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Movie Review: Dilwali Diwali (2026)

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1 Star (out of 4)

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Dilwali Diwali (“A Heartfelt Diwali“) takes the setup for an amusing sitcom episode and turns it into a depressing slog about a family’s unresolved issues.

We are dropped in the middle of a crisis six months in the making. This would work fine for a 30-minute comedy, where the crisis is the focus. In the case of an hour-long character drama, it feels gimmicky — yet another example of why the in media res intro needs to be put in filmmaking jail for a decade.

The problem at the heart of the story is that adult son Ansh (Mihir Ahuja) — who works in Norway as an engineer and hasn’t been home in three years — bought his family a fancy apartment in the city six months ago, without asking if they wanted it. His family — which consists of dad Goggi (Manoj Pahwa), mom Sukhi (Neelu Kohli), and 14-year-old sister Mahi (Aurra Bhatnagar Badoni) — hate the unfriendly neighbors in the soulless building. They continue to live in the old family house nearby but gather in the kitchen of the new apartment when Ansh calls via FaceTime, pretending that they reside there.

When Ansh announces that he’s coming home in a few days for Diwali, the family scramble to make the apartment look lived in (they do a terrible job of this, by the way). It gets worse when Ansh tells the family that he’s hired caterers for a Diwali party so that he can meet all of their new friends from the building, all of whom are elaborate fictions created by the family to support the lie that they live there.

This really is a good comic setup for a short sitcom episode where getting out of the jam is the focus. But when writer Ritu Mago — who was much more successful with 2025’s Diwali family short film Greater Kalesh — expands the premise beyond sitcom length, the flaws become apparent.

The level of deceit by Goggi, Sukhi, and Mahi is staggering. They’ve spent six months lying to Ansh, with no intention of ever telling him the truth. The apartment is expensive, and it seems wasteful to leave it sitting unused most of the time.

Ansh isn’t without fault. In fact, he’s the reason the film becomes downright depressing to watch. Turns out that, since childhood, Ansh has felt ashamed that his parents couldn’t afford a nicer home. He became an engineer specifically to earn the money to buy them someplace fancy, not out of altruism but embarrassment. He doesn’t intend to live there with them, and there’s no one he’s trying to impress. He just can’t stand the fact that they present as working class.

It gets worse when it’s revealed that Ansh can’t actually afford the apartment, and his solution  to pay off the loan is reprehensible.

The longer the story gets, the more dysfunctional the Sikka family seems, and the less convincing the obligatory happy ending becomes. Everyone is miserable for much of the film.

There’s also a weirdness to Dilwali Diwali‘s dialogue as read via English subtitles. I don’t know if that’s because of subtitler Sheela Sijin Mathews’s translation or Mago’s writing, but the dialogue doesn’t flow naturally. It just adds to the feeling of disorientation in a film billed as a sweet family entertainer that is anything but.

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Movie Review: Meethe Mein Kya Hai (2026)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Meethe Mein Kya Hai (“What’s for Dessert?“) is a feel-good movie about a feel-bad topic: grief. Writer-director Radhika Bansal makes a promising debut with this charming film about family.

Thirty-five-year-old Jai (Ritwik Bhowmik) is two years removed from his wife Tara’s (Kanikka Kapur) death in a car accident. He’s not doing well. His solution is to sell his home in Delhi and move to the country of Georgia, where he can get a fresh start alone.

Jai plans to skip the family Diwali gathering at his grandmother’s home in Lucknow, but his sister Sana (Dalai) begs him to come. She got married in secret, and she needs Jai to protect her when she tells their mom Amrita (Ayesha Raza Mishra) the news. For his sister’s sake, Jai makes the trip.

Nani’s (Rohini Hattangadi) house in Lucknow is gorgeous and festive, full of life in a way it hasn’t been in years. Besides Jai’s mom Amrita and dad Ajay (Gaurav K. Sharma), the other people staying there are his maternal uncle Rishab (Abhay Kaul), Aunt Preeti (Tarana Raja), and their college-aged son Sid (Ayuushman Ghai). Nani’s 13-year-old neighbor Meera (Shivika Rishi) is also staying there while her mom is out of town.

