Series Analysis : Mirzapur2 (Amazon Prime)

Directed by : Gurmmeet Singh (7 episodes) and Mihir Desai (4 episodes)

Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6473300/

Jeet ki gurantee tabhi hai jab, jeet aur haar dono tumhare control mein ho.

Spoilers ahead...

A total revenge saga is what 2nd season is. Guddu Pandit (Ali Fazal) seeks revenge of the death of his brother Bablu Pandit (Vikrant Massey) and wife Sweety Gupta (Shriya Pilgaonkar). Golu Gupta (Shweta Tripathi) who loved Bablu and was sister of Sweety, joins him. Then there's Sharad Shukla (Anjum Sharma) whose father was killed by Guddu, and besides he is after the throne of Mirzapur too very much like Guddu. And in all this Munna Tripathi (Divyendu Sharma) tries to help his father Akhandanand Tripathi (Pankaj Tripathi) in the upcoming elections as he tries to get a strong ministry. 

Unlike the 1st season, this one goes in a very slow pace despite the very quick start with that dreamy sequence that for a moment felt like are they doing Hannibal Season2 by showing the glimpse of end directly. The whole political game is what that holds this season for me, and the revenge angle unfortunately goes to the backseat. Most of the blame however goes to the addition of twin brothers, Tyagi (Vijay Varma) which derails the narrative. Only positive that comes out of this character is that you know Golu will have a very tough time in Season3. 

My issue was this hampered the main plot which was Revenge of Bablu and Sweety death, we get one face-off scene where Guddu single handedly

was proving too much for both Munna and Sharad, but there's nothing after that. Infact the narrative goes so many places in every episode that when the scene of Guddu-Golu comes, you got to ask yourself where were they last time and where exactly their plans are going on now. If not for Tyagi whole story, this wont have been an issue and same with Sharad who starts off on such a brilliant note in 1st episode, or his meeting with Munna and later getting the trust of Akhandanand but then he suddenly disappears and returns in last episode making that final move, the motive of which we will learn in Season3.

The best part was Munna and Madhuri Yadav (an excellent Isha Talwar) romantic angle and also a sense of responsibility that comes to Munna. It made his character more human, and just a tiny bit of emotions shift towards him when he gets killed. JP Yadav (Pramod Pathak) gave feels of GOW2 Tigmanshu's son and almost pulled off the similar success before getting thrown out. Bauji (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and Beena Tripathi (Rasika Dugal) story was perfectly done this season, love the plotting Beena does and also how she stops Maqbool (Shaji Chaudhary), wanting to kill Bauji herself. 

I totally enjoyed addition of Robin (Priyanshu Painyuli) character, bit suspicious early on and his constant 'yeh bhi theek hai' was fun. Also, his love angle with Dimpy (Harshita Gaur) made for atleast someone who isn't violent in this series. However, the mystery about his mother makes me wonder if there's a dark twist coming to this story too. Also, Dibyendu Bhattacharya provided some lovely light moments playing a doctor trapped under Golu-Guddu, trying to get his leg working again. Sad to see the end he and his family goes through.

Shabnam's (Shernavaz Jijiza) feelings developing for Guddu felt very sudden to me, almost as if she always had liked him. Ramakant Pandit (Rajesh Tailang) and Inspector RS Maurya (Amit Sial) joining together to go against Tripathi's was fun, though I didn't see Ramankant killing Maurya coming. 

Pankaj Tripathi somehow felt lost to me in this season, again the culprit been how the story moves to so many characters. He does still have some moments to shine, and the end gives me hope of something special from his side in next season. Shweta Tripathi too felt offtrack, didn't like her character's way of dealing with the trauma. Ali Fazal was in form again, liked how they made him have action scenes with one leg not fully working yet and still powerful enough to get that Mirzapur throne. But, his greed makes me feel he might be having a downfall in next season. 

Mirzapur2 may not have lived upto the standards of 1st season, still it was good enough for me, specially the political angle inserted, few good addition of characters, some good old sub-plots finished, few new sub-plots that have scope of lots more in next Season. Maybe Season2 is just gonna act as a catalyst for a very powerful new season.

My Rating : 6.5/10

Series Analysis : JL50 (SonyLiv)

Directed by : Shailender Vyas (4 episodes)

Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7441984/

You see, America mein ho toh phenomena, possibilities pe research. Lekin hamare hindustan mein ho toh only one 'Story'. Hamara problem kya hai Shantanu, hamare desh mein Hindu, Muslim, Mandir, Masjid, Politics, Andhvishwaas se upar hum log kabhi uthte hi nahi... Agar humhe akaash mein kuch dikhayi de jaaye toh hum do haath jodh lete hai aur usse bhagwaan maan lete hai.. question nahi karte, we don't ask Why, What, How.. Never.

Spoilers ahead... 

CBI officer Shantanu (Abhay Deol) along with his colleague Gaurango (Rajesh Sharma) reaches a village of Lava in West Bengal. Expecting to find the missing plane that was carrying some important politicians, Shantanu is shocked to learn that it is instead a different plane JL50 that crashed near the village, and more so its a plane that took off 35 years ago. Is it some kind of staging done by ABA (Azaad Bengal Association) or are we talking time-travel here? 

Time-Travel in last few years has really gone up on me as something exciting, first it was Avengers Endgame and then the superb Dark series. JL50 unfortunately is neither entertaining as the former, and nor detailed like the latter. Yet you have to applaud for the honest attempt and the fact that its just a 4 episode series so despite the flaws you would end up watching it in a go. 

Two major issues I had was, firstly the characters aren't developed enough, there's too little time spent on Shantanu's back life, why his marriage fell apart, and then the time-travel when it does come is way too late. Also, the entire scenario where Shantanu tries to change the events going back in time, felt hurried and not exciting enough to me. The sci-fi effects aren't good but that could be low budget thing. 

