A ‘Watch’ Story Worth ‘Watch’ing : My quick take on awesome web series “Made in India : A Titan story” (Amazon Prime). A web series about a watch company that’s actually worth a watch! I must confess, I may sound a bit biased in this review. But kya karega, apun bhi ek proud Tata product hai na bhai! Having started my professional journey with Tata Motors (then TELCO) as a Graduate Trainee Engineer GTE-19 way back in 1986, a little gratitude toh banta hai na bhai. After years

A Kick-Ass Family Affair! : My quick take on Tamil movie “Blast” (Theatrical release) Thanks to my buddy @sarvanamuthu balsubramanian for recommending this kick-ass (literally!) movie, which I thoroughly enjoyed. When Hollywood served us various versions of Karate Kid, lo and behold, our Kollywood came up with a befitting response: “Karate Family.” After all, we are a family-oriented audience. Why settle for one karate kid when you can have an entire family handing out flying

Kara, just short of becoming be-kara!! : My quick take on movie “Kara” (Netflix) When Money Heist Takes the Scenic Route Through Rural south India Looks like Netflix’s AI recommendation bot was in full swing. After successfully convincing me to sit through both Berlin spin-offs back-to-back, it confidently served up Kara. Going by the thumbnail, I expected a gritty Tamil heist drama. What I eventually got was Money Heist and Do Bigha Zameen sharing the same bullock cart. To b

From Money Heist to Honey Heist : My quick take on two web series “Money Heist - Berlin, Jewles of Paris & The Lady with an Ermine” Have you ever watched a prequel after watching a sequel? I recently did. After watching Berlin: Lady with an Ermine, I realized that this was actually a sequel to another Money Heist spin-off, Berlin: The Jewels of Paris. So I decided to sit through nearly 16 episodes of Berlin and his band of lovable lawbreakers before writing my take. My sponta

DRISHYAM 3: Georgekutty Strikes Again , And Gets Away With It. Let’s be honest. After Drishyam 2, most of us assumed Georgekutty had finally earned retirement. The man had outsmarted the police, buried his secrets deeper than Jio’s fibre cables, survived investigations that would send the FBI into group therapy, and was quietly living his best Kerala life. What more could possibly go wrong? Apparently, he decided to produce a film. The scrappy cable operator of Drishyam 1 has

This Movie Didn’t Scare Me. It Reframed Me. : My quick take on spooky movie “Backrooms” (Theatrical release) Backrooms Or When Your Subconscious Hires an Interior Designer With Commitment Issues I walked into Backrooms expecting a horror film. What I got instead was a full-blown NLP workshop conducted inside an abandoned office building designed by anxiety itself. And honestly? I loved every bizarre fluorescent-lit minute of it. First things first: this is not your regular po

Chand Mera Dil : From Student Of The Year 3 Vibes to Surprisingly Soulful Cinema I nearly skipped this Dharma drama despite getting hold of tickets for the premiere show in Dubai. Thanks Gaurav Paul 😄 But then the long weekend forced me into the theatre with a fair bit of skepticism. Not because of the heavily trolled “Ananyadancenatyam” clips floating around social media, but because the film was rolling out from KJo’s ever-running conveyor belt of beautiful people discove

Dubai Stole the Movie. Jack Ryan Just Ran Through It : My quick take on movie “Jack Ryan - Ghost war” (Amazon Prime) Classic Jack Ryan chaos: rogue black-ops, global conspiracy, ticking clock, and somehow one CIA analyst doing everyone’s job. But honestly? It works. John Krasinski keeps Ryan grounded, Wendell Pierce brings gravitas, and Sienna Miller thankfully exists for more than “love interest energy.” Despite the often repeated plot of an agent going rogue and the “good m

System: The Case of the Missing Tight Screenplay : My quick take on movie “System” (Amazon Prime) System Or When Bollywood Put the Judiciary, Nepotism, Social Justice, Family Drama, and Slow Motion Walking Into a Mixer Grinder and Pressed “Emotion Purée.” There are courtroom dramas. There are social commentaries. And then there is System, a film that walks into your living room wearing the expression of a constitutional crisis but occasionally behaves like a particularly exha

Dubai Stole the Movie. Jack Ryan Just Ran Through It : My quick take on movie “Jack Ryan - Ghost war” (Amazon Prime) Classic Jack Ryan chaos: rogue black-ops, global conspiracy, ticking clock, and somehow one CIA analyst doing everyone’s job. But honestly? It works. John Krasinski keeps Ryan grounded, Wendell Pierce brings gravitas, and Sienna Miller thankfully exists for more than “love interest energy.” Despite the often repeated plot of an agent going rogue and the “good m