Between the writing and the acting in Meethe Mein Kya Hai, it feels like the audience is spying on a real family with dynamics that have developed over decades. Nani catches Amrita and Rishab whispering about her, and their reactions seem the same as if they’d been busted as teenagers. The relationships between everyone feel “lived in.”

This quality takes on particular import when the family interacts with Jai. Should they express their concern over how he’s doing without Tara? Should they act as if everything is normal? They all loved Tara, so how do they manage their own sense of loss without upsetting Jai?

When Sana arrives with her new, secret husband Karam (Vikram Bakshi), it sends Amrita into the tizzy Sana predicted. Amrita is even more upset when she realizes that Jai already knew about the marriage, raging as she wonders why no one tells her anything. It’s very funny.

Whatever conflicts the family has are handled with sensitivity and humor. Bansal’s tone is light, aiming to make her characters familiar and relatable rather than dramatic in a cinematic sense. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny on several occasions.

The only slight misstep is the way in which scenes between Jai and young neighbor Meera are shot. The two become allies, with Meera needing a friend and Jai needing a break from his family. On a couple of occasions, the camera cuts between closeups of their faces in a way that seems more suited for a romantic scene, even though there’s nothing inappropriate happening. It’s a distracting choice.

That said, Meera does confess late in the movie to having a crush on Jai (which he does not reciprocate, obviously). He handles the confession compassionately, helping her to realize on her own that this is not a relationship that can work. It’s a kinder way of letting her down than outright rejection. He understands that she is just a kid after all.

The sequence is a good example of all the things the Meethe Mein Kya Hai does best: focusing on the goodness of the characters and their love for each other.

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Movie Review: Reporting Live (2026)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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The crime drama Reporting Live is so plot-focused that characters exist just to move story events forward.

Field reporter Sandhya (Parineeti Chopra) and her cameraman Vinod (Deven Bhojani) feel underappreciated at their TV station. The risk they take to get an exclusive interview with a community leader opposing the building of a new shopping mall proves meaningless when their station chief Shyam (Shekhar Suman) pulls it from air, lest they upset the well-connected construction firm behind the mall.

Sandhya and Vinod stumble onto a story with such huge implications it can’t be ignored. A bridge collapses in a village outside of Mumbai, sending a school bus full of children to their deaths. One brave local man who goes by Shiva Kaka (Amol Palekar) shows them the illegal sand dredging near the base of the bridge supports that likely caused the collapse.

That’s just one part of a massive criminal enterprise that supplies the materials needed for Mumbai’s construction boom. Uncovering the head of the operation would be a massive boost for the station’s ratings and for Sandhya’s and Vinod’s careers. Yet even as they face increasing danger the closer they get to the truth — proof that they are onto something big — Shyam forbids them from pursuing the story further.

Writer-director Dhruv Tripathi and his co-writer Mihir Jadhav are so detailed in their presentation of the criminal enterprise uncovered by Sandhya and Vinod that nothing is left to the imagination. That’s helpful for anyone watching who has never heard or read anything about a criminal conspiracy before, but that likely doesn’t apply to most people watching the movie (or who’ve spent any time living on Earth).

It’s not to say that the details of the crime aren’t interesting. It’s just that they are presented in such a thorough manner that it becomes clinical. There’s little room left for human emotion. Even scenes that would normally be sad or frightening feel like neutral story beats — things that happened on the way toward the plot’s conclusion.

The actors feel it, too. Chopra has given terrific performances in thrillers like Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar and Ishaqzaade, but she sleepwalks through Reporting Live. Same for Bhojani. Even the immensely talented Adil Hussain — who plays the station’s editor-in-chief Vidur — seems unsure of what’s expected of him. When in doubt, Suman’s Shyam just yells.

Reporting Live has the bones of a thriller, but it lacks tension and danger, and there’s no reason to care about the characters.

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Movie Review: Baby Do Die Do (2026)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Director Nachiket Samant’s assassin story Baby Do Die Do has as much style as it does substance. This first film from the new production house Saleem Siblings — run by brother and sister Saqib Saleem and Huma Qureshi — is an impressive debut.

The film opens with a perfect noir voiceover line: “Our story starts the night I was murdered.” Over black-and-white footage, a teenage girl narrates the events of a tragic night twenty years ago. Twin sisters Didi and Baby Karmarkar — Karmarkar translates to “Do Die Do” — sneak into a shuttered high-rise hotel. Baby cannot hear or speak, so Didi watches over her as they explore empty rooms bigger than their family’s entire apartment. The girls interrupt a man in the process of killing another man. Only Baby leaves the hotel alive.