Love the scene where Professor Subroto Das (Pankaj Kapur) talks about why we Indians won't believe something unique can be invented by our own people, there's a genuine true frustration felt in those words. Pankaj Kapur is easily the best performer in the series, a reason why his sudden change in final episode didn't go well with me, maybe I wanted him to stay a positive character but still its a good twist. Abhay Deol was expectedly good, a tad overstretched maybe when it comes to 'I don't believe time-travel is possible', otherwise you enjoy his act or the revelation when he learns how Bihu Ghosh (Ritika Anand) is related to him. Again, not proper character development made this scene not having that much impact as it otherwise would had. 

Rajesh Sharma is fun, only character who is all the time wanting Shantanu to believe its definately a time-travel. Piyush Mishra strangely was too hammy, and rest cast didn't quite work for me specially Ritika. 

Even though I found the attempt to connect time-travel with Hindu Mythology little odd with the narrative of show, I liked that small part specially how propaganda is used by big leaders like Hitler shown or a certain person from our own country these days. The climax where Shantanu doesn't burn the papers properly was a clear case of very lazy writing, when you know how not only his life or people he knows will get affected but the country could suffer, why would he be so silly and stupid!

Some fun moments definately includes when Shantanu offers 10rs Coin in the time-travel to a bus conductor of 1984, it was really hilarious to see him being told 'nakli paisa deta hai'. The songs are used well as backdrop, though none of them has 'listen again' appeal to it. 

JL 50 I feel had the potential to be much more, let down in many departments, yet being a 4 episode series, you can still give it a chance. 

My Rating : 5.5/10 

Series Analysis : Ray (Netflix)

Rather than the shorts, this is like a 4 episodic series with all around 1 hour in duration. Before I go talk on them individually, have to mention I totally loved the stories, making me wanna go back someday and read more of Satyajit Ray stories if at all they are available somewhere for common people like me. 

Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14160660/

Forget Me Not 

Directed by : Srijit Mukherji (Vasan Bala - check on netflix)

Tu Computer hai, tere liye jo data hai.. mere liye woh yaadein hai.. main nahi kar sakta inko delete. 

Ipsit Nair (Ali Fazal) is a famous busy robotic businessman who takes pride in his memory always remembering all the tiniest of details about everyone he has met. And its the reason why his life turns upside down when he meets a lady who seems to know him but he can't recollect their previous meeting.  That just one memory loss, effects him to an extent that his memory starts fading in every day to day routine. Best way to describe this episode would be the 1st scene, the un-necessary time that lady takes to walk for a drink. Also, the revenge angle when revealed takes away a lot from the story. Love the scenes where Ipsit is dreaming of forgetting his child at theatre food corner, or when he can't locate his car at the parking lot. Ali Fazal is again in terrific form, I just wished they either kept it totally a case of memory loss leading to mental asylum making a lovely psychological study or the revenge angle was done in a much better way. In the end it ends up as a very average episode despite the great story. 

Bahrupiya

Directed by : Srijit Mukherji 

Hum bhi bhagwaan jaise hi hai Indrashish, hum bhi shrishti karte hai.

Indrashish Shah (Kay Kay Menon), a middle class guy who feels broken due to every person he has met in this cruel world. One day he finds his late grandmother left him with a book on make-up and prosthetics and a big sum of money which is when he realizes how he can turn around his life and also take revenge from the people who didn't treat him well. But this soon turns into an obsession,, and when you feel you are a creator i.e God, the end is always near. Another story whose adaptation and broad changes lets it down for me, had it stayed around Indrashish trying to do more than what he should and realize his mistake, it would had bigger impact and probably would had sympathised with Indrashish then. Instead he is turned firstly into a sociopath and then someone who wants to challenge God too. I did however enjoy Dibyendu Bhattacharya as Peer Baba, even if I wish this character wasn't part of story. Kay Kay Menon is again excellent, the writing just lets this one down too. Still, it was more enjoyable than the 1st episode.

Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa 

Directed by : Abhishek Chaubey 

Kisi ko ghar se nikalte hi mil gayi manzil, koi hamari tarah umar bhar safar mein raha.

Musafir Ali (Manoj Bajpayee) is travelling to Delhi from Bhopal by train and ends up meeting Aslam Baig (Gajraj Rao) sharing same coach. But Musafir soon realises how he had met Aslam before too, coincidentally in train many years back and he had stolen a very precious watch then. Its easily the best episode of the whole series. Abhishek hasn't done this kind of cinema before, he has been more into dark zone.. but how wondefully he sets the narrative here and ofcourse helped with the jugalbandi of Manoj Bajpayee and Gajraj Rao, you don't even want them to stop talking, such is their range and also the use of Urdu makes it for a great watch. Musafir constantly breaks the 4th wall, plenty of dream sequences or mirrors used to narrate his flashbacks including his rise to fame. The entire previous meet of theirs happens on what is a clock setup, even the shayaris done happens with a train setup. Train journeys always makes for fun watch for how two strangers talk and find some strange bonding. But the episode does get away from the train setting finally, and its again a delight because we meet Hakim Saab (Raghuvir Yadav) and a shopkeeper (Manoj Pahwa) who are fun in their small cameos. And I enjoyed the title track a lot too. One of my fav episodes that I may come to re-watch again in future, no complaints at all with a very fun ending and also learnt the stealing habit has a name called Kleptomania!

Spotlight 

Directed by : Vasan Bala

Tu yeh jo sochta hai na ki Ryan Gosling meets Elon Musk wala jo look tu achieve karega, tu nahi kar sakta.

When Vik (Harshvardhan Kapoor) arrives at a luxurious hotel for a mahurat shot of his film, he insists on getting the room where Madonna stayed. But he is shocked to learn that the room has been taken away from him because Didi (Radhika Madan), a godwoman demands the same room for same reason. The spotlight slowly keeps shifting away from Vik, and that gets him so mad. This one totally didn't work for me, and reason is straightforward, I didn't like the vision of director and where he tried to take the story with a very ridiculous ending. Its the supporting act of Roby Ghosh (Chandan Roy Sanyal) that I enjoyed the most, specially when he tells Vik he will never get the look of Ryan Gosling meets Ekon Musk, or when he tells Vik to be cool and accept the fact that people are more mad for religion than the celebrities. Also, like the scene involving Vik and Didi that comes just before the climax. I still didn't get what difference Vik's various 'Look' shoots had, I mean the final one that he nails as per everyone, was totally ditto to what he had been doing before, or was it some sort of sarcasm that I didn't pick up. Aneways, its good to see Harshvardhan go even deeper in a role that very much makes fun of him (like the small role in AK vs AK). I wish the dynamics of worshipping celebrities vs worshipping godwoman was explored deeply and in a different manner, an opportunity lost. 

