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Movie Review: Dhurandhar (2025)

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Note: I’m forgoing giving Dhurandhar a star-rating as it feels too reductive for a problematic subject.

Dhurandhar is not subtle, which is a big part of its charm. Its action is thrilling. Its emotional tension is off the charts. All major characters have their own motivations that overlap through a tangled web of politics, tribal affiliations, organized crime, terrorism, and blood ties.

That lack of subtlety is also Dhurandhar‘s downfall, as the agenda behind the film glares on a bright red screen. This is more than just storytelling. It’s provocation.

A recurring criticism of writer-director Aditya Dhar’s work is that he uses real-life tragedies to stoke sectarian anger. It’s the main reason that the Netflix Original horror film he wrote — Baramulla — didn’t work for me. The other Netflix Original movie he wrote — the romantic caper Dhoom Dhaam — is a wildly fun romp with no ulterior motives.

Inspired by multiple real-life terrorist attacks and actual political figures in Pakistan, Dhurandhar posits a “what if” scenario: what if India sent a spy to Pakistan to dismantle the terrorist networks from within? Success would require many years, flawless secrecy, and lots of luck for said spy to be in a position right at the intersection of the various parties that enable terrorism to thrive within Pakistan.

That spy is Hamza Ali Mazari (Ranveer Singh). He makes his way to Karachi’s Lyari neighborhood, a hotbed of politics and organized crime with an outsized influence on the city at large. He bides his time working at a juice shop run by another Indian spy, Mohammad Aalam (Gaurav Gera).

Hamza gets the attention of gangster Rehman Dakait (Akshaye Khanna) when he tries to protect Dakait’s two sons from an assassination attempt. Though Dakait’s older son is slain, the gangster brings Hamza into his crew as a reward for saving his youngest. Again, Hamza bides his time to gains Dakait’s trust, but he’s where he needs to be for his mission to succeed.

Dhar does a masterful job connecting all the threads that create the web that supports terrorism in Pakistan. A gangster like Dakait has access to the weapons needed by the terror cells that are encouraged by Pakistan’s ISI spy agency. But Dakait also wants the legitimacy and power that comes from a political position, and local politics are driven by sects and ethnic groups. There are dozens of individuals and factions that need to be considered in every decision, and the consequences for angering the wrong people can be deadly.

The acting across the board is terrific. Singh’s Hamza is the perfect blend of smart and tough. Khanna’s gaunt Dakait moves through the world like a hungry animal. Sanjay Dutt’s disgraced police officer SP Chaudhary Aslam enters the story like a wrecking ball — yet another deadly force to account for.

To better understand how Dhurandhar veers into trouble, I looked at another film about a decade-long effort to hunt terrorists in Pakistan: the 2012 Hollywood film Zero Dark Thirty. (That movie is also problematic in the way it promotes torture as a legitimate method of intelligence gathering, which it’s not.) Director Kathryn Bigelow uses some of the same storytelling techniques as Dhar does, but to very different effect.

Zero Dark Thirty opens with a black screen emblazoned with “September 11, 2001” written in white letters. Audio plays of police radio chatter and emergency services calls from that morning. We hear people as they realize planes have crashed into the World Trade Center. A frightened woman inside one of the buildings asks an emergency dispatcher, “I’m going to die, aren’t I?” As horrible as the recordings are, they remind the audience of the fear and disbelief everyone in America experienced that morning — all in about 80 seconds.

Dhurandhar likewise opens with refreshers on two major terrorist attacks: the hijacking of IC 814 in 1999 and the attack on India’s Parliament in 2001. However, Dhar reenacts these events onscreen in gory detail. An Indian citizen aboard the hijacked plane is executed in front of India’s negotiator (Intelligence Bureau Director Ajay Sanyal, played by R. Madhavan), but the man’s throat isn’t just slit. It’s sawed at. After the terrorists attack Parliament, a dead security guard is wheeled by Sanyal, her vacant eyes seeming to stare at him imploringly. The two sequences take up the first twenty minutes of the film, before Hamza is even introduced.

In the second half of Dhurandhar, Dhar employs the same technique that Bigelow used to start her film. It follows a lengthy scene in which Dakait’s gang, some terrorists, and a Pakistani spy chief played by Arjun Rampal was the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai on TV. They cheer “Allahu Akbar!” as they watch news footage of the attacks. (Somehow, none of the terrorists notices Hamza crying during the scene.)

