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Showing posts with the label thriller

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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30 YEARS OF KHILADI (1992)

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Revisiting The suspense musical thriller Khiladi (1992) as it completes thirty years of its theatrical release date today.  KHILADI (1992) ~~~~rewatched  Directed by: Abbas-Mustan  Cast: Akshay Kumar, Ayesha Jhulka, Shakti Kapoor, Deepak Tijori, Johnny Lever, Dinyar Contractor, Anant Mahadevan, Harpal Singh, Sanjeev Chitre, Sabeeha, Beena Banerjee, Kunika, Guddi Maruti, Tinnu Anand, Sharat Saxena, Amrutlal Patel & Prem Chopra.   This enjoyable suspense thriller was playing on tv yesterday and it just doesn’t get old, it’s so 90s. So what worked in its favour? It had a stale storyline, an unknown lead hero, the director duo and music composer duo were non entities, so what worked? The “freshness” is what u believe.  Four young college going fun loving friends play a prank that goes awfully and fatally wrong! A murder that needs to be investigated and the real killer should be nabbed before the innocent youngsters get caught in a web of mystery. A similar stor...
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THE FAMILY MAN S2(2021) review

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Streaming on : Amazon prime video (9 episodes)  Directed by: Raj-DK and Suparn Varma  Cast: Manoj Bajpaye, Priyamani, Sharib Hashmi, Shahab Ali, Samantha Akkineni, Ashlesha Thakur, Vedant Sinha, Sharad Kelkar, Dalip Tahil, Darshan Kumar, Aritro R Banerjee, Anand Sami, Ravindra Vijay, Rajesh Balachandiran, Devadarshini, Udayabhanu Maheshwaran, Sunny Hinduja and Seema Biswas.  And just when you feel the level of Indian web series is stooping low, arrives the second season of Family Man, it was good in 2019, it’s much much better this time. Wonder how the director trio made a series so full of excitement and intrigue without a single “dull” moment. There are so many things happening, everything at fast speed, so many characters involved, yet there’s not an iota of confusion or mismanagement here, kudos to the team for a clear winner.  While the first season dealt with Pakistani cum Kerala based terrorist activities , this time the focus shifts to Sri Lankan terrorists ...
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THE LAST HOUR (2021) Review

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Directed by: Amit Kumar  Streaming on: Amazon prime video  Cast: Sanjay Kapoor, Karma Takapa, Shaylee Krishen, Shahana Goswami, Robin Tamang, Mandakini, Raima Sen, Lanuakom Ao, Debashish Lama, Tenzein Choden, and others  What’s the best location for a supernatural murder mystery? Nope not a Ramsay brother Haveli, it’s a foggy misty hill station that can give you the chills and the thrills. How I wish the direction was as thrilling and chilling here. Sigh.  A Mumbai based investigations officer is relocated to the north eastern Indian region, he soon gets assigned the task to track down the culprits behind the rape and murder of a tourist who was a Bengali film star. The murders do not stop there, and the officer (played by Sanjay Kapoor) soon realises it’s a pretty complicated mystery to crack down. A young Shaman (what’s that? Google and you’ll get a detailed description of these mysterious people who can travel in the middle world along with spirits) helps the off...
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MIRZAPUR 2 : Great expectations?

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Cast: Ali Fazal, Pankaj Tripathi, Divyendu Sharma, Shweta Tripathi, Isha Talwar, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Rasika Dugal, Amit Sial, Anil George, Anjum Sharma, Rajesh Tailang, Meghana Mallik, Sheeba Chadda, Harshita Gaur, Rajesh Jais, Vijay Verma, Liliput Farooqi, and others.  After my first impressions about the much awaited and even more over hyped season 2 of MIRZAPUR it certainly deserved a afterthought review. Ten super length episodes later it’s more of an impatiently exhaustive feeling !  After a horrifyingly delicious finale in season 1 the series moves at a snail’s pace throughout except the final episode in season 2 wherein it’s in the fifth gear, but that’s too late. The entire slow paced, pseudo intellectual kind treatment this season backfires, comparisons with season 1 are inevitable, but even if we do not compare the two seasons, this time it’s quite a dull affair to view. And binge watch is strongly not recommended unless you’ve a determined extreme patience level....
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HIGH (2020) review

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HIGH (2020)  Directed by: Nikhil Rao  Cast: Akshay Oberoi, Ranvir Shorey, Mrinmayee Godbole, Prakash Belwadi, Kunal Naik, Shweta Basu Prasad, Padmavati Rao, Mantramugdh, Nakul Bhalla, Veerendra Saxena, and others  Brilliant ! If this thrilling web series has to be described in one word it’s brilliant. Totally high on ‘substance’ quite literally though, it tends to intoxicate you with its freshness and innovative conceptualisation.  A group of doctors discover a drug which they aptly name ‘magic’, a former junkie assists them in marketing it amongst the targeted audience, now there’s more to this drug than just being a ‘drug’, so there are Two Drug Mafias hunting for it, a grey haired CEO of a pharma company sends her henchman to hunt, and an ambitious journalist also gets intrigued by its ‘magic’.  It’s more about the unique and evenly paced treatment by the director that makes ‘High’ stand out from rest of the web series these days. There’s thrill, there are s...
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BETAAL (2020) review

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BETAAL (2020)  Directed by: Patrick Graham and Nikhil Mahajan  Cast: Vineet Kumar, Ahana Kumra, Jitendra Joshi, Jatin Goswami, Suchitra Pillai, Siddharth Menon, Manjiri, Ankur Vikal, Pawan Singh, Akhilesh Unnithan, Ratan Nag, Baby Syna, Savita Bajaj, Meenal Kapoor and Richard Dillane.  Picture this- one fine day, or preferably at night you discover that your immediate boss has turned into a bloodthirsty zombie, how would you react? The lead actor faces this uncomfortably dangerous situation in this horror webseries.  A special squad is assigned inorder to evacuate a village, unknowingly they end up reactivating a battalion of British zombies who ruled that location centuries ago. Thereafter begins a blood soaked violent battle between the living and the dead, with survival of the fittest.  The director is known for his earlier horror attempt Ghoul(2018) which didn’t quite cut the ice with viewers, with Betaal he tries mixing age old Indian myth with a contempora...
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