So, Ray has a clear winner in form of 'Hungama Kyon Hai Bharpa', while 'Behrupiya' works in parts, 'Forget me Not' had potential but misses mark while 'Spotlight' was a total miss. 

My Rating : 5/10 

Recap 2020 : Best Hindi Films/Series, Disappointing and Worst!

Didn't knew a year would come when I would see so less movies in theatre, just 8 in the theatre and 11 on laptop. Irony is that count of theatre might be 0 when I make list for 2021, well who knows corona goes away magically in coming months. 

Also, saw plenty of series with Scam 1992 knocking it out of the stadium, what a series, what performances and what a brilliant use of entire cast of talented actors that over the years have been wasted in nothing roles or cliched characters. 

Asur took the next spot.. totally enjoyed the shuddh hindi and the plot despite some visible flaws. Maybe flawed cheezon ko pasand karne ki aadat ho gayi hai. PaatalLok was another great series that was engaging and didn't disappoint in the finale.

Even though there wasn't a single special film that I could love to the core, there were still plenty good films and considering the times we living in, have to be satisfied by that. Top5 were actually very neck to neck in terms of quality, sorted them out in terms of their repetitive appeal for me. 

Ludo was at the top, another of Anurag Basu's enjoyable films that has a great ensemble cast. Rajkumar Rao's Mithun mimicry and habit of dancing whenever in tension was highlight of the movie along with the ever reliable Pankaj Tripathi. Gunjan Saxena, does get little caught in the cliches of routine biopic yet it provides some hard-hitting moments with a lovely father-daughter relationship involving Pankaj Tripathi and Jhanvi Kapoor (she can act for me). 

Raat Akeli Hai was a lovely slow-burner, didn't really go KnivesOut way as trailer suggested which actually worked in its favour with the mystery angle done well while exploring male dominance and violence against women themes and ofcourse Nawazuddin Siddiqui's great performance. 

The experimental AK vs AK is terrific with Anil Kapoor in super form, only let down by the unwanted spoon-feeding in final 10 mins. While Tillatome Shome's performance in 'Is Love Enough? Sir' is great to watch in a very good movie that explores a very taboo relationship. 

Malang despite having some regular routine mess Mohit Suri world always has, works for its tight screenplay and the Aditya-Disha chemistry. Easily my guilty pleasure movie of the year. 

Special Mention to Bulbbul that reunited the 'Laila Majnu' pair, it was also a good watch.  The much talked about 'Dil Bechara' was lets say 

This year again I ain't posting Best Performances, so the ones that stood out for me were - Pankaj Tripathi (Gunjan Saxena), Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Raat Akeli Hai), Tillatome Shome (Is Love Enough? Sir', Tripti Dimri (Bulbbul) and Anil Kapoor (AK vs AK), 

Not posting Hindi Albums and Top100 songs too this year, couldn't listen most of the albums, will try to cover it up with the 2021 list if possible. 

Here's my complete list... 

Top 10 Hindi Movies of 2020 : 

1. Ludo

2. Gunjan Saxena : The Kargil Girl

3. Raat Akeli Hai

4. AK vs AK 

5. Is Love Enough? Sir

6. Malang

7. Bulbbul

8. Thappad

9. Kaamyaab

10. Tanhaji : The Unsung Warrior

Angrezi Medium, Indoo Ki Jawani and Lootcase miss out. 

Best Series of 2020 : 

1. Scam 1992

2. Asur : Welcome to your Dark Side S1

3. Paatal Lok

4. Panchayat 

5. Special Ops S1

Mirzapur S2 misses out.. Also 'She'  and 'JL 50' was interesting in many parts. 

Worst Hindi Movies of 2020 : 

1. Coolie No.1

2. Baaghi 3

3. Love Aaj Kal

Varun Dhawan overacted both versions, the Mithun mimicry was torturous and Sara Ali Khan again disappointed, I think some songs were the only saving grace in this film. Baaghi3 was silly with another over the top action like the 2nd part. And Imtiaz Ali enters the list where I don't like him to be, Love Aaj Kal trailer was so good but the movie never worked for me minus some parts of 'Kal' where as the 'Aaj' part felt no connect and emotions at all, again Sara Ali Khan a let-down but I feel any other actress won't have made any difference too. 

Most Disappointing Hindi Movies of 2020 : 

1. Angrezi Medium

2. Love Aaj Kal

3. Gulabo Sitabo

Irrfan Khan deserved a better last movie, no where close to Hindi Medium, he however still gave some good scenes to enjoy. And Shoojit Sircar's run of great films ended atleast for me Gulabo Sitabo was pretty average even with the great twist. 

Mini Review : Gulabo Sitabo (AmazonPrime) and Bulbbul (Netflix)

Gulabo Sitabo

Directed by : Shoojit Sircar

Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10333912/

Aapka hamara nikaah hua tha, ki hum bhaage the aapke saath? 

Set in Lucknow, Mirza (Amitabh Bachchan), a 78 years old landlord is very obsessive about his old crumbling mansion known as 'Fatima Mahal' waiting to get the total ownership when his wife, Begum (Farrukh Jaffar) dies. Many tenants live there on rent that includes Baankey (Ayushmann Khurrana) along with his mother and three sisters. There's a constant banter going between Mirza and Baankey, which increases when Baankey accidentally breaks one of the washroom. A lawyer and archaeology gets involved very soon citing it to be a heritage property but having their own personal interests. 

