabhleen than the movie deserves. Dino Morea is likewise amusing as Antara’s intimidating older brother Ricky. Arjun Kapoor and Rakul Preet Singh are just there. Same goes for Mukesh Rishi and Shakti Kapoor, who get nary a Gunda reference in this Bulla-Chutiya reunion, as far as I could tell.

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Movie Review: Logout (2025)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Logout on ZEE5

An influencer loses control of his life when he loses his phone in the tech thriller Logout.

Babil Khan plays Pratyush, better known as “Pratman” to his 9.9 million social media followers. Hitting 10 million subscribers is more than just a milestone for his comedy and lifestyle channel. It would open him up to seriously lucrative advertising contracts, which is saying something, since he already appears on billboards shilling a vegan food brand.

His slavish devotion to his phone is taking a toll on his real-life relationships, ruining his ability to focus on those in front of him as he tends to his online persona. He’s also outsourced many of the mundane duties of life to his phone, whether it’s the smart devices that control his lights, the food delivery apps through which his orders food, or the contact list where he stores phone numbers so he doesn’t have to remember them.

After a drunken night out, he wakes up and can’t find his phone. A woman contacts him using a messaging app on his computer, saying that she met a cab driver who has his phone. Pratyush foolishly gives her his phone’s password to facilitate wiring the cab driver money to return it. Only there is no cab driver. The woman — who we eventually learn is named Sakshi (Nimisha Nair) — is a super-fan of Pratman, and now she has his phone, with access to all of his accounts and private information.

Most of the film is Khan acting alone in Pratyush’s apartment, with the influencer tethered to his messenger app as Sakshi threatens to destroy his carefully curated brand and harm his family members. This is Khan’s most confident performance in his young career, and he displays great range. Nair does an equally fine job in a role that is almost exclusively voice-acted. She finds a creepy balance between sweet and menacing.

The story setup is very similar to Vikramaditya Motwane’s 2024 Netflix Original film CTRL, which saw Ananya Pandey acting mostly solo while playing an influencer who gives control of her computer to a malicious AI program. CTRL leaned more heavily into telling its story visually via screens and apps than Logout does. Logout also features a more traditional villain — one bad person taking advantage of another — whereas Pandey’s character in CTRL is victimized by a faceless corporation.

Those differences in scope and presentation give the edge to CTRL, if one had to chose between two similar films. But one does not, and Logout is an effective cautionary tale in its own right. If nothing else, it’s a reminder to put your phone down every once in a while and focus on the people most important to you. And memorize their phone numbers.

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