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Showing posts with the label webseries

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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HIS STORY(2021): review

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Directed by: Prashant Bhagia  Streaming on : zee5  Cast: Priyamani, Satyadeep Misra, Mrinal Dutt, Nikhil Bhatia, Mikhail Gandhi, Rajeev Kumar, Parinita Seth, Anmol Kajani, Charu Shanker, Rheanne Tejani.  Surprisingly, the otherwise intolerable Alt Balaji (Ekta Kapoor) has been coming out with some decent stuff these days, breaking out of the Saas Bahus and Gandi Baats she’s exploring some good subjects being handled sensitively. Hmm.  So the story is actually about two men in love with each other in a homophobic world, but the lead actress has played her part so well that she manages to convince you that it’s actually ‘her story’ and not ‘his story’, seriously that’s how good actress Priyamani is in this role. A working woman, chef by profession who’s been in a happy marriage(or so she thinks) of twenty years with a wealthy entrepreneur suddenly one fateful evening finds her husband smooching a young guy in the car! Soon she comes to know the guy is her husband’s bo...
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THE TATTOO MURDERS(2021): review

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Directed by: Shrawan Kumar Tiwary  Streaming on: Disney Hotstar  Cast: Meera Chopra, Tanuj Virwani, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Anang Desai, Anupam Shyam, Varun Joshi, Chirag Trivedi, Falguni Rajni, Priyanka Khatri, Virender Panday, Mehool Desai, Aman Singh Vohra, Vimmi Bhatt and others.  A series of murders startle the city that never sleeps, the victims are prostitutes from the infamous and hugely popular kamathipura area. A young officer (Chopra) who is battling psychological issues is assigned the duty to nab the cold blooded serial killer. The only clue available is a scorpion tattoo affixed on each victim. Helped by a supportive subordinate and a local flesh trader, the officer pursues this difficult mission that has its roots in Kolkata finally leading to a bloody climax in Mumbai.  Decent storyline, no overcrowding of events, well placed flashbacks (though recurrent) are few factors that make this suspense series watchable and tolerable as well. The low points are...
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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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QUBOOL HAI 2.0 : Review

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Directed by: Glen Barreto and Ankush Mohla Streaming on : zee5  Cast: Surbhi Jyoti, Karan Singh Grover, Mandira Bedi, Arif Zakaria, Lilette Dubey, Waqar Sheikh, Shalini Kapoor, Saurabh Raj Jain, Ashwin Mushran, Priyal Gor and others.  There was I believe a TV show by this title that aired on zeetv and was hugely popular. This is a web-series version with a fresh outlook and apparently a new storyline with a larger budget and bigger canvas.   The story though uninteresting gets a fresh and novel treatment thanks to the directors Glen and Ankush (I remember their forte was the crime and supernatural genre in the 90s), this is more like a Muslim social getting a makeover of crime, national integration and mystery.  A handsome sharp shooter from India, Assad (Grover) meets a Pakistani runaway bride Zoya (Jyoti) in Siberia and they fall hopelessly in love with each other. Now they are on the run together being chased by Zoya’s rejected groom and his allies. How they land...
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BOMBAY BEGUMS: review

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Directed by: Bornila Chatterji and Alankrita Shrivastava  Streaming on : Netflix India Cast: Pooja Bhatt, Shahana Goswami, Amruta Subhash, Plabita Borthakur, Aadhya Anand, Manish Chaudhary, Vivek Gomber, Rahul Bose, Danish Hussain, Imaad Shah, Sanghmitra Hitaishi, Neel Raj Dewan, Nauheed Cyrusi, Ekavalli Khanna, Prashant Singh, Rituraj Singh, Rio Kapadia, and others.  Never judge a book by its cover or so they say, though the teasers and posters of Bombay begums could well give it a leftover Four more Shots Please vibe, it’s not that bad. Leaving the now out of steam feminazi brigade this show certainly had some high points particularly the handling of a sensitive subject like sexual exploitation at work place (not new on the celluloid but better dealt with here).  The director duo had a good strong storyline but except the sexual harassment episode there’s nothing else extraordinaire about this web-series and that’s such a let down.   Set very obviously in the big b...
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ASUR(2020) : No spoiler review

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ASUR (2020) directed by Oni Sen  Cast: Arshad Warsi, Barun Sobti, Riddhi Dogra, Anupriya Goenka, Sharib Hashmi, Pawan Chopra, Amey Wagh, Gaurav Arora, Vishesh Bansal, Deepak Qazir, Nishank Verma, Sunil Raghuvanshi, Kailash Pal, Ekta Tiwari, and others.  Bingo! If one sits through the seven episodes of this web-series you’ll get the feeling it’s a masterpiece in Indian history of crime thrillers, perfect blending of science and mythology! Beautifully delved deep into the mystical world of ancient myth and connected with forensic science. And then you watch the finale and feel like shaking up the makers and ask why the hell did you end it like this? Yup, the climax is a major let down.   Set in present day Delhi it’s a gripping edge of the seat tale of a psychopath serial killer on a murderous streak who seems to be killing victims at random leaving behind the ‘Asur’ mask to take undue credit for the crime committed. Two forensic officers from the CBI team try solving the ...
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JL50 (2020): Review

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JL50 (2020)  Directed by: Shailendra Vyas  Cast: Pankaj Kapur, Abhay Deol, Piyush Mishra, Ritika Anand, Rajesh Singh and others.  Sonyliv has been streaming some amazing series from the past one year with Scam 1992 topping the favourite charts almost everywhere. JL50 is an sci-fi series. Considering the four episodes with each averaging to about 35 mins each it can well be a feature film converted to web-series.  In 2019 a plane crashes into a valley, it’s got mysterious undertones considering the plane had departed for its journey way back in 1984 and had mysteriously disappeared into thin air. The sudden emergence of this lost plane after 35 years causes a sudden psychological tremor for the investigators.  With all the crew members and passengers dead and only two survivors who luckily survived because they were in the cockpit that crashed atop a hill, one the pilot and other, a strange and mysterious man with murderous eyes. The pilot claims she belongs to ...
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