The pace reminded of October, very slow but unlike that movie, I struggled to find a character to love. We see a guy on street doing puppet show based on 'Gulabo and Sitabo', they always fight and argue with each other and that's how the main characters Mirza and Baankey are. Even a reference scene is shown at one moment where Baankey's sister is watching 'Tom and Jerry' cartoon on TV. Mirza wants rent on time and planning to increase the rent, which is only 30rs per month right now (I am not sure what year Shoojit kept this film on) while Baankey is good at making excuses or lieing everytime he has to pay the rent The light-hearted moments between them keep coming, both been selfish in their own ways. It gets bit repetitive at times, that gold digging scene was un-necessary. When Brijendra Kala (lawyer) and Vijay Raaz (Archaeology) characters enter the narrative, it did give me feeling of maybe they are working together but the twist we get at the end was very unexpected. To be honest even though I liked the twist, it still feels not completely real. 

What I did enjoy was the dialogues, a thing about Shoojit films that was again so good due to Juhi Chaturvedi. Amitabh Bachchan is lovable, totally into his character, the way he walks bending over and those attacks he gets whenever someone would tell a big amount of money he may get either through rent or selling mansion was very funny. Srishti Shrivastava was very good as one of sister of Baankey. Ayushmann Khurrana was okay, again didn't appeal fully to me but atleast I didn't feel irritated by his character in here, and he gets some nice moments like the one where his girlfriend comes to buy 'Organic atta' right at end or when he asks Mirza to adopt him. The show stealer however was Farrukh Jaffar, that scene where she asks Mirza whether they got married or ran away and then asking who did she run away with then was hilarious. Its a pity she gets very less screen-time for the obvious reason you find out in the end. Liked that chair sequence in the end, how from 250rs it goes to a very high price.

An interesting take on the humans and their greed and desires whether they are young or old, a tighter screenplay would had helped though and also I ended up feeling for Mirza despite his greedy nature which I think makers weren't wanting so somewhere they failed in putting his character not look miserable. Still a likeable movie that has some fun moments, if you enjoy the slow pace and don't mind the twist then you would end up loving it, I didn't. Definately among my least enjoyed Shoojit movie.

My Rating : 5.5/10



Bulbbul

Directed by : Anvita Dutt

Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12393526/

Thoda pagal hai.. par chup rehna. 

Spoilers ahead .. 

Its been 5 years as Satya (Avinash Tiwary) returns back to his village where only his elder sister-in-law, Bulbbul (Tripti Dimri) lives now. His brother Indranil (Rahul Bose) has abandoned her, and Indranil's twin brother, Mahendra died few years back with his wife Binodini (Paoli Dam) not living at the haveli either. There is a strong belief among the people living there that the deaths taking place in the village has something to do with chudail. Also, there's a doctor Sudip (Parambrata Chattopadhyay) who visits the haveli often to check up on Bulbbul.

The moment you see Bulbbul's grown up sequence where she is herself controlling the haveli, her conversation style is enough to reveal she is hiding some trauma. She is just going through the senses mostly with her own life but always eager to help others which is a key point for the plot. In one of the early scenes she clearly warns one of the guy to never hurt his 1st wife who just recently married another lady, and in the finale we do see the chudail kill him when he does hurt the 1st wife. We know for certain from start Bulbbul is the chudail, what we don't know if its literal or there's more to it which is told to us in phases through flashbacks.

The film never works on basis of thriller, and its not a horror either if you are looking for chudail scenes throughout, rather its how bad a horror life women goes through whether its the child marriage, patriarchy or domestic assault/violence/rape, with no freedom at all. Set in 1880's, pre independance era in the Bengal Presidency, a time when such things were a norm, even though some of it still prevails in our societies today.

There's one superb scene (some would had found it funny if the film released in theatre), where Binodini keeps telling Bulbbul 'chup rehna', her way of elaborating how women must always bow down to the men and its not bad as that way they get 'ijjat', and 'gehne'. Binodini and Bulbbul share many good scenes together, where both are in their own ways putting forward their opinions against each other. Its interesting to see such a relation when both have been suffering, but it was hard to emphasize with Binodini having seen how she acted as a catalyst leading to what Mahendra does. The assault scene was hard-hitting, and so was the act Mahendra does later.

I like how they use the horror freak mind of Bulbbul to advantage in taking the narrative towards feminist revenge. Oddly, at first watch I almost bought it that she was indeed chudail and its silly to show her get shot at end. But clearly, she was human always, with only thing to decipher, if she had got some powers that made her a Devi or it was a complete case of using fantasy to give justice to others. Love how they shot the night sequences involving the bullock-cart giving it a eerie feel. However the red color over-use got to me after a while!

Totally enjoyed Tripti Dimri performance, she played different aspects of the character so perfectly, be it the sarcastic or laughing tone she has on most of the time, the conversations with Badi bahu (or choti bahu as shown) Binodini,  the lovable attraction towards Satya, the feeling of she will lose him forever or the drastic change when she is hunting people who hurt women including her own revenge on the brothers. I couldn't really find a flaw in her acting, which I felt wasn't totally upto the mark in Laila Majnu. Rather its Avinash Tiwary, who stole the show in that film, felt very less appealing here mainly because his character never gets the detailing or more extra that it should had. He does chip in with a good performance still, but how I wish they had kept Mahendra's role out which was very un-necessary to the plot and added more to Satya-Bulbbul story. Rahul Bose was efficient in his both acts.

Parambrata Chattopadhyay is lovable yet again playing the 'good guy' role, all his scenes with Bulbbul are sweet and he's the only guy that doesn't turn grey. Love the conversation he has with Bulbbul on the balcony telling he knows his limits.

Kudos to Anushka Sharma who keeps bringing creative ideas in every new project, even though only NH10 and PaatalLok have been the best of them all. Bulbbul is very much on par with how Pari was for me, many problems including a weak final act, yet I can't dimiss it because there's a lot to like too. And I would love to see Tripti get more movies.

My Rating : 6/10

Mini Review : PaatalLok (AmazonPrime) and Betaal (Netflix)

PaatalLok
Creator : Sudip Sharma
Directed by : Avinash Arun/Prosit Roy (9 episodes, 2020)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9680440/

Yeh system jo hai, dur se sadha gala kachde ka dher lagta hai.. lekin andar ghuske samjhoge na, well oiled machinery hai.. har purje ko maloom usko kya karna hai, aur jisko nahi pata hota uss purje ko badal diya jaata hai.. lekin yeh system kabhi nahi badalta. 