Even though the audience has just watched footage of 26/11 cheered by gleeful Muslim terrorists, Dhar stops the whole story to emphasize that the attack really happened. Black text on a blazing red background reads: “Actual Recordings Between Handlers, Terrorists & Hostages; 26th November 2008.” Approximately 80 seconds of audio recordings of communication between the terrorists are accompanied by onscreen transcription.

Even though Bigelow and Dhar use almost exactly the same amount of audio material, the gimmick stops Dhurandhar‘s story so abruptly that it feels like a cliffhanger ending to the film — but the movie still has another hour to go. The choice makes so little narrative sense that it all but confirms that telling a story isn’t the movie’s primary goal.

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Movie Review: Aap Jaisa Koi (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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R. Madhavan and Fatima Sana Shaikh play two lonely singles on the bumpy road of love in the romantic comedy-drama Aap Jaisa Koi (“Someone Like You“). Despite a few hiccups, director Vivek Soni’s film is exactly the kind of movie Netflix India needs more of.

Madhavan stars as Shrirenu Tripathi, a high school Sanskrit teacher in Jamshedpur. A misguided attempt at courtship in his teenage years resulted in the target of Shri’s affections cursing him to be forever single — a curse that appears to have worked. Shri’s a 42-year-old virgin who’s been turned down by every woman who’s ever seen his matchmaking bio-data sheet.

When even Shri’s students — lead by class clown Rakesh (Sachin Kavetham) — start teasing him about his nonexistent love life, he takes action. Shri’s roommate and best friend Deepu (Namit Das) gets Shri on a sex chatting app, figuring Shri might be more confident over the phone than face-to-face. Shri talks to an unnamed woman who is charmed by his lack of guile. When she asks, “What’s your love language?” he replies, “Sanskrit.”

Days later, Shri’s brother’s neighbor Joy brings a marriage proposal for Shri. Joy’s 32-year-old niece Madhu Bose (Shaikh) is interested in him. She teaches French in Kolkata, she’s never been married, and she’s beautiful. She sounds too good to be true, but a covert investigation by Deepu and Rakesh turns up nothing scandalous. Shri and Madhu love spending time with each other and are quickly engaged.

To this point, Aap Jaisa Koi is a cute movie peppered with delightful song picturizations. It’s easy to enjoy and feels like a throwback to movies from decades ago. We know there has to be a problem to fix in the second half, but things are going so well, it’s not clear what the problem could be.

A conflict between Shri and Madhu reveals a problematic ideology simmering under the surface of the story. In his life, Shri is surrounded by men. His roommate is a guy, he teaches at an all-boys school, and his brother Bhanu (Manish Chaudhari) rules his household. Even though Shri adores his sister-in-law Kusum (Ayesha Raza Mishra) and his adult niece, he watches in silence as Bhanu routinely denigrates both women and forbids them from pursuing their passions.

Shri’s environment is nothing like Madhu’s house, where she lives with her doting grandmother, loving parents, and supportive aunts and uncles. It’s a shame that the film doesn’t afford Kusum any female friends, but she’s surrounded by plenty of open-minded well-wishers.

The main characters’ contrasting social spheres highlight the dangers of rigid gender separation. Shri has so little experience dealing with women he’s not related to that he doesn’t realize how he’s negatively influenced by the men around him. When he voices his concerns, it’s to the same men who believe women should be virgins before marriage and shouldn’t work outside the home.

Though Soni’s film — based on a screenplay by Radhika Anand and Jehan Handa — is message-driven, I’m not gonna complain when the message is: “Don’t be an incel.” To the story’s credit, the conflict resolves in an unexpected, yet believable way. Shri digs himself a deep hole, but the way he gets out is ultimately satisfying.

The story is helped by quality performances by the whole cast, especially the leads. Madhavan is always watchable, and he makes Shri a guy who’s unduly insecure. Shaikh is particularly good, conveying so much emotion with the slightest change of expression.

Aap Jaisa Koi draws on a long history of “woman teaches man not to be a dumbass” films, but it distinguishes itself through a refined blend of classic stylistic choices and modern relationship drama.

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Movie Review: Kesari Chapter 2 (2025)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Kesari Chapter 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh is a film with an agenda. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se, but it’s hard to ignore how deliberately it pushes its audience to feel a certain way.