In the present day, Mumbai looks dystopian. Giant electronic billboards atop skyscrapers bathe the city in an artificial glow as they advertise various luxury builders. Meanwhile, the new towers that displace people living in the slums exist in various stages of completion, with corruption and rules violations stopping some before they reach their shiny, gleaming potential.

Baby (played by Qureshi) fits into this new world as an assassin for hire. Her handler and mentor Papa (Chunky Pandey) — who has promised to help her find her sister’s killer — fields requests from some of those builders advertising on the billboards to eliminate business rivals or people who’ve insulted them.

Gangster-turned-developer Zafar Katkar (Sikander Kher) is one of Papa’s clients. Zafar wants a rival builder named Murjhani (Himanshu Malik) killed for insulting Zafar’s younger brother Lucky (Arun Kushwah), who has dwarfism. Papa’s impatient son Manu (Marudhar Shekhawat) wants to handle the hit himself, but he’s nowhere near as skilled as Baby.

Meanwhile, Baby has a suitor. Her neighbor Siddhu (Rachit Singh) has a crush on her, though he doesn’t really know anything about her. Even though Baby can read lips, Siddhu learns sign language so that they can have real conversations. On a whim, she agrees to marry him. Maybe there’s more to life than murder for hire.

Singh is a revelation as Siddhu. Most of Singh’s industry credits are for directing acting workshops for other productions, but he’s brilliant as love-struck Siddhu. He’s as earnest and hopeful as Baby is jaded. They make a sweet pair once Baby starts to finally let down her guard.

Qureshi makes Baby compelling despite how little the character shares about her emotions. We can appreciate her professional skills, but her relationships with people like Papa and Siddhu telegraph that there’s more to her than even she wants to let on. The film is full of wonderful interactions between characters. Directing such scenes is one of Samant’s strongest suits.

What’s probably most memorable about Baby Do Die Do is Samant’s gift for showing Mumbai through a particular lens and making the city almost a character in itself. This version of Mumbai aspires to greatness without acknowledging the price paid by those who will benefit the least from such ambition. It’s equal parts garish and grimy, though the story spends most of its time in the less glitzy parts of the city. Many of those places are unfinished — architectural reflections of Baby, who can’t become who she’s meant to be until she finds her sister’s killer.

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Movie Review: Lust Stories 3 (2026)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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The latest entry in Netflix’s anthology series, Lust Stories 3 is an easy and fun watch, for the most part. Three of the short films by well-regarded directors fit the theme perfectly, while the fourth feels out of place. Overall, this is a light bit of entertainment with some really great acting from an impressive collection of performers.

Vikramaditya Motwane

Director Vikramaditya Motwane starts things off on a high note, thanks largely to his stellar cast. Paddy (Radhika Apte) and Shona (Konkona Sen Sharma) are best friends, co-workers, and neighbors. Both women feel like their marriages — Paddy’s to Hemant (Vijay Varma) and Shona’s to Debu (Abhishek Banerjee) — have lost their romantic sparks. Bold Shona proposes doing something they saw on a Hindi-dubbed Korean series that she and Paddy watch: swapping husbands.

Shy Paddy reluctantly agrees to try while the couples and their children are on vacation at a resort. The results are disastrous, of course, but in a funny way. Apte and Sen Sharma are hilarious throughout, carrying the short film almost entirely on their own. That’s not to put down Varma’s or Banerjee’s efforts, but the story’s focus is on the women, and they make the most of it. Sen Sharma’s delivery of the line “Us Kandivali women can’t have Korean dreams” is perfection.

Kiran Rao

Kiran Rao’s story follows two young, attractive people trying to find their footing in Mumbai. Lisa (Sana Thampi) is an apprentice nail technician, and Karan (Gurfateh Pirzada) delivers pizzas. He’s also got a side gig selling drugs. The two are immediately attracted to each other and begin a physical relationship. Of all the short films in the collection, this one features the most sex.