Four suspects are arrested on the highway while on the run and later its found out that they were planning to assassinate popular head of a leading News Channel, Sanjeev Mehra (Neeraj Kabi). The case is assigned to Haathi Ram Chowdhury (Jaideep Ahlawat), a cop from the outer Jamuna Par police station who has been looking forward to get one such high profile case that could change his career, but little does he know how everything is not what it seems and the further he investigates the more he finds himself lost. Its adapted from Tarun Tejpal's book 'The Story of My Assassins' which I haven't read.

Haathi Ram is on the lookout for proofs and past history of all 4 suspects, with a newly joined junior Ansari (Ishwak Singh) helping him out. Their camaraderie goes through ups and downs, sticking for each other with their developing friendship. PaatalLok works as a slow-burn thriller, as we slowly learn about every character. Was interesting to watch Sanjeev Mehra's character that is trying to stay in news and not be ethical while disclosing news, he very much resembled all the news anchors we see in real who only care about money. In one scene he aptly tells how the journalists and news people were heroes once and now they get trolled and killed. All the flashback scenes of the 4 arrested guys had tragic incidents happening, everyone had interesting stories but Mary Lyngdoh (played brilliantly by Mairembam Ronaldo Singh) one specially appealed to me with that emotional court-room last scene and her constant cry in prison, as she plays someone pretending to be a girl in the narrative to help the other 3 guys in the mission when she was actually a transgender.

There's plenty of scenes that are hard to watch, whether its rape of an elder lady, child abuse or a guy beaten for eating beef. The social commentary over our country is told at many instances which I assume didn't go well with a particular wing as they rated the show so low. One of the most hard-hitting scene for me was when the father of one of those 4 suspects tells Haathiram 'jisse maine musalmaan tak banne nahi diya, usse aapne jihaadi bana diya', his pain could be really felt in there. Then there's Ansari who is Muslim cop, a minority among rest police force resulting in some verbal attack at times.

Jaideep Ahlawat completely steals the show, though in last few years ever since that Gangs of Wasseypur character he did, I have always enjoyed watching him in most of the films. Even at the toughest of situations, his character Haathi Ram is hell bent on finding the truth, sometimes breaking laws to get the information. And Abhishek Banerjee was other highlight from the series, very less dialogues but those eyes full of menace and yet been soft with his love for the dogs! The female actresses get less screen time but Gul Panag as HaathiRam's wife (Renu) and Swastika Mukherjee as Sanjeev's wife (Dolly) do leave a mark. Renu's brother track was probably only boring thing in the series. While Dolly's love for dog despite knowing Sanjeev has allergy for it plays a very important and good part when we learn later that the dog is what that actually saved Sanjeev's life.

PaataalLok deals with many themes like greed, dirty politics, Islamophobia, caste, gender oppression and ofcourse dogs. The finale wasn't hard-hitting but lets put it this way that I very much bought the realistic appeal they give with nothing changing about the system and ofcourse the ending had to happen over a dog scene. If excessive abusive language and slow pace don't bother you then this a series for you. I would rate it quite high among other Hindi Series that I love like Mirzapur, Asur and Delhi Crime. Another season of Hathi Ram solving a new case would be fun to watch.

My Rating : 8/10



Betaal
Directed by : Patrick Graham/Nikhil Mahajan (4 episodes, 2020)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10651790/

Pehle hamara desh churaya, phir hamari naukri churayi, sona churaya, zameen churaayi.. ab kutte ki jaat, hamare bhoot bhi chura gaye, behanchod! 

Vikram Sirohi (Vineet Kumar Singh) arrives at a tribal village to demolish it and take the villagers to a safe new place which they deny to go to. The idea is to develop a project with the contractor, Mudhalvan (Jitendra Joshi) bribing the CIPD  squad leader, Commander Tyagi (Suchitra Pillai) who then instructs Vikram and his team to do the needful by filling in wrong information that the villagers are dangerous naxals, knowing Vikram is an honest soldier. Vikram and his team is stopped by Puniya (Manjiri Pupala) who warns that the place is cursed by Betaal/Colonel Lynedoch (Richard Dillane) a leader of 1857 British regiment. But Vikram and his co, ofcourse don't listen or we won't get the zombie episodes that follow. Inspite of very few jump scares, and fact that its only 4 episode series, Betaal still finds a way to fail and the search for a very good horror indian series continues.

Why would zombies beat drums, wait for almost entire episode and then attack the barrackhouse. And since when zombies got the features of Demons who can talk and also scare with slow turn of head. Then the funny sequences, one where Tyagi hairs turn white and reason told is 'shock' or dialogues like 'Hard Brexit' or a game of numbering so Sirohi can keep track of his team in the dark or a soldier killing the zombies while mouthing 'yeh bhagat singh ke liye, yeh jallianwala bagh ke liye' like seriously? or a bitten human soldier that spits out motive of Betaal. What works are the flashbacks Sirohi keeps getting about a small girl in his last mission as we are kept in suspense if he did kill her or not. The faces of the Undead army (Colonel and his team) with those big red eyes was another turn-off, and also some scenes were so dark it was hard to see what was happening. When Tyagi and few soldiers go inside the tunnel, or the 2 dead bodies that make noise of turning into zombies, were the only scenes that have scare element in the series. They do find a way to end series on a note of next season to come but they will have to really work on the writing. Even Vineet Kumar Singh act isn't satisfactory. Aahana Kumra acting was good who played Ahu Ahluwalia. Betaal is watchable only because its a short series and things do happen quickly enough, if only the story and horror was on right lines too.

My Rating : 3.5/10 

Mini Review : Criminal Justice (Hotstar) and Hostages (Hotstar)

Criminal Justice
Directed by : Tigmanshu Dhulia/Vishal Furia (8 episodes each, 2019), Tigmanshu Dhulia (2 episodes, 2019)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9095260/

Kaisa laga yeh case haarke? 
Bahut badhiya, charamsukh aanand. I am looking forward to lose some more cases. Suna hai isse moksha milta hai.. 