This movie was belatedly titled as a spiritual successor to 2019’s Kesari to capitalize on name recognition. The only things the films have in common are Akshay Kumar in the lead role and a shared cadre of producers: Karan Johar, Hiroo Yash Johar, Apoorva Mehta, and Aruna Bhatia.

Kesari Chapter 2 opens with a moving recreation of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. Thousands of Indians at a rally in Amritsar are cornered and fired upon by British troops, under the direction of General Reginald Dyer (Simon Paisley Day). More than 1,500 people of all ages are killed, either from bullet wounds, crush injuries, or drowning in a well where they leapt to escape the shooting.

We see the mass murder from the perspective of a teenage boy, Pargat Singh (Krish Rao), who loses his mother and younger sister that day. Given the technological limitations of the time, the ruling British government is able to suppress the truth and frame the massacre as a response to an armed uprising.

As the government assembles a commission to investigate the incident, Pargat stands outside the gates, holding up paintings depicting what really happened. He’s ignored by all of the commissioners save one: Justice Chettoor Sankaran Nair (Kumar). Nair’s legal work on behalf of the British has earned him a knighthood and invitations to swanky parties, but his participation on the committee reminds him that the Brits see him as a useful tool, not an equal.

When Pargat dies, the young man’s cause is taken up by rookie lawyer Dilreet Gill (Ananya Panday). Her criticism of Nair for going along with commission’s sham findings — as well as his own remorse over the boy’s death — lead him to join her in filling suit against General Dyer on the charges of genocide.

The events thus far, some of the characters, and the court arguments that follow are amalgamations of various historical incidents and figures. Kesari Chapter 2 isn’t presenting a history lesson but stoking the fires of moral outrage. That’s any movie’s right to do, but it feels fair in this case. There’s general agreement today as to what happened at Jallianwala Bagh, and the British government and monarchy have never formally apologized for the massacre.

Kesari Chapter 2 is actually pretty good at what it’s trying to accomplish. The Brits are racist schemers, and their victims are sympathetic and plentiful. It’s fun to watch Nair get the better of his adversaries in court, including the crown’s mercenary attorney Neville McKinley (R. Madhavan). Indian legal dramas can be confusing for those not versed in the court system, but great English subtitles by Jahan Singh Bakshi and Anantika Mehra make it easy to follow.

Still, the movie occasionally breaks the narrative spell, reminding the audience that it’s trying to make us feel specific emotions. Nair’s expletive-filled outburst in court is directed as much at the audience as at the judge to whom he’s speaking. It would have been nice had writer-director Karan Singh Tyagi let viewers come by their feelings organically.

But that would have required more comprehensive world-building, which Kesari Chapter 2 lacks. Nair is the center of the universe, and all the other characters feel thinly drawn. Panday’s Dillreet gets a few good moments, but Regina Cassandra as Nair’s wife Parvathy hardly needs to be in the movie. Thankfully, Kumar does a solid job carrying the film solo.

The spell is also broken by some odd music choices by composer Shashwat Sachdev. One recurring theme is obviously based on Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna”. Random electric guitar riffs feel strange in 1919 India. And when Nair makes a penis joke at Dyer’s expense, I swear it’s punctuated by something meant to mimic rapper Lil Jon’s signature “Yeah!”.

If nothing else, Kesari Chapter 2 is a movie without pretense. It’s not great, but it is effective.

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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: Hisaab Barabar (2025)

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1.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Rarely do you find a feature film where one of the complaints is: “I wish there was more math.” Hisaab Barabar (“Settle Accounts“) has some arithmetic highlights in an otherwise corny social issue drama.

R. Madhavan stars as Radhe Mohan Sharma, an upstanding railway ticket collector. He stopped studying accounting when his father died, and then took over Dad’s job to support the family. He gets some small satisfaction teaching basic math to the vendors on the train platform.

While checking his statement from Do Bank, Radhe notices his account is short 27.5 rupees (about $0.30). The amount isn’t significant, but he demands a correction from the bank on principle. As he explains in one of his impromptu platform tutorials, 27.5 multiplied by millions is substantial.

Radhe becomes suspicious when a passenger leaves his Do Bank statement on the train, and a similarly minuscule amount is missing. One of his coworker’s accounts is also short. Radhe realizes he may have uncovered a huge conspiracy.

The highlight of the movie, oddly enough, is a scene in a mall food court where Radhe explains to his co-workers how banks calculate interest based on an account’s current balance and why the shortfall matters. He writes his equations on a window with (hopefully!) erasable marker. It’s really interesting, and the film does a fine job making the accounting understandable.

