Tag Archives: Movie Review

Movie Review: The Diplomat (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Movie Review: Costao (2025)

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1 Star (out of 4)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Movie Review: Crazxy (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins on Netflix

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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)

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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: Chhorii 2 (2025)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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The followup to Amazon Prime Video’s 2021 folk horror flick Chhorii (“Girl“) doesn’t quite match the quality of the original. Chhorii 2 starts strong but meanders toward an unsatisfying conclusion.

Chhorii 2 takes place seven years after the events of the first film, which saw heavily pregnant Sakshi (Nushrratt Bharuccha) escape the clutches of her husband Rajbir (Saurabh Goyal) with the help of his former wife Rani (Pallavi Ajay). The two women now live together in a city, raising Rani’s daughter Ishani (Hardika Sharma) in a home owned by police inspector Samar (Gashmeer Mahajani).

Samar recounts the events of the first film and explains what happened immediately after. Rani and Sakshi walked to the police station where Samar worked. In order to protect Rani, Sakshi confessed to murdering Rajbir and his parents. When the women led Samar to the scene of the crime, the bodies were gone. Panicked Sakshi went into early labor, and Ishita was born. Samar’s sheltered them in his family home ever since.

One night, Ishita and Rani are kidnapped and taken to the fields surrounding Rajbir’s village. Sakshi and Samar follow, but Sakshi is nabbed, too, dragged into an underground complex of rooms accessible via wells in the field. The dry wells are evidence of the drought plaguing the village — a problem tribal leader Taau (Kuldeep Sareen) believes Ishita can fix.

The village worships an entity called Pradhan Ji that lives in a room at the bottom of one of the wells. He’s alternatively described as the deity responsible for the drought and the ancestor of the residents of the village, all of whom will die if Pradhan Ji does. The mythology at work is a little unclear. Taau’s solution is to get a new wife and servant for ancient Pradhan Ji, and Ishita is chosen even though she’s only seven years old.

The task of preparing the girl for the marriage ritual falls to Pradhan Ji’s current wife, Daasi Ma (Soha Ali Khan), whose very name means “servant.” In serving Pradhan Ji, Daasi Ma gained a few magical powers, including astral projection. Of course that comes at the expense of all of the other women and girls in the village, who live in subjugation to men if they aren’t killed right after birth.

The social justice message in Chhorii 2 is just as unmistakable as it was in Chhorii, yet writer-director Vishal Furia again closes his film with statistics about child marriage in India. If viewers can’t get the moral point from a story this unambiguous, they should stick to documentaries.

Even before the stats appear on screen, Chhorii 2 ends in disappointing fashion. In order to set up a third film — which is clearly Furia’s goal, even though one hasn’t been officially announced yet — Furia eschews a true cliffhanger and instead just cuts the story off mid-scene. It feels unfinished as-is, and it will be totally unsatisfying should a third film not materialize.

Chhorii 2 has the same creepy rural aesthetic that worked so well in the original movie, and the labyrinthine underground lair is unnerving. Sakshi’s navigation of the haunted maze is the film’s strongest sequence. The story becomes less compelling when it veers away from horror and into revenge territory. There’s little catharsis to be found when battling a misogynistic culture this violent.

Bharuccha again proves herself a capable lead performer. Khan doesn’t act with the same frequency she once did, so it’s fun to see her in this chilling role as the demonic bride. Little Hardika Sharma does a nice job, too.

Furia has built a compelling world for this franchise, and he’s taking a real gamble by not giving Chhorii 2 a distinct (if slightly ambiguous) ending. Here’s hoping it pays off and he gets to finish his story.

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Movie Review: Sky Force (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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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: Test (2025)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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The Netflix Original Tamil movie Test has an identity problem. Trim 45 minutes, and you’ve got a taut thriller film. Add 90 minutes, and you get a dramatic series about complex characters. As it is, the movie is poorly paced and bloated with material that doesn’t square with the characters’ actions.

At the center of the story is Arjun (Siddharth), a professional cricketer whose career is coming to an end. He’s not ready for that, but he’s in a slump. The national team tries to force him into retirement just before a big match in Chennai against Pakistan, but Arjun leverages his stardom to buy time. Still, he knows this is likely his last hurrah.

Arjun doesn’t know who he is without cricket, but he’s got a life waiting for him in retirement. He and his wife Padma (Meera Jasmine) have an elementary-school-aged son Adi (Lirish Rahav) who’s desperate for his father’s attention.

When Adi struggles at school, it’s not his parents who comfort him but his teacher, Kumudha (Nayanthara). She’s a little too involved in her students’ lives, compensating for her struggle to have a baby of her own. She’s also a childhood friend of Arjun’s, though he ignores her.

While Kumudha focuses on her fertility issues, her husband Saravanan (R Madhavan) tries to find an investor for his hydrogen fuel cell invention. He’s been lying to Kumudha about having a job running a canteen, and now he’s in debt to loan sharks. If he could just secure a contract with the government, he believes all his problems would be solved — he can finally be the next Steve Jobs.

The three main characters have problems they’re trying to address individually, but it takes a very long time before the main conflict at the heart of the narrative is revealed. The inciting incident doesn’t happen until the movie is halfway over, at which point the tone shifts from low-key relationship drama into thriller territory.

Despite the long buildup, there’s little to justify why things happen the way they do. The marketing for Test bills it as a story about choices, but the choices the characters make don’t always follow from what we’ve been shown about them. I suppose the question producer-turned director S. Sashikanth is asking is what one would do when a golden opportunity presents itself. Based on what he’s shown of the characters, the answer is: not what the characters do.

For a movie with such an all-star cast, the acting is kind of flat. R Madhavan gets to chew some scenery, but it’s a long time before he does. Siddharth plays Arjun as so self-focused that he shuts out the audience as much as the people around him. Other than one tear-filled sequence, Nayanthara’s Kumudha is pretty one-note.

The standout performer is Meera Jasmine, who makes her return to Tamil cinema after more than a decade. She plays Padma as her family’s pillar of strength, the one holding everything and everyone together. It’s not a flashy performance, but it feels right for the character. Also, kudos to little Lirish Rahav, who plays Adi as a bit of a brat, but for understandable reasons.

Had Test been structured as a series, there would have been more time to show gradual character evolution — and to better integrate a subplot about the police following the loan sharks. On the flip side, shortening the film’s runtime would have added urgency to the story and made the stakes clearer earlier. As it is, Test is watchable but forgettable.

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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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