Tag Archives: Hindi

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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Movie Review: Sky Force (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Sky Force on Amazon Prime

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: Deva (2025)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Deva on Netflix

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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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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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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Worst Bollywood Movies of 2024

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While I normally make a Top 10 (or Bottom 10, I guess) list of the worst movies of the year, I didn’t feel like I saw enough truly terrible Hindi films in 2024 to warrant a lengthy list. I’m instead going to highlight the four most problematic 2024 releases that I watched. Here are the worst of the worst:

Fighter was easily the most disappointing movie of 2024. Deepika Padukone and Hrithik Roshan in an action-packed Top Gun knockoff sounds like a recipe for success. Unfortunately, a jingoistic climax takes what should have been something silly and fun to a dark place.

Dibakar Banerjee tried to recreate the experience of watching a reality show, a Twitch stream, and sitting in a Zoom meeting for his anthology sequel LSD 2: Love Sex aur Dhokha 2. It’s an awkward format that is less enjoyable than doing any of the three things it mimics.

Annu Kapoor in drag could not save the dated, unfunny romantic comedy Luv Ki Arrange Marriage.

My worst movie of 2024 was admittedly one of the most entertaining that I watched all year, albeit for the wrong reasons. Horror director Vikram Bhatt went all-in on CGI for his latest, making a movie filmed almost entirely in front of a green-screen with sets and effects added in later. This isn’t unusual — one can’t exactly shoot a movie in outer space or on an alien planet — but it requires a lot of time and money to make it look convincing. Bhatt didn’t spend enough of either of those, resulting in a movie that looks cheap and weightless. His approach may be high-tech, but it doesn’t yield better results than his earlier films like Raaz or even Creature 3D. But if you want a laugh, watch my Worst Bollywood Movie of 2024: Bloody Ishq!

What was your least favorite movie of 2024? Let me know in the comments!

Kathy’s Worst Bollywood Movies of 2024

  1. Bloody Ishq – stream on Hulu
  2. Luv Ki Arrange Marriage – stream on ZEE5
  3. LSD 2 – stream on Netflix
  4. Fighter – stream on Netflix

Previous Worst Movies Lists

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Best Bollywood Movies of 2024

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With the first theatrical releases of 2025 due to make their streaming debuts any day now, it’s time to wrap up 2024. I wasn’t able to get to all of the films I wanted to review (sorry, Madgaon Express), but I did have 35 Hindi movies to choose from. Here are my Top 10 Bollywood Movies of 2024:

Sequels can’t help but be compared to the films that spawned them. Thankfully, Stree 2 had the same spooky, funny energy as the original Stree from 2018.

Choosing Laapataa Ladies as India’s submission to the most recent Oscars opened it up to unfair criticism, especially after it failed to make the shortlist for Best International Feature. Still, it’s a very cute story that introduced some fresh new acting talent.

If you’ve read any of my previous “Best of” lists, you know that they almost always include a Vidyut Jammwal action flick. This time it’s Crakk: Jeetegaa Toh Jiyegaa! (which is unfortunately not available anywhere in the United States at the time of this writing).

I’m a sucker for buddy comedies about women, and Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan, and Kriti Sanon came through with the heist flick Crew.

The movie that India’s selection committee should have picked as its Oscar submission was All We Imagine as Light, a great look at the alienation of modern day life in the city.

Some of my favorite performances of 2024 were by Deepak Dobriyal and Vikrant Massey in the tense serial killer drama Sector 36.

The most exciting action movie of the year was Kill. Watching Lakshya punch, kick, and hack his way through goons on a crowded train provided nonstop thrills.

Alia Bhatt makes an appearance on this list as an action heroine in the jailbreak drama Jigra. Vasan Bala is one of my favorite directors, and casting Bhatt as a sister who’ll do anything to save her imprisoned brother was a genius choice.

One of my other favorite filmmakers took a huge risk in shooting a thriller that consists almost entirely of footage meant to look like it was shot on a smartphone, and boy did it pay off. Vikramaditya Motwane trusted Ananya Pandey to lead the claustrophobic mystery CTRL as an influencer lured into a technological trap, and he was repaid with a career-best performance in a gripping film.