The audience already knows Radhe is right, because the movie’s opening scene confirms it. At a tacky party with horrible dancing, Do Bank owner Micky Mehta (Neil Nitin Mukesh) openly discusses amassing a fortune from his customers one stray rupee at a time with a corrupt government official named Dayal (Manu Rishi). Mehta keeps his piles of pilfered bills in a warehouse freezer, hidden from regulatory oversight.

After Radhe files a formal complaint with the police department, writer-director Ashwni Dhir over-complicates the story. Mehta uses his connections to muddle the investigation and harass Radhe and his young son Manu (Shaunak Duggal). The police officer assigned to investigate the complaint happens to be Radhe’s new girlfriend Poonam (Kirti Kulhari), whom he apparently didn’t know was a cop. For some reason, Poonam doesn’t recuse herself from the case, even when she’s pressured to charge Radhe himself with some kind of crime. Could she be holding a fifteen-year-old grudge because she and Radhe were paired by a matchmaker, but he rejected her because her math grades weren’t good enough (another thing Radhe has no idea about)?

The tone of Hisaab Barabar vacillates between goofy and sinister. A slapstick brawl between bank employees exists alongside Poonam’s superior officer warning her to do what he says, lest something nasty happen to her when she takes the train alone at night.

Ultimately, the balance tilts toward goofiness, but I don’t think that was intentional. It’s all due to Neil Nitin Mukesh giving the most absurd performance of his career as the scheming bank owner. He sings the Do Bank jingle before having his goons nab Manu, and he dances awkwardly with his housekeepers in his mansion. Every line is over-emoted. Mehta’s style and mannerisms are like an out-of-touch boomer’s idea of cool, but Mukesh is only 43.

Mukesh isn’t the only one off his game. Madhavan’s performance as Radhe is mostly flat, but he has this weird half-collapsing, half-retching reaction to a surprising death that is so bizarre as to be laugh-out-loud funny. Kulhari is mostly normal as Poonam, but her character doesn’t make much sense.

Hisaab Barabar‘s point about not letting seemingly small amounts of corruption slide is nuanced and important, but the drama around it just doesn’t add up.

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Movie Review: Shaitaan (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Parental anxiety takes demonic form in the psychological thriller Shaitaan.

Kabir (Ajay Devgn) and Jyoti Rishi (Jyothika) are the parents of two good kids: teenager Janvi (Janki Bodiwala) and elementary schooler Dhruv (Anngad Raaj). Kabir and Jyoti raised their children with a healthy degree of independence, and their reward is a pair of responsible kids and a happy family.

While driving to their luxurious vacation home for a weekend getaway, the family stops at a roadside diner. There they meet Vanraj (R. Madhavan), a friendly guy who tells Kabir that he has a teenage daughter of his own. Vanraj offers Janvi a sweet, and as soon as she eats it, she knows something is wrong. When Vanraj tells her to finish the food on her plate, she must obey him, even though she doesn’t want to.

After the Rishis drive to their house, Jyoti notices Vanraj standing outside their gate. He tells Janvi to let him in, and she does. Kabir warns Jyoti to lock up the valuables, meaning cash and jewelry. But that’s not the valuable that the demonic Vanraj is there for.

Vanraj warns that, before this night of torment ends, Kabir and Jyoti will give Janvi over to him for all eternity. They swear they won’t, but Vanraj knows how to get what he wants. He’ll turn Janvi into someone they don’t recognize — someone who is a danger to them and to Dhruv.

The family’s predicament invites exploration of a number of themes. Janvi’s bodily autonomy is  a central issue. Her transformation can be a metaphor for everything from addiction to certain mental health conditions to involvement with a controlling or abusive partner.

Bodiwala does a really nice job as Janvi. Her eyes burn with a resistance that her body can’t muster. Bodiwala played the same part in the Gujarati film Vash on which Shaitaan is based, and her experience shows.

The performances by Devgn and Jyothika evoke sympathy for the parents faced with a devastating choice. They’re powerless to help Janvi, so should they sacrifice her to protect Dhruv? Given the psychological nature of the terror in Shaitaan, it’s not a fast-paced movie. The parents spend plenty of time staring in hollow-eyed defeat, but it works within context.

Shaitaan‘s climax tries tries to force action sequences into the story that veer into camp, especially when combined with the supernatural elements. And a needless epilogue is preachy and redundant, given how well the screenplay develops the movie’s themes.

