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Showing posts with the label murder

JAWAAN (2023) : review

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And finally the much hyped, much awaited Jawaan saw light of the day ! Big stars, big budget( humongous budget actually), big music composer, everything super large. But does it meet the expectations of the average viewer? No it goes not. Read on.  A decorated jawan locks horns with a criminal called Kaali, this is in 1986 ( the year movies like Aakhri Raasta released, just for reference). Kaali gets him eliminated and send the pregnant wife to jail. The baby born in jail grows up to become the hero (look alike of the father) and decides to avenge the misdeeds done to his innocent patriotic parents. Well, isn’t it a masaaledaar full on Bollywood- Tollywood drama subject ?  And then the director Atlee also borrows ideas and references from various retro movies, some idea from Sholay (1975) as the hero assembled a gang of jailed Qaidis in order to form a team to nab the villain, then there’s an entire episode borrowed from Dhartiputra (1993), and the basic theme is copy pasted ...
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DIAL D FOR DETECTIVE: rewind to Doordarshan part 2

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Revisiting the good old days of Doordarshan yet again, when it wasn’t exactly a boring cousin of the satellite channels like ZeeTv or mtv. One genre that has intrigued viewers over the years is suspense murder mysteries. With a common base of a chilling murder committed and then a detective is summoned to investigate. Sometimes it’s the detective who coincidentally ends up being at the place of the crime, convenient isn’t it? But that’s what crime genre lovers have loved all these years. From Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot to our very own Byomkesh Bakshi and the hot selling detective novels featuring Kaala Pahad and Dhananjay, we’ve had an amazing range of entertaining investigators, here’s a quick revisit to five detective serials from the golden days of Doordarshan.   KARAMCHAND (1985)  Termed and credited as India’s first detective series on television, though I’m unsure if it’s true, but certainly an engaging and thrilling series. With generous humour added to give it...
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THE SERPENT (2021) : Review

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Directed by: Hans Herbots & Tom Shankland  Streaming on : Netflix  Cast: Tahar Rahim, Billy Howle, Jenna Coleman, Ellie Bamber, Mathilde Warnier, Tim McInnerny, Amesh Ederaweera, Fabian Frankel, Darshan Zariwala, Aly Khan, Stacy Martin, Pravesh Rana, Baby Meghan Jeremiah & others.  The sensational murderous journey of the notorious serial killer Charles Sobhraj is brilliantly executed in this delightfully directed web series. There have been several documented series and documentaries specially on bbc in the past chronicling Sobhraj’s intriguing crime story and even a forgettable Bollywood movie made five or six years ago but this series takes the cake and how!  In the mid 70s in Bangkok a young backpacker Dutch couple goes mysteriously missing and their charred dead bodies are found days later. A Dutch diplomat gets ethically engrossed in solving the mystery and soon gets entangled in a larger than life(or deadly) crime syndicate controlled by a notorious c...
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GANGSTER’s MOLLS : shortcut to fame?

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GANGSTER’s MOLLS : shortcut to fame?  Do we hear of the underworld nexus in Bollywood these days? Not much, unless the screaming out of his lungs Arnab Goswami occasionally blaming dreaded don Dawood Ibrahim for sushant singh rajputs death ! That’s like an occasional instance.  There was a time when Bollywood starlets got embroiled into the dirty world of gangsters, from 1972-2002 thirty years and seven beautiful Bollywood damsels were linked to horrifying underworld gangsters, here’s a brief recollection of the ‘seven wonders’  Sona : almost everyone knew about the infamous Haji Mastan’s infatuation for the late actor Madhubala, now there were far too many admirers then and even today. So it wasn’t a surprise when he fell head over heels in love with a budding starlet Sona who’d an uncanny resemblance to the late Venus of Indian cinema. Sona’s only notable film was Kachche Dhaage(1973) and the affair and subsequent nikaah with Mastaan put a permanent end to her acting c...
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