Aditya Sharma (Vikrant Massey), a FirstCab driver, has a one-night stand with one of the passenger, Sanaya (Madhurima Roy). Later that night when he wakes up and tries to say goodbye to Sanaya while leaving, he realizes she's dead with blood on his hands. Aditya has no memory of the incident and he fears that he will not be able to prove that he is not guilty. Criminal Justice is inspired from HBO's 'The Night Of' show which itself was a remake of 2008 mini series. Initially the series keeps you hooked in because you are unsure who the killer is, and since the narration is linear, chances of Aditya being guilty is very much cut off. We get some very good court scenes kudos to Mandira Mathur (Mita Vasisht) who is a delight to watch in a no-nonsense strict lawyer and just wants to win,unfortunately she's part of 4 episodes only before her assistant takes up the case which I would had preferred rather going in hands of Madhav Mishra (Pankaj Tripathi). He steals the show (minus the stupid background theme) with his curiosity and gut feeling that he can't let a innocent do jail term. Madhav's scene with therapist is hilarious about how happy he feels to have lost a case, and also his chemistry with Nikhat Hussain (Anupriya Goenka) is one to watch. Jackie Shroff (played Mustafa) is also tailor-made for the gangster kind prisoner having power over everyone inmates and ofcourse using lot of 'bhidu'. Vikrant Massey wierdly doesn't make the mark like I expected, and main reason is he very much gets lost in the jail politics plot which is also why I felt the series diverts away too much. I personally won't say they shouldn't have shown that aspect, but they clearly went overboard with it, had they cut it to say 8 episode series with some crisp editing then it would had appealed the way it should. I do however enjoyed that scene where Mustafa stops Aditya in time from killing the rival cell-inmate Layak (Dibyendu Bhattacharya), telling that innocent should stay innocent. In the previous episodes leading to that scene, I had this feeling that by the time Aditya would be proven innocent for Sanaya's murder, he might already had become a murderer inside the jail, so that was a good twist. Some of other supporting actors however felt miscast and the emotional manipulation through background music is done way too much to my liking. Also, why would you not show the crime scene in the last episode when the real culprit is found. Criminal Justice works mainly for the court-room scenes, and performances of Pankaj Tripathi and Jackie Shroff but its atleast 2 episodes too long to sit through.

My Rating : 5.5/10



Hostages
Creators : Omri Givon, Yezira Ivrit, Rotem Shamir
Directed by : Sudhir Mishra (10 episodes, 2019)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9094282/

Hona toh aapko narak mein chahiye, par filhaal aap.. 

Anand's villa daily-life comes to a standstill as four masked men take the family hostages with Dr Mira Anand (Tisca Chopra) told to kill CM next day who is supposed to do a surgery on him. She has to make a choice between her family and CM. Another inspired/remake series, with same title from Israel's show done in 2013. Starting two episodes sets right tone, we are told right at end of 1st episode that SP Prithvi Singh (Ronit Roy) is the leader of the masked men, but the motive behind this is revealed very slowly later on in the show. The way Dr Mira Anand keeps finding ways of getting out of Prithvi and its team radar to find evidences who these masked men are or try to let her children run off, made me think if she would had been much better team member of Prithvi and co. Atleast I would had liked a scene kept before they invade the Anand family or a flashback, as to on what basis they chose team and what planning they did because they sure looked like total rookies who kept giving chances for Anand family to get away. One of the guy among them especially had a bad temper and made it tougher for Prithvi all the time to have a look at him along with Anand family, which again begs question 'why did he hire him? Show a backstory maybe to justify'. The end you could predict from very 1st episode, but what is funny to see is how easily a CM's body gets replaced with a random body and no one notices or finds out. Then there's other sub-plots, Mira's son trying to please girl from school by hacking papers, her daughter is pregnant to a guy who broke-up with her and her husband has been hiding many things. None of those plots felt engaging enough. And the tussle between Mira and Prithvi also gets repetitive after a while. Both Tisca Chopra and Ronit Roy give in very good performances, yet not enough to save what is a very silly and a series going nowhere with all the loopholes and a non-satisfying ending.

My Rating : 4/10 

Mini Review : Special Ops (Hotstar) and Panchayat (AmazonPrime)

Special Ops
Creator : Neeraj Pandey
Directed by : 

Neeraj Pandey (5 episodes, 2020), Shivam Nair (4 episodes, 2020)

Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11854694/

Hamari agency mein hum kahaani aur misaal.. dono bahut accha banate hai. 

Spoilers ahead .. 

Himmat Singh (Kay Kay Menon) from RAW has been in search of the mastermind terrorist Ikhlaq Khan behind the 2001 Parliament attacks for about 19 years now. He has placed some of his agents throughout the world and has a feeling that he is getting closer and closer to catching Ikhlaq, a name many believe is just a theory and not real. Kay Kay Menon whether he plays the on-field agent in the backstory or how he handles his agents in present day situation, he is just spectacular in his performance, even engaging in the scenes that are dull or stretching to limits. And Vinay Pathak in supporting role is effective too. Same goes for Sajjad Delafrooz who plays Hafiz Ali to perfection, though it would give a dejavu of his character from Tiger Zinda Hai, just a bit. There are times when I did think Hafiz is Ikhlaq only but they did play out the narrative around him well enough to keep you guessing till late end. What spoils the series is the 'finance' interrogation that two guys do with Himmat which is used as narration to introduce the backstory to us. For me it was tiring to watch it, despite having share of laughs in between, the director could easily had used either voiceover of Himmat or some other way of narrating the past 19 years. And it doesn't help with none of the agents getting a decent backstory to get more involved with their enthusiasm to give their life for this secret mission. Karan Tacker was very inconsistent for me playing the role of Farooq Ali, somewhat miscasted, could easily had been better if his role was swapped with Vipul Gupta, who played Bala and had much lesser screentime but felt was a much better actor. Also, Sonya (Sana Khaan) track was pretty boring for me.  I like how various real events like Parliament Attack, 26/11,  mention of Osama, Srinagar Attack etc are used and its executed in a believable way so it doesn't really matter if they have fictionalised certain things in the entire show. The finale was a major let-down, expected better way of catching Ikhlaq Khan, was funny that his guys took so much time to reveal Farooq's real identity. And what happened to that insane guy at the function, when entire focus is just on Sadia Qureshi (Divya Dutta) who gives message of 'people who are hurt and get brainwashed could still find a way of doing the right thing in the end rather than more destruction'. Pretty good series despite all the problems I had, pretty much like FamilyMan, this is a series dominated by one actor, which is Kay Kay Menon in this case.