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TV Review: Breathe (2018)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Amazon’s TV series Breathe is brilliant at times: sharp and thought-provoking, giving skilled actors known mainly for their film work a chance to shine in a different medium. Yet it’s a series of ups and downs, with more downs than ups as the story progresses.

R. Madhavan leads the series as Danny Mascarenhas, father to an ailing son named Josh (Atharva Vishwakarma). The severity of Josh’s illness is mentioned indirectly at first, when Danny pulls a relative aside during a birthday party and asks him to take back an overly generous gift for Josh, lest the boy realize something is up. “Why do we have to tell him what we know?” Danny kindly tells the uncle. When next we see Josh, he’s in the hospital, being treated for a disease that’s given him months to live unless he receives a lung transplant. The whole sequence is beautifully constructed.

In order to receive a new set of lungs, Josh not only has to wait for a donor with the correct rare blood type to pass away — and in a manner that keeps their organs viable for transplant — he has to wait for the three people ahead of him on the recipient list to get their lungs first. Bereft of options, Danny steals a list of registered donors and hatches a morally questionable (at best) plan to extend the lives of Josh and those ahead of him on the transplant list.

Elsewhere in Mumbai, another father tortures himself over his own failure to protect his child. Police detective Kabir Sawant (Amit Sadh) lost his young daughter three years earlier when the curious girl accidentally shot herself with his service revolver. Kabir’s resultant misery and alcoholism have driven his wife, Ria (Sapna Pabbi), to file for divorce. As Kabir finally tries to pull himself out of his depression, he senses something fishy about a series of accidents among a cohort of people with the same blood type, who all happen to be organ donors.

Sadh and Madhavan are perfectly cast as the two fathers: one searching for redemption and the other trying to save his son while he still can. Both actors command attention despite some flaws in the way their characters are written. Kabir spends the first few episodes mired in a drunken funk, but he’s really engaging when his plotline finally meets with Danny’s. Danny is better from the get-go, although his arc becomes scattershot he pivots from cold-hearted to conflicted from scene to scene.

On the whole, the show is strongest during the setup phase, as Danny pursues a course of action prohibited by his Catholic faith (and laws and general human decency, of course). Interesting graphical illustrations of the factors he must consider when incapacitating his victims cleverly forces the audience to put themselves in the mind of a methodical killer. (Note: though the dialogue is primarily in Hindi, the articles and written materials shown onscreen in this sequence are written in English.)

During this phase of the story, we see Danny’s schemes play out in real-time. It’s intense, since there’s always a chance that something will go wrong. However, in later episodes of Breathe, Danny’s crimes are shown only after we know he’s gotten away with them, removing all the tension. This also makes the later crimes seem ridiculous and impossible to execute, rather than meticulously planned operations.

The weakest point in the entire series is Episode 5: “Bad Fish.” With Kabir convinced that he’s on the trail of a serial killer, he first asks his boss for leave to investigate before heading to Ria’s to warn her. Both scenes — which together make up the first ten minutes of the episode– are nothing but people shouting at Kabir as he tries to explain himself. Kabir’s boss wants him to focus on his overdue paperwork, and Ria and her father just want Kabir to leave.

This is bad writing for multiple reasons. First, it’s annoying to endure ten consecutive minutes of characters screaming the same things over and over. Second, one of the points Breathe emphasizes is that, for all his faults, Kabir is an excellent detective. Everyone around him says so. For him to be dismissed by both his boss and his ex-wife and her family makes no sense given what they know about him. Finally, his father-in-law’s refusal to listen to Kabir’s concerns for Ria makes little sense in a show built around the paternal desire to protect one’s offspring.

Despite being a show about a guy who hunts down organ donors, Breathe does a good job challenging stigmas against organ donation particular to India. Danny discusses concerns over the spiritual implications of organ donation with another family in the hospital waiting room in a scene that explains both objections to the practice as well as scriptural evidence that supports the practice. The series repeatedly shows just how critical the need is for donors willing to make one last compassionate act as they exit this life.

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Movie Review: Saala Khadoos (2016)

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SaalaKhadoos3 Stars (out of 4)

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Writer-director Sudha Kongara’s Saala Khadoos (“Mr. Snooty,” according to the English subtitles) is a moving tale that utilizes all the best elements of sports movies past. Ritika Singh makes a splash in her debut, working opposite R. Madhavan in this story of two hot-headed boxers working toward a common goal.