This is Thampi’s first acting role, but you’d never know it. She and Pirzada work well together showcasing the challenges of being young in an expensive city and trying to find joy where you can. Rao’s film takes some unexpected turns and is very entertaining as it explores the way lust makes some people do foolish things — but not everyone.

Shakun Batra

Shakun Batra’s film is the one that feels out of place in Lust Stories 3. Sailee (Radhikka Madan) and Varun (Ali Fazal) are getting divorced. Whenever they meet to hash out the details, it turns into an argument, which turns into sex. It’s a trope that doesn’t yield meaningful plot rewards, instead serving as the justification for including this segment in the anthology. The short film is just the main characters bickering until they find a way to discuss their problems constructively. This would’ve been better suited for Divorce Stories 3.

Vishal Bhardwaj

Given Vishal Bhardwaj’s fondness for literary adaptations, it’s fitting that he closes out the anthology with a tale of the written word’s power to inflame the senses. Aditi Rao Hydari plays Saira, a teacher and graduate student at a women’s university in Hyderabad in 1987. She’s married to Badru (Hydari’s real-life husband, Siddharth), a kind but clinical doctor. The young women Saira teaches are sex-obsessed, but their only familiarity with the subject comes through classical literature and the rare, illicit American romance novel. At her students’ encouragement, Saira writes her own erotic novel. It’s a hit with the girls… until it goes missing.

There’s something incredibly sweet about pairing a recently-married couple to perform in this story about romantic imagination. Whenever Saira imagines her dream lover, it’s Badru, but he’s traded his spectacles for sunglasses and replaced his clothes with a skimpy towel. Both actors are totally charming, as are the delightful supporting cast members. The requisite song sung by Rekha Bhardwaj is fun as well.

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Movie Review: Gandhari (2026)

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1 Star (out of 4)

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Gandhari is what happens when someone tries to remake Kahaani without understanding what made Kahaani so special.

Gandhari writer Kanika Dhillon is no slouch at weaving together multiple plot threads, as she did in the Haseen Dillruba films. That’s what makes Gandhari‘s slapdash plot so shocking. Disjointed directing by Devashish Makhija makes the movie-watching experience all the more frustrating.

Gandhari marks Taapsee Pannu’s sixth project with Dhillon, having previously starred in those Haseen Dillruba films. This time, Pannu plays Bani, wife of Gokul (Ishwak Singh) and mother of 5-year-old Mishty (Myrah Shivan). While the family is on a trip, their train stops briefly in the town of Joypurra. A woman nabs Mishty while Bani is in the restroom and Gokul is buying snacks.

Bani chases the woman carrying Mishty across the platform, but she runs headfirst into a metal pole. The woman escapes, leaving Bani and Gokul to file a police report while also dealing with Bani’s head injury. The police are no help, and Bani’s concussion results in temporary blindness. The couple will have to find their missing daughter on their own.

Well, not entirely on their own. A federal government official named Kabir (Jatin Sarna) arrives with his assistant Sanjukta (Priti Shroff) to follow leads on a child trafficking outfit known as the Blackhole Gang, the history of which they explain in excruciating detail. Kabir and Sanjukta never interact with Bani, which is weird. It’s as if Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Fed character in Kahaani never talked to Vidya Balan’s Vidya.

In this unfamiliar town, Bani just happens to run into her adoptive mother Jhuna Amba (Mita Vashisht) from back in her days as a child acrobat. Over the next month, Jhuna Amba secretly teaches Bani how to be a blind ninja assassin.

If that sounds stupid, it’s because it is.

All of this takes place in a town where seemingly everyone is involved in this child-trafficking ring. I don’t know much about gang finances, but employing so many people in a dangerous racket and buying their secrecy seems prohibitively expensive. Some retroactive continuity meant to connect Bani’s past to the Blackhole Gang that makes the plot even more ridiculous. It’s so bad, it’s actually funny.

Pannu put a lot of physical work into preparing for this role, and it’s a shame that the script lets her down. Action scenes are shot awkwardly and edited poorly, so nothing looks as good as it could have. The acting across the board is fine, given quality of the material.

Comparisons between Gandhari and Kahaani are fair, given how much the stories overlap. Both feature women looking for a lost family member in an unfamiliar city where identities are malleable. Balan’s character in Kahaani is underestimated because she is pregnant; Pannu’s is because she is blind and “a helpless mother.” Both of their searches reach their climax during a festival honoring a protective female deity: Durga in Kahaani, Chaumukhi Devi in Gandhari.

