Tag Archives: Jesper Kyd

Movie Review: Crazxy (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Crazxy on Amazon Prime

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: Tumbbad (2018)

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4 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Tumbbad on Amazon Prime

Hindi-film fans in the United States had to wait until Tumbbad made its streaming video debut to finally catch the horror movie that captivated audiences in India and at film festivals around the world. But boy was it worth the wait! Filmmaker Rahi Anil Barve’s fable eschews metaphor in favor of shockingly literal depictions of its underlying mythology. It is a cautionary tale of the dangers of greed — with consequences presented in brutal detail. That the film’s protagonist forges ahead, knowing full well what doom awaits him, highlights how all-consuming the desire for more can be.

Broken into three chapters, Tumbbad begins in 1918, in a fading village bearing the same name as the title. Tumbbad’s governing family gained its wealth by worshiping Hastar, the disgraced son of the Goddess of Prosperity, imprisoned in his mother’s womb for stealing her gold. Legend has it that there is a treasure hidden in Tumbbad’s mansion, but the aged lord of the manor (played by Madhav Hari Josh) won’t divulge its secrets — not even to his mistress (Jyoti Malshe), with whom he fathered two sons: Vinayak (Dhundiraj Prabhakar Joglekar) and Sadashiv (Rudra Soni).

The lord’s mistress is tasked not only with meeting his carnal needs, but also keeping alive his ancient grandmother (played by Piyush Kaushik), while making sure she never wakes up. The mistress’s family lives in the same house as the scary old lady, and though the kids don’t know the details of her curse, preteen Vinayak is pretty sure his grandmother knows something about the treasure. A series of tragedies give the boy his chance to ask Granny directly — a mistake that nearly costs him his life. Saved by Mom, they flee to Pune.

Chapter Two picks up fifteen years later, in 1933. With Mom dead, now-adult Vinayak (Sohum Shah) is freed from his promise to her never to return to Tumbbad. Their old house still stands, and Granny is, to put it politely, in bad shape. Her appearance reminded me of something out of Lars Von Trier’s Danish TV series The Kingdom, which gave me nightmares for weeks. Granny gives Vinayak the information he needs to find the treasure, calling him a “greedy bastard.” “It’s my only quality,” he replies.

Tumbbad‘s straightforward dialogue makes it highly memorable, like Granny’s ominous warning: “Not all that is inherited should be claimed.” In Chapter Three, Vinayak’s 14-year-old son Pandurang (Mohammad Samad) tells his mother, Vaidehi (Anita Date), that his father doesn’t actually like anything, despite having accumulated a massive fortune. Vaidehi asks, “Then what’s the point?”

That’s Tumbbad‘s ultimate lesson: succumbing to greed means surrendering one’s will to a desire that can never be sated, leaving you miserable and mean as a result. The lure of unlimited treasure makes Vinayak willing to take risks that seem insane, given that he knows how horrible and immediate the consequences are, with Granny as his example. Chapter Three is set in 1947, and with age catching up to him, Vinayak is compelled to train Pandurang in the family business. It’s an act of unthinkable cruelty that takes advantage of the boy’s desire to win his father’s love. Poor Pandurang doesn’t understand that his father has no love to give.

Setting the film in the first half of the 20th Century allows for interesting parallels to India’s national independence, and the limited reach of electronic technology creates a chilling atmosphere. Atmosphere is where Tumbbad really excels, after all. Eerie locations and sets are awash in supersaturated colors, the dark mood enhanced a fantastic, menacing score by video game composer Jesper Kyd. All the acting performances fit so perfectly into the world of Tumbbad, as well. The longer I ruminate on the movie, the more impressed I am by it.

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