Madhavan plays Adi, a boxing coach still smarting over the abrupt end to his own fighting career nearly twenty years ago. Dev (Zakir Hussain), the man who sabotaged Adi’s career, now heads the Indian Women’s Boxing Federation. Fearful that Adi will make public what he knows of Dev’s past misdeeds — as well as the chairman’s penchant for trading places on the national team for sex — Dev exiles Adi to the boxing backwater of Chennai.

Despite being set up to fail, Adi finds a promising fighter who has as little respect for authority as he does. Madhi (Singh) is the younger sister of the Chennai club’s top prospect, Lux (Mumtaz Sorcar). Madhi is a better natural fighter than Lux, but it’s Madhi’s fiery temper that leads Adi to focus his attention on her, at Lux’s expense.

As much as the story is about the personality changes that Adi and Madhi undergo while he tries to turn her into a champion, Saala Khadoos is also a story of sibling rivalry. Lux has always been special, the one who will finally lift her family out of poverty. A successful boxing career will confer her a spot in the police academy, and all of the family’s resources to this point have gone toward helping her reach that goal. Madhi’s success in the ring threatens not only Lux’s future but her very identity.

An old assistant coach (played by Nasser) explains the significance of the local conditions to Adi. All of the young women who train at the gym are poor, and boxing is a lifeline, not just a hobby. Adi can be as much of a hard-ass as he wants during training, but he’s morally obligated not to abandon them.

Adi’s character evolution is predictably slow. He’s never really cared about anyone before, and Dev’s betrayal still weighs heavily on him. Likewise, Madhi’s attitude problems make her hard to love. She’s been on the defensive for so long that she has trouble trusting anyone’s motives.

Singh is so much fun to watch as Madhi. That defensive attitude is reflected in her posture, her shoulders hunched protectively, giving away her confident swagger as the bluff it is. When Madhi hurts her right hand just before a fight, she spends the entire round holding her hand out of the way to avoid further injury.

Madhavan is terrific as well, looking especially cool as Adi rides his motorcycle during the opening credits. Nasser and Sorcar are super in their supporting roles, and Hussain is slimy as can be as the villain.

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Movie Review: Rang De Basanti (2006)

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RangDeBasanti3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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It’s sort of depressing that the story of Rang De Basanti (“Color It Saffron“) still resonates nine years after its release. The movie’s calls for change remain largely unrealized, a testament to the power of the stagnation it rails against.

Rang De Basanti connects the present to the past through the efforts of a British documentary filmmaker, Sue McKinley (Alice Patten). She arrives in India hoping to film a recreation of the Indian independence movement of the 1920s-30s, inspired by the regret-filled diary entries of her grandfather, a jailer and torturer on behalf of the Empire.

Sue’s local contact, Sonia (Soha Ali Khan), introduces the filmmaker to her university friends, who reluctantly agree to participate in the project. Group leader DJ (Aamir Khan), sullen rich kid Karan (Siddharth), poet Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), and tag-along Sukhi (Sharman Joshi) slowly find themselves maturing as they inhabit the roles of their revolutionary forefathers.

Further change is thrust upon them when another pivotal role in the reenactment is filled by Laxman (Atul Kulkarni), a Hindu nationalist who has a particular problem with Muslims. His integration is uneasy, especially since his role requires him to work closely with Aslam, a Muslim.

When a tragedy hits close to home, the guys realize that the work of the independence movement won’t be complete until Indian democracy is transparent and devoid of corruption. They take matters into their own hands, adopting the violent methods of their forefathers.

Although Khan is the highest profile star in the cast, his role isn’t necessarily the most important. This is truly an ensemble picture, with every role fleshed out. Every member of the group — including Sonia — has a reason to participate in Sue’s project. They each require a kind of character growth best developed by delving into history.

Sepia-toned scenes from Sue’s documentary are woven into scenes from the present, showing the way that the lives of these contemporary young people parallel the lives of young people of the past. It’s a theme that resonates beyond the borders of India. Every democracy is founded on a struggle that modern citizens too often ignore, resulting in a failure to meet founding ideals. We can all do better.

It’s unfortunate that the poster for Rang De Basanti features only Khan, Siddharth, Kapoor, and Joshi, because every performance in the film is superb. Kulkarni portrays a difficult character with great empathy. Patten and Soha Ali Khan are resolute, their characters developing along with the young men. R. Madhavan is great in a supporting role as Sonia’s boyfriend.