The best Hindi movie of the year told the true story of a controversial artist via a clever, memorable mix of narrative techniques. Diljeet Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra shone in their leading roles in my new favorite movie from writer-director Imtiaz Ali. The Best Bollywood Movie of 2024 is Amar Singh Chamkila!

What was your favorite Hindi film of 2024? What would have made your Top 10 list? Let me know in the comments!

Kathy’s Best Bollywood Movies of 2024

  1. Amar Singh Chamkila – stream on Netflix
  2. CTRL – stream on Netflix
  3. Jigra – stream on Netflix
  4. Kill – stream on Hulu; buy/rent on Amazon
  5. Sector 36 – stream on Netflix
  6. All We Imagine as Light – buy/rent on Amazon
  7. Crew – stream on Netflix
  8. Crakk
  9. Laapataa Ladies – stream on Netflix
  10. Stree 2 – stream on Amazon Prime

Previous Best Movies Lists

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Movie Review: Superboys of Malegaon (2024)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Superboys of Malegaon on Amazon Prime

Superboys of Malegaon is a film for anyone who loves movies. Director Reema Kagti’s latest is a touching story of friendship and all the things that can go right and wrong in the creative process.

Varun Grover’s screenplay is based on director Faiza Ahmad Khan’s documentary Supermen of Malegaon. The documentary itself is wonderful, and Grover brilliantly adapts its fictional version.

The story begins in 1997 in the industrial town of Malegaon, about 300 kilometers from Mumbai. Movies are a popular pastime for the men in the city, but film reels are hard to come by. The small theater Nasir (Adarsh Gourav) runs with his older brother gets by screening Charlie Chaplin movies, but business is lousy.

Their fortunes improve when Nasir learns how to edit together VHS tapes using two VCRs. His mashups of Chaplin and Bruce Lee are a hit, until the cops bust him for piracy. That’s when Nasir realizes that he needs to make his own films.

He’s got everything he needs within his circle of friends. Nasir can direct and edit. Akram (Anuj Singh Duhan) is the town’s wedding videographer. Farogh (Vineet Kumar Singh) writes for the newspaper. Irfan (Saqib Ayub) can act. And Shafique (Shashank Arora) can do whatever else is needed.

Nasir rejects Farogh’s suggestion for a more serious story, reasoning that things in Malegaon are tough enough as is. They settle on a parody of Sholay called simply “Malegaon’s Sholay.” With the help of plenty of other people in town and a dancer named Trupti (Manjiri Pupala), their original film becomes a massive local hit.

Watching the guys make the film with the technology available in a small Indian city in 1997 is a treat. They improvise a dolly by strapping Akram’s video camera to bicycle. Trupti’s vanity van is an auto-rickshaw with a shawl draped over one side. It’s not fancy, but it works.

Yet even this crew of friends is susceptible to the stressors that can foil any collaborative creative project. Disputes over input, respect, and financial compensation strain the group, and Nasir — who enjoys being celebrated as the brains behind the operation — is too prideful to stop things from unraveling.

The story is ultimately about learning the real meaning and value of friendship, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Since the movie is based on real people who have lives outside of their amateur filmmaking endeavors, Superboys of Malegaon takes place over the course of thirteen years. That just emphasizes how difficult it can be to put egos aside and apologize for bad behavior.

It’s hard to imagine a more perfect cast for this underdog story. Adarsh Gourav skillfully portrays Nasir as the kind of guy with enough charisma to pull together this kind of project, but with the flaws that often accompany that kind of charisma. Vineet Kumar Singh’s quiet seething as the writer whose ideas get trampled by his director represents the many contemporary Indian screenwriters who feel devalued by the industry.

With his skinny arms and incongruous pompadour, it’s impossible not to love Shashank Arora’s Shafique. Though everyone in the film feels their lives limited by lack of opportunity, that’s most true for Shafique. He’s the forgotten member even within his friend group. But from the minute he’s introduced, it’s obvious that he’s the heart of the film.

Reema Kagti’s movie is made with real affection for everyone who inspired it. It’s in details like all the retro movie technology and Bhawna Sharma’s charming costume design. It’s in casting just the right performers to bring these scrappy guys to the big screen. Superboys of Malegaon is a lovable movie.

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Movie Review: The Mehta Boys (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch The Mehta Boys on Amazon Prime

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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