My Rating : 7/10



Panchayat
Creator : TVF
Directed by : Deepak Kumar Mishra (8 episodes, 2020)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12004706/

Swades ka 'Mohan Bhargav' banne ka mauka mil raha hai tujhe.. 

A story about engineering graduate Abhishek (Jitendra Kumar) who joins Phulera village of Uttar Pradesh as Secretary/Gram Sachiv of a Panchayat Office. We get to see the journey of Abhishek who finds the place difficult to live and wants to pass CAT exam to get better salary job in some city As his friend in starting scene says to him 'Swades ka Mohan Bhargav banne ka mauka mil raha hai', its fun watching how most of times Abhishek struggles adjusting in this different kind of lifestyle he hadn't been to before or so it seems by the looks of it. Been myself pretty much like that, and the fact that its a short series with episodes mostly lasting 25-30 mins, its fun to watch with the mood mostly light and comical throughout. 'Chakke Wali Kursi' and 'Computer Nahi Monitor' were my favorite episodes, some episodes do go slow but I still ended up liking most of them. That scene where the person tells he mistakenly stole monitor thinking it was TV is hilarious and so is the conversation between Abhishek and Vikas/GramSahayak (Chandan Roy) when they go at the haunted tree in the night. The political angle isn't explored too much which is good. Love how the bonding develops between Abhishek and Brij Bhushan Dubey/Pradhan Pati (Raghuvir Yadav). Performances wise, enjoyed everyone, Raghuvir Yadav, Jitendra Kumar, Neena Gupta, but the pick of the series was Chandan Roy for me, he made me laugh many times and looked so effortless in his act. Would love to see another similar kind of short fun season.

Rating : 7/10

Mini Review : The Platform (Netflix) and Asur : Welcome to Your Dark Side (Voot)

The Platform
Directed by : Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8228288/

On those high levels you can eat anything you want, but you don't have anything to wait for. Your mind runs wild. 

Spoilers ahead... 

Goreng (Ivan Massague) joins a vertical prison on his own choice for 6 months, wanting to quit smoking. The prison has one cell per level, and every cell contains 2 people. Daily a platform of food passes by each level, with roughly 2 mins per day they get to eat. At end of every month, surviving people of every cell gets shifted to a new level. Its a surviving test specially with the ratio of food getting reduced if you get a 100 or plus level. Movie starts off on interesting note as the adminstrator is checking all the great looking dishes if they have been cooked perfectly. And then we are cut to Goreng waking up on the Level 48 as like him we get to hear the shock of the place this is. Slowly by slowly we learn as does Goreng, that you can't be stubborn and despite knowing the food is leftovers from above 47 level people, you just gotta eat to survive or you can just end your life with suicide as some others do by jumping down the hole. The conversation between Goreng and Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor) is hilarious that includes 'obvio' for more than 20 times.

There's some gore that's hard to watch where survivors in higher levels have to eat human flesh. Basic message of movie is clearly how humans don't know to adapt and get greedy, when they could have just eaten properly and let food stay eatable and available for the rest levels like the lady that Goreng gets as new partner in cell tries to but struggles. You can view the movie more like a system vs common man or upper class vs lower class, just like Trimagasi says earlier 'Don't speak to the people below because they are down below, and the above people won't answer you'. While Miharu (Alexandra Masangkay) who goes down the hole once every month to feed her little girl can be seen as a person who tries to exploit the system successfully but eventually dies. Similarly, Goreng and his partner at Level 6, Baharat (Emilio Buale) fail when they think stopping people upto Level 50 is the way to get the food till last Level. As far as I can gather, the message wasn't the pannacotta or even the girl, rather it was just eat what you told was your favorite food when you were interviewed before been admitted into the hole. The girl clearly had 'pannacotta' as her favourite food which is why the cell doesn't get too hot or too cold when the food is kept even after the platform goes down. The ending is open, hard to say what happens when the girl reached Level0, maybe nothing, thats how humans are, they never learn and thereby the chaos may continue. Quite a thoughtful and interesting movie, and love that background theme, except for the gore sequences its a movie that I totally enjoyed.

My Rating : 8/10



Asur : Welcome to Your Dark Side
Creator : Gaurav Shukla
Directed by : Oni Sen (8 episodes, 2020)

Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11912196/

Kya tumhe abhi bhi lagta hai ki duniya mein achaayi hai? 

A psychopath Shubh Joshi (Vishesh Bansal) believes in Hindu Mythology while he kills randomly, cuts one hands index finger and leaves no clues about his pattern. Dhananjay Rajput (Arshad Warsi) and Nikhil Nair (Barun Sobti), are working as CBI officers on the case, eager to find the common link if any among all the killings and stop the next death from happening. I think first 15-20 mins of 1st episode was the only time I felt not interested in this series, after that its damn good watching the tussle while the real Shubh Joshi aint revealed. Twists are pretty convincing and so are the first scene of every episode that sets the mood up. Love the use of pure shuddh hindi by the antagonist.

I personally felt Rasool Shaikh (Amey Wagh) was Shubh Joshi which the director clearly wants us to believe too with the final ending scene, but digging up some online comments by other people, their theory seems more likely to be true that we actually haven't seen real Shubh yet and all we saw were 3 male and 1 female followers of Shubh. Amey actually reminded me of Riteish Deshmukh a lot, looks and dialogue delivery wise both. Arshad Warsi is superb, while Barun Sobti dialogues at some places were hard to understand, else he was good too. Liked Riddhi Dogra too, and keen to see if at all there's any surprise in store with her character. Anupriya Goenka who plays wife of Nikhil, was quite irritating character until she starts to help out Dhananjay. Sharib Hashmi great as always, kinda of making his name in these kind of roles now and its a pity that they had to kill him off. The tone does remind of Joker from The Dark Knight, especially that Dhananjay and one of Shubh follower scene where he has to know the location to save people, and even the philosophies of Shubh match to certain extent, a person who just wants to watch the world burn. Would love more of Shubh past shown in 2nd season as Vishesh Bansal (he is too good as young Shubh) and ofcourse reveal him out by the end of season. Except for some very minor issues, I thoroughly enjoyed the 1st season, and totally adore that background theme, very catchy and maybe inspired from Baahubali. Hoping 2nd season lives upto the expectations.