Siddharth’s role is the meatiest, with Karan dropping his jaded act as the truth starts to torment him. Kapoor imbues Aslam with stoicism, and Joshi plays a great toady.

Even though it’s not a solo starring role, this is among Khan’s best performances. A highlight is a scene in which DJ confesses to Sue that he actually graduated from college five years ago, but fear of the future keeps him hanging around campus with his buddies. The scene serves the dual purpose of explaining why DJ looks so much older than the others. (Khan was already 41 when the film released, not that this would be his last time playing a college student).

Where Rang De Basanti falters is in its overuse of news footage in the final thirty minutes. It’s tricky, because the guys take drastic measures in order to inspire fellow citizens to action. But frequent shots of news broadcasts and opinion pieces slow down the narrative. Every random college student who vows to reform Indian democracy in a man-on-the-street interview distances the audience from the main characters. It interrupts the flow of emotions just when they should reach their peak.

That said, Rang De Basanti is a surefire tearjerker. It’s a sad reminder that no nation is as free or equal as it could be, but it’s an important message. The work may be hard, and it may be ongoing, but it is work worth doing, just as it was so long ago.

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Movie Review: Tanu Weds Manu Returns (2015)

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tanu-weds-manu-returns-poster2 Stars (out of 4)

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Tanu Weds Manu Returns is the feel-bad romantic comedy of the year. Lighthearted moments are undercut by a cynicism about the institution of marriage that leaves one feeling melancholy at best, depressed at worst.

2011’s Tanu Weds Manu was a conventional romcom about a pair of opposites: wild-child Tanu (Kangana Ranaut) and steadfast Manu (R. Madhavan). Tanu Weds Manu Returns (TWMR, henceforth) picks up after the first four years of their miserable marriage.

Tanu is so desperate to get out of her marriage that she has Manu committed to a London mental institution. She later feels bad, calling Manu’s friend Pappi (Deepak Dobriyal) to rescue her husband while she flies back to India.

The couple wind up at their respective family homes in different cities (the geography in TWMR is confusing for international audiences). Tanu flirts with her parents’ tenant, Chintu (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), and unwisely reconnects with her short-tempered ex-boyfriend, Raja (Jimmy Shergill). Manu notices a college athlete who is the spitting image of Tanu, only with a pixie cut. He stalks Kusum (also Ranaut) until she relents, and they start dating.

Manu falling for his wife’s younger lookalike is a cute story setup, but it gets creepier the more serious the relationship becomes. Pappi warns that the new relationship is a bad idea — especially since it begins before Tanu and Manu are officially divorced — but he doesn’t call Manu’s obsession what it is: weird.

It hard to know who to root for in this movie. Tanu and Manu are both incredible jerks to each other. Tanu is arrogant and lacks empathy. Manu is selfish but wishy-washy. He doesn’t even possess enough will to make his climactic decision on his own, without prompting.

Worse, TWMR makes the characters’ circumstances so dire that its impossible to resolve the story in a satisfying way. There are really only a handful of things that one spouse could say to the other that would permanently destroy their marriage. When Tanu is at her most pitiable, Manu says one of those things to her. It’s crushing to watch.

Director Anand L. Rai and writer Himanshu Sharma give themselves only two possible outcomes: either Tanu and Manu get back together, or Manu weds Kusum and says good-bye to Tanu forever. Neither option feels good, and both are bad for Kusum.

Kusum is the movie’s redeeming element. She’s an independent tomboy, but she’s also sweet and honest. She’s reluctant to get romantically involved with anyone because, if the relationship negatively affects her athletics, it will make it that much harder for other girls from her village to get scholarships in the future. That Manu pursues her anyway is a sign of his selfishness.

Ranuat’s acting abilities are widely acclaimed, and it’s fun to see her pull off two very different roles in the same movie with such ease. Dobriyal is also entertainingly twitchy as Pappi. Manu’s not much of character as it is, and Madhavan doesn’t add much.

In addition to an unsatisfying story, international audiences will be hampered by poorly translated subtitles. Minor spelling errors — such as writing “apologies” instead of “apologize” — hint at greater problems in translating the humor from Hindi to English. The crowd of mostly native Hindi speakers at my showing laughed uproariously to lines that, in English, read as utilitarian.

Watch Tanu Weds Manu Returns for Kangana Ranaut. Just don’t expect to have a lot of fun while doing it.

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