Yet Dhillon’s story lacks all the other things that Ghosh and his co-writers got right in Kahaani: magnificent world-building, ace character development, meaningful relationships, and twists that feel surprising but believable. Gandhari‘s world-building is terrible. Fight scenes and training montages take the place of character growth. Twists and secrets are used in quantity rather than quality.

Gandhari ends with Bollywood’s clearest indicator of a lack of narrative confidence: statistics. Three slides featuring data about the number of children trafficked in India are shown onscreen — as if the audience didn’t already realize that fictional stories draw inspiration from real life, and that, without the stats, we might feel there’s an acceptable number of children allowed to be trafficked. It undermines the emotional connections we were supposed to form with victims in the story.

The last of Gandhari‘s closing slides contains a quote so nonsensical that it provides the perfect ending to this awful film: “Behind every mother is a child…taken from a mother.” Exactly.

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Movie Review: Cocktail 2 (2026)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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Before Cocktail 2, it never occurred to me to question how much of the success of 2012’s Cocktail was due to Homi Adajania’s direction versus the screenplay by Imtiaz Ali and Sajid Ali. Adajania answered that question when he returned to direct the disappointing Cocktail 2, based on a cliched, outdated screenplay by Luv Ranjan and Tarun Jain that is beyond salvaging.

Following the same basic setup of a love triangle that undermines a female friendship, Cocktail 2 introduces long-time couple Kunal (Shahid Kapoor) and Diya (Rashmika Mandanna). They are seemingly happy in their live-in relationship until Kunal drunkenly jokes in front of their friends that, if he were to cheat on Diya, he’d be smart enough not to get caught.

Diya is embarrassed, but Kunal doesn’t see the big deal. His increasing time away from home feeds into her insecurities. She tells him they should get married, and he agrees, “If that will make you happy.” He implies that the only reason for marriage is to appease others outside the relationship, dismissing the possibility that Diya’s feelings have changed.

The critical point in this conversation is that Diya wants to be someone Kunal wants to marry, not for him to accede to her request just to shut her up. She wants real proof that he’s committed to her. He’s content with the status quo.

They decide to take a romantic trip to Sicily to renew their relationship, only for it to be hijacked by Diya’s college friend Ally (Kriti Sanon). She’s a vagabond who does odd jobs while traveling the globe, never staying in any one place for long. She tracks down the couple from Diya’s social media posts and insists that they stay with her for the duration of the trip. So much for a private getaway.

Diya secretly asks Ally to seduce Kunal; if he gives in to Ally’s advances, Diya will know their relationship is over. Ally points out that if Kunal resists, it won’t do anything to assuage Diya’s doubts. Even though no 30-something in Ally’s position would ever agree to participate, she does because this is a movie written by men.

There’s plenty more evidence that this is a movie by men for men. Ally dresses exclusively in bikini tops, even when she’s nowhere near the beach. Kunal is portrayed as the victim even though it was his own cruel joke and dismissal of Diya’s feelings that created the mess in the first place.

Kapoor and Mandanna don’t do much to make their characters interesting or sympathetic. He makes weird faces, whereas she plays things too straight, even while doing objectively ridiculous things.

Cocktail 2 is watchable thanks entirely to Sanon’s performance as Ally. As her pursuit of Kunal goes on, she finds herself falling for him — something she’d resolved never to let happen. The emotional toll weighs heavily on her, and Sanon depicts it with sensitivity.

Then Ally does a bunch of stupid stuff that would never happen in a movie where any woman had a hand in the script. Why Adajania thought he could make something thought-provoking or moving from this reductive story about overly-emotional women is a mystery.

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Movie Review: Dug Dug (2021)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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A man’s accidental death births a religious cult when his motorcycle appears to move with a will of its own. Writer-director Ritwik Pareek’s feature debut Dug Dug is delightfully odd.

At a roadside stand along a busy trucking route at night, Thakur Sa (Altaf Khan) stumbles towards his motorcycle. He’s drunk and in no condition to drive, especially not after he smokes a joint. Thakur stands in front of a sign that makes it look he has like a halo encircling his head. Church bells ring. He slings his helmet over his arm and takes off on his bike, driving “into the light” of oncoming traffic. We know what’s going to happen.