My Rating : 8/10 

Mini Review : Guilty (Netflix) and She (Netflix)

Guilty
Directed by : Ruchi Narain
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10062614/

Yeh kiska khawaab hai, khayaal hai.. main kiski kharaabi, main hoon. 

Nanki Dutta (Kiara Advani) is on the lookout for truth about the accusation of rape made on her boyfriend Vijay Pratap Singh (Gurfateh Pirzada) by a fellow college student Tanu Kumar (Akansha Ranjan Kapoor). Felt like a very amatureish movie for most part that tries to use MeToo angle in a suspense manner without much success. And at places reminded a lot of 13ReasonsWhy which only makes the matters worse for Guilty. There were numerous occasions when I was feeling engaged in a conversation like the interrogation scenes and then either a character would say something very stupid or the scene would totally shift to a different tone for no reason.  The courtroom drama never comes either. And then the stupid climax that tries to manipulate in a long monologue, its like they had a good idea in hand even if not fully original and when it came to execution it just fell totally flat.  Even the music is so average, 'Rehne Do Na' and 'Likhi Meri' are only songs that felt decent. One thing I don't get is why the cliche of 'Neta ka beta so powerful' be used again and again to tell a story about sexual assault, its one of very safest approach of storytelling in my opinion. I did like the performances of leads, specially Kiara and Gurfateh. Even the rest cast acting was spot on, just letdown badly by the writing team. Manu Rishi Chaddha is pretty much wasted. Its a watchable movie and that too if I try to be bit lenient which I don't wish to for the rating.

My Rating : 3.5/10



She
Creator : Imtiaz Ali
Directed by : Arif Ali and Avinash Dash (7 episodes, 2020)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11905720/

Tum karo.. jo tumko theek lage. 

Spoilers ahead.. 

A police constable from Mumbai, Bhumika Pardeshi (Aditi Sudhir Pohankar) is asked (more of an order) for an undercover assignment where she has to go as a prostitute and try to get information about a drug ring and the future plans they got. Even though the plot is about catching the drug mafia that are trying to expand work in Mumbai, the actual focus is on Bhumika who discovers her sexual side having been told as a 'cold girl' by her husband. The reason behind that is told in last episode with her been through some incident as schoolgirl though its not totally revealed yet. There's this lovely scene where she tries to seduce Sasya (Vijay Varma) and almost appearing like for a moment she did forget she was a cop. Or the final sequence where she offers deal to Nayak (Kishore Kumar G.). Would need next season to be certain if that was just to save her life or she has indeed turned into a monster as the Anti-Narcotics guy, Jason Fernandez (Vishwas Kini) fears has happened. If you view the series from the point of view of Bhumika's transformation then it would work for most of the time. Aditi Sudhir Pohankar delivers quite a good performance minus the dialogue delivery that at times I didn't find perfect. But if you see the series as a cop vs bad guy catching thriller then its very underwhelming. It does work till Sasya's interrogation scenes, with Vijay Varma in great form again, but the moment focus goes to Nayak and the scenes of Nayak derails the narrative. I lost interest in that part of story and was only keen to see where the character of Bhumika will lead to next more than what plans Nayak got. Some cliches like showing montages of Bhumika training could had been ignored, and Vishwas Kini was probably the only weak link in acting.A decent series that has scope to get better in next season.

My Rating : 5.5/10 

Series Analysis : The Family Man (Amazon Prime)

Directed by : Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9544034/

Inhe bas ek baar jeetna hota hai, aur humhe har ek baar.. aur woh bhi sahi tareeke se. 

Spoilers ahead..



Story of a middle class man Srikant (Manoj Bajpayee) who has a field job working for NIA along with his partner JK Talpade (Sharib Hashmi). They find out about a mission called 'Mission Zulfiqar' and start tracking clues that lead to it. But Srikant also has to manage his family, a wife and two kids, whom he has been giving very less time.

Series begins really well with the starting four episodes engaging you throughout, there's a question lingering over mind what exactly this 'Mission Zulfiqar' is, and there's Moosa (Neeraj Madhav) who appears to be always more than he is trying to show. But I started losing some interest when the narrative shifts to Kashmir. A special mention to the excellent visuals and the use of kashmir folk song 'hukus bukus' (You may recall it was used in 'Hafiz hafiz' of Laila Majnu movie).

Usually the answers to the questions in mind from earlier episodes should make you happy  but in here it felt like a let down. Also, Sajid (Shahab Ali) been a main character, never worked for me which was a miscast issue, rather the short role Kareem (Abrar Qazi) plays worked brilliantly. I did like the open ending, with lives of some officers unknown whether they will survive or would Delhi as a whole survive the attack, which hopefully a better season2 will tell us.

Liked how they used the 'national anthem' and 'anti-national' sub-plot without going overboard. And same with the 'beef incident' or the sarcasm at the tourists in kashmir referred with the police all over.

What fully worked was Manoj Bajyapee's performance, his scenes with his kids, Dhriti (Mehek Thakur) and Atharv (Vedant Sinha), both of whom acted wonderfully and gave some lovely comical moments. Priyamani (Suchi, wife of Srikant), Sharib Hashmi and Kishore Kumar G were solid too with their given screentime. Suchi's character has lot more scope in next season, keen to see where they take it. Would had liked more scenes of Darshan Kumar who was effective in the role of Major Sameer.

'The Family Man' is certainly better than the total disappointment 'SacredGames2' was, but the way this series starts and builds up to a great finale, it can be said that the series just misses out to be a lot more.. I did like it, but the high ratings at Imdb gave me a feel of something really good which it wasn't. Still a enjoyable series, with solid performances from Manoj (he is just too good) and rest.

My Rating : 6/10