Tag Archives: Indian Movies on Netflix

Streaming Video News: September 14, 2023

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with today’s debut of two brand new Indian series: the Hindi show Kaala (available in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu dubs) and the Tamil series MY3 (also in Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, and Telugu). MY3 is an official remake of the 2017 Korean series I’m Not a Robot.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon with this week’s premiere of the new Hindi series Bambai Meri Jaan (“Bombay My Beloved“).

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with the streaming debuts of the Telugu films Ramabanam and Bhola Shankar. Netflix also announced an October 5 release date for director Vishal Bhardwaj’s Netflix Original movie Khufiya (aka “House of Spies“):

If you want to read more about next week’s big premiere of director Sujoy Ghosh’s Netflix Original thriller Jaane Jaan (aka “Suspect X“), check out this preview I wrote for What’s on Netflix.

Finally, I was able to review Bhumi Pednekar’s comedy Thank You for Coming ahead of its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It’s set to release in Indian theaters on October 6 and will eventually land on Netflix. If you want an early sneak peak, check out my review of Thank You for Coming.

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Streaming Video News: September 7, 2023

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with the streaming debut of Superstar Rajinikanth’s film Jailer. Multiple language versions are available in the movie’s audio menu.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with a September 14 streaming release date for the Telugu film Ramabanam.

Yesterday, Zee5 premiered the revenge drama Haddi, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui. I watched about 40 minutes of it, but I found the story muddled and decided not to finish it.

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Movie Review: Friday Night Plan (2023)

2 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Friday Night Plan on Netflix

If one tried to create a movie for teenagers who can’t put away their smartphones for more than a few minutes, it would probably look like Friday Night Plan. The latest Netflix Original Indian Film is generic and lightweight, so there’s no reason to give it one’s full attention.

The premise of Friday Night Plan feels familiar. Two bickering brothers — high school senior Sid (Babil Khan) and high school junior Adi (Amrith Jayan) — are left home alone on a Friday night when their mom (Juhi Chawla Mehta) goes to Pune for a work trip. She warns them not to fight or take the car out, assuming the boys will stay home playing video games.

Of course, the brothers wind up taking the car to a party at the house of the prettiest girl at their wealthy international school, whom Sid has had a crush on for years, only to lose the car while playing a prank on students from a rival school. Sure hope they can get the car back before Mom gets home!

The familiarity of Friday Night Plan — which seems like a hundred teen movies that have come before — isn’t a problem in itself. But the film is boring. The boys’ “wild night out” lacks a sense of danger or urgency. Even they don’t seem that worried about getting into trouble. Yes, the kids at the party drink alcohol, but there’s also karaoke and a pillow fight.

Real teenagers are funnier and more interesting than this movie’s flat dialogue makes them out to be, and the characters are bland. The school’s top jock Kabir (Aditya Jain) isn’t a bully, he just sometimes gives people unflattering nicknames. The pretty girl Nat (Medha Rana) has no secrets, she’s just good-looking and rich. Even the two brothers aren’t really that different from one another.

It’s not fair to blame the cast for the tepid characterizations. Hardly any of them have any acting credits, since children barely exist in Hindi films. Friday Night Plan is writer-director Vatsal Neelakantan’s first feature film, and his inexperience shows in both the direction of his young actors and in his screenwriting. Tighter pacing would have amped up the excitement level of this tame story without having to make things any spicier.

There’s one misstep I can’t let slide. The events of Friday Night Plan take place one week before senior prom, and none of the kids have asked anyone to be their prom dates! That’s not enough time to order matching corsages and boutonnieres, make after-party plans, and figure out where to take photos — let alone find a dress and shoes and make a hair appointment if you weren’t already planning on going to the dance solo!

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Streaming Video News: August 31, 2023

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with today’s additions of Vidya Balan’s murder mystery Neeyat and the Telugu film Ustaad (which is listed in Amazon’s catalog as “The Ustaad,” for some reason).

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with today’s premiere of the new Hindi series The Freelancer, which is also available in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.

I will update my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix tomorrow with the debut of the Netflix Original film Friday Night Plan, starring Juhi Chawla and Irrfan Khan’s son, Babil. This week, Netflix announced a December 7 release date for Zoya Akhtar’s hotly anticipated movie The Archies.