Thakur makes it surprisingly far on his doomed final ride. Cinematographer Aditya Kumar uses the available light from the truck stop, passing vehicles, and Thakur’s own bike to paint a strangely beautiful picture of a world in transit. The score by Salvage Audio Collective is propulsive and tense, filled with anticipation more than dread.

On a side road off of the highway, Thakur is distracted by a billboard advertising a magic show. He falls off his bike in front of the painted image of a sorcerer and is promptly run over by a truck. The police collect Thakur’s body and bring his motorcycle back to the station. The next morning, the bike is gone.

Despite their efforts to lock up the blue motorcycle with a pink seat, it keeps reappearing at the spot where Thakur died, day after day. The townsfolk are left to wonder what it means. Did God use Thakur’s death to send a message? If so, what is it? How are they supposed to give this miracle the respect it deserves?

Thus unfolds Pareek’s satire of the commercialization of religion. Thakur — a drunk driver — is turned into a saint, and his sainthood spins off into business and marketing opportunities.

Dug Dug opens with a standard onscreen note that it is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Midway through the movie, a similar statement appears again on screen, reiterating that, while names have been changed, this is based on a true story.

The double clarification is an attempt to diffuse any potential anger from devotees of the “Bullet Baba Shrine” in Rajasthan, the true story on which Dug Dug is based. However, there’s no hint of disrespect in Pareek’s film, which admits that faith is complicated and highly personal.

Other than noting how ready people are to monetize a miracle, Pareek is careful not to make fun of the devotees. The town’s young police officer Pyare Lal (Gaurav Soni) refuses to participate in the new traditions of dropping money in a collection box and pouring booze on the motorcycle’s tires, but he doesn’t stop anyone else from doing so. The whole tone of the film is observational, not judgmental. The natural acting by the charming cast reinforces that.

Dug Dug moves at a languid pace that suits the sleepy rural town where it’s set. It bogs down in the latter stages with prolonged, repetitive musical montages of people handing over money, praying, and waving flags. Other than that slow section, Dug Dug showcases the talent of an intriguing new filmmaker with a distinct style and point of view. I’m looking forward to see what Pareek does next.

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Movie Review: Ikka (2026)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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The courtroom drama Ikka (“Ace“) is billed as a tense showdown between veteran actors Sunny Deol and Akshaye Khanna, and in that regard, it delivers. With a different directorial focus, Ikka could have been more than that. An intriguing premise goes unexplored in favor of an approach that is broad and shallow.

Deol plays undefeated celebrity defense attorney Arjun Mehra, nicknamed “Ikka” for his penchant for playing his key evidence in dramatic, last-minute fashion. He and his wife Avantika (Dia Mirza) share a 13-year-old daughter, Samaira (Daria Bedi). The girl is diagnosed with leukemia, which is treatable with a bone marrow transplant.

Meanwhile, Arjun is hired to defend Shourya (Khanna) — son of a wealthy politician — for the attempted murder of a young woman named Soma (Akansha Ranjan Kapoor), who is alive but unconscious. Arjun initially refuses, due to a long-standing conflict between the men, but he relents because he needs Shourya to donate his bone marrow to Samaira. Why? Shourya is Samaira’s biological father! He dumped Avantika when she refused to get an abortion, and Arjun married her instead, raising Samaira as his own.

The soapy setup is amplified by a heavy-handed Julius Packiam score that doesn’t trust the audience enough to draw its own emotional conclusions. Transitions between tense scenes and light-hearted ones are awkward as is, and the overwrought score makes them even more so.

Another way in which Ikka is heavy-handed (in a good way) is it’s pro-woman point of view. Arjun’s main moral conflict in his approach to how he litigates the case is whether or not to use Soma’s social media account — complete with photos of her drinking alcohol and posing for photos with men — against her. He doesn’t want to tarnish her image in order to win, even if his own daughter’s life is on the line. The movie spends a lot of time on this plot point, really emphasizing how repugnant victim-blaming is.

There are related themes that are brought up but aren’t explored as much as they could’ve been. Samaira is taunted by some classmates because her father is defending “that rapist.” It would have been great to have a scene where Samaira and her father talk about violence against women and legal rules versus moral ones — even better if Samaira copped a bit of age-appropriate attitude with her dad. Instead, the plot point is dropped after Samaira says that she defended her dad’s reputation offscreen.

Fans watching Ikka for tense scenes between Sunny Deol and Akshaye Khanna will not be disappointed. Deol pounds his fists on the table and shouts. There are multiple shots of Khanna scowling and walking in slow motion — a shot popularized in Dhurandhar that filmmakers will struggle to resist going forward.

Tillotama Shome plays the prosecutor opposing Arjun, Madhura Banerjee. Shome is as reliable a performer as there is, and she does a fine job here, even if she’s asked by director Siddharth P. Malhotra to make her expressions a bit more obvious to match the bold energy of the men.

Dia Mirza spends the film acting circles around everyone else in the cast. She plays her role straight and absolutely nails it, lending gravity to all her scenes. Had everyone in Ikka been encouraged to take the same approach to their performances, the film might have felt more substantial and less pandering.

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Movie Review: System (2026)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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A lawyer from a wealthy family learns that justice has a price in the courtroom drama System. The film’s politics are in the right place, but tonal incongruities hamper the storytelling.

System opens with a prisoner lamenting that he can’t afford the cost to appeal his unfair sentence, only to hang himself in the next shot. It’s a grim opening that sets the stage for a critique of the Indian justice system.

Then the action shifts to the main character: public prosecutor Neha Rajvansh (Sonakshi Sinha). She’s dropped off at court in an expensive Range Rover. She awkwardly gets ready for court in the stuffy public bathroom, accompanied by a goofy soundtrack of what I described as “Italian gondola” music in my notes. It’s an abrupt tonal shift coming on the heels of a man’s suicide.

Neha is a new prosecutor, and she’s outmatched in her case against a club owner suspected of dealing drugs. Her salvation comes via a run-in with the court’s stenographer, Sarkia (Jyothika). During litigation, we see Sarika mouthing the judge’s decisions before he announces them, so clearly she understands the law better than what her credentials imply. She gives Neha a hint about the case that helps the government secure a conviction, giving Neha her first courtroom victory.

This is important, because Neha’s father Ravi (director Ashutosh Gowariker) has promised her a spot at his prestigious law firm if she wins ten cases in a row. Neha’s brother Alok (Adinath Kothare) already works for their dad, and so does her boyfriend Akshay (Gaurav Pandey).

To get an edge, Neha hires Sarika for a secret side gig helping evaluate cases. Since Sarika is the main breadwinner for family, the conflict of interest is a risk, but she is desperate for money. Unlike Neha’s chauffeur-driven Range Rover, Sarika takes the train to work and walks home to the tiny apartment she shares with her teenage daughter and husband, who is paralyzed.

The partnership between the women opens Neha’s eyes to economic realities outside the posh mansion where she lives with her parents and brother. She’s never questioned how her father made his money or considered those within her social circle particularly cutthroat. She only realizes how ruthless well-funded defense lawyers can be when she has to face off against her father in court.

Neha’s naivete is somewhat surprising, but that may be a matter of casting. Sinha is nearly forty, which, if Neha is approximately the same age, is too old to not understand the biases within the legal system.

Neha’s character development and increasing social awareness are treated with a light tone that feels at odds with the dark nature of the crimes she’s prosecuting. Her busy pseudo-Venetian theme music doesn’t fit alongside cases of rape and murder. A scene of Neha and Sarika dancing at a club is out of place.

That said, Sinha nicely depicts Neha’s evolution into a lawyer who realizes the biases within the system. She and Alok have a moving conversation about the ways living in their father’s shadow warped their growth. Kothare is particularly good in that scene.

Sarika is the more complicated character of the two lead women. She’s a low-paid worker who understands the law as well as judges and lawyers. She’s a devoted wife who’s having an extramarital affair. Jyothika’s performance balances the different sides of her character and makes her sympathetic.

It’s admirable what director Ashwini Iyer Tiwari and her writing team set out to do in terms of messaging in System. They make a compelling case that many people are priced out of affording adequate legal representation, so, sometimes, they must turn to unsavory methods to receive a measure of fairness from an unfair system. The question it poses to its main character is this: is Neha brave enough to turn class traitor for the sake of justice?

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