If you missed any of the new releases on Netflix in August, check my monthly roundup at What’s on Netflix.

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Streaming Video News: August 24, 2023

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with today’s additions of the Hindi romance Satyaprem Ki Katha and the Tamil horror flick Pizza 3: The Mummy. Earlier this week, the Kannada film Aachar & Co became available for streaming.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with today’s debut of Tamannaah Bhatia’s new Hindi crime series Aakhri Sach, which is available in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu as well. The first two episodes are available for streaming right now, with new episodes added on Fridays (Thursday afternoons in the US, probably).

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s addition of the Telugu movie Bro., which is also available in Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil.

News leaked this week that Sujoy Ghosh’s Netflix Original film adaptation of the novel The Devotion of Suspect X starring Kareena Kapoor Khan will be called Jaane Jaan (although in the US, the title is listed as “Suspect X,” for some reason). Netflix made a cute video celebrating Kareena’s streaming debut (which may happen next month). [Update: Netflix officially announced its release date as September 21, Bebo’s birthday]:

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Movie Review: Adipurush (2023)

1 Star (out of 4)

This is a review of the Hindi version of Adipurush streaming on Netflix.

Adipurush reaches for the stars and falls well short, resulting in a film that looks bad and feels slow.

I acknowledge that I am not the target audience for Adipurush. The film opens with an onscreen note explaining that it is a devotional work, with the Hindu faithful as the presumptive audience for this retelling of a portion of the epic Ramayana. I’m familiar with the tale of Sita’s abduction by Ravana and her rescue by Rama, but the version presented in Adipurush is told somewhat out of sequence, with the assumption that everyone watching already knows all the details about this story, as well as Hindu cosmology more generally. Also, all of the characters go by aliases in the film.

That said, my issues with Adipurush have to do with the film’s execution, and not a misunderstanding of the material.

Prabhas plays Raghava, a prince who lives in the jungle in exile with his wife Janaki (Kriti Sanon) and his brother Shesh (Sunny Singh). The demoness Shurpanakha (Tejaswini Pandit) is enamored of Raghava, but he spurns her. She returns to the kingdom of Lanka and convinces her brother Lankesh (Saif Ali Khan) — king of the demons and a giant with many heads — to kidnap Janaki. Lankesh succeeds through trickery, forcing Raghava to seek aid from a race of forest-dwelling ape-men called the Vanara in order to get Janaki back.

Stylistically, Adipurush is a mashup of Lord of the Rings, Baahubali, and the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy. Lanka and its castle look like Sauron’s fortress in Mordor, complete with trolls manning the gates. Fanciful elements like a swan boat call back to Baahubali. The Vanara look like they could be Caesar’s long-lost cousins.

But Adipurush doesn’t come close to matching the quality of the movies that serve as its inspiration. Writer-director Om Raut tries to execute his vision on such a grand scale that the visual effects can’t keep up. Instead of having dozens of creepy bats or specters that look cool, he opts for hundreds of bats and specters that look bad. Rather than ask his VFX team to animate hundreds of ape warriors with enough texture to look believable, he has them animate tens of thousands that look like low-budget cartoons.

The onscreen human actors don’t feel as though they are operating within a real physical environment, and practical effects are rarely used. There’s some kind of filter or post-production treatment done to Prabhas’s face that makes him look like a cartoon. It’s distracting because none of the other human actors are given such treatment (though it would be hard to tell with Shesh because Singh uses only one facial expression throughout the entire film).

Visual shortcomings might be overlooked if the story was told at a fast pace, but Raut loves slow motion. The characters often move in slow motion, giving the audience plenty of time to linger on the subpar visuals while being bored stiff. This pacing hinders what Prabhas can do with his performance. Same goes for Sanon, to a lesser degree. She does get a few good scenes with Khan, who takes advantage of the chance to play a larger-than-life villain and seems to enjoy himself.

Given that Adipurush presently ranks as one of the most expensive Indian movies of all time, the quality of the finished product is underwhelming. In order to execute his vision given whatever constraints he was working under, Raut would have been more successful making an animated movie. Better that than a live-action film that looks cartoonish.

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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.

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

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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