Kartavya: Short Runtime, Even Shorter Surprises : My quick take on “Kartavya” (Netflix) Netflix’s Kartavya feels like the makers opened a pressure cooker of North Indian social issues and threw in class divide, honor killings, dera culture, corrupt cops, and one lone “system se ladta hua imaandaar officer.” Unfortunately, somewhere between the whistles and steam, originality escaped. But credit where due. The Sartaj Singh of Sacred Games rides again. Saif Ali Khan does shine

Predictable, but Gripping : My quick take on movie “Apex” (Netflix) The moment you say survival thrillers, two recent films immediately elbow their way into my memory: Nowhere and Beast. Both deliver tension like a well-tuned pressure cooker. Now, Apex doesn’t quite reach the pulse-pounding highs of those two… but it does something equally important in today’s attention economy: it keeps your phone ignored. And honestly, that’s a modern cinematic achievement. Despite a plot t

From Hera-pheri to Hara-kiri : My quick take on Priyadarshan’s “Bhoot Bangla” (Theatrical release) Somewhere in the glorious archive of Priyadarshan, between the anarchic genius of Hera Pheri, the delightful chaos of Hungama, and the unhinged brilliance of Malamaal Weekly, lives a filmmaker who knew exactly how to make audiences howl. That man, one suspects, has been locked inside a haunted bungalow… while his doppelgänger directed Bhoot Bangla. Let’s be honest. This isn’t a

सोचा था मेंढ़ी, निकला लंगड़ा : My quick take on web series “Matka king” (Amazon Prime) I just wrapped up Matka King on Amazon Prime Video… and like any good gamble, it left me with mixed feelings. Not the dramatic kind where you either win big or lose everything. This one is subtler. It wins a few rounds, loses a few, and leaves you staring at the table wondering what just happened. Because here’s the thing, Matka King is not a bad show. Which is precisely why it’s frustratin

Love Insurance Kompany: Claim Rejected - My quick take on Tamil Movie LIK (theatrical release) I happened to celebrate Tamil New Year by watching a Tamil movie… purely by accident. Yes, a digital accident while booking tickets online. Quite poetic, because the film itself lives in the digital domain, attempting to flirt with the idea of digital detoxification. Now, forgive my limited GK of Kollywood, I scanned the screen like a lost tourist looking for familiar landmarks. Apa

A Thriller That Forgot It’s a Thriller : My quick take on web series “Kohrra S02” (Netflix) Let’s be honest, Kohrra Season 2 on Netflix is slow. It’s like a snail that gulped Red Bull… but forgot the fizz. Season 1 had set the tone beautifully, moody, gripping, quietly addictive. Season 2 smartly avoids being a direct sequel, so you can step into this foggy Punjabi world without needing a recap session. This time, the story revolves around the murder of an NRI in a Punjabi pi

Dhar’s “D-Company” : My quick take on Dhurandhar, The Revenge (Theatrical release) Dhurandhar 2 doesn’t just arrive… it storms the screen like a general who has already mapped the victory. If Part One rewrote the grammar of Bollywood’s spy thriller, The Dhar’s D Company takes that grammar, tosses it in the air, and rebuilds it into something far more audacious, layered, and, frankly, mind-boggling. Take a bow, Aditya Dhar, for crafting this deadly, dhasu, dhurandaar spectacle

“Mary”वा बन गई “Bloody”वा ! : My quick take on “Bluff” (Amazon Prime) Some actors relocate. Some reinvent. And then there is Priyanka Chopra Jonas, who has quietly turned global action into her side hustle. From chasing terrorists in Quantico to trading secrets in Citadel, she has steadily upgraded from dramatic intensity to full-contact combat credibility. The Kashibai chapter now feels like a prequel. This is the “don’t test me” sequel. If there was any lingering doubt abou

Assi Jaise Koi Nahi : My quick take on Tapsee’s “Assi” (Theatrical release) What a week. First the Men in Blue get politely flattened by the Springbocks. Then you seek emotional rehabilitation in a near empty theatre… and meet Assi. Directed by Anubhav Sinha, this gang rape drama arrives loaded with outrage, red screen flashes, and the moral intensity of a Supreme Court hearing. Intent? Noble. Execution? Exhausting. After Bheed and Afwaah, this feels like the third instalment

Its wild wild western (Ghats) : My quick take on the Malayalam movie “Rifle Club” (Netflix) It might be a sheer coincidence—or a calculated move—when the Gangs of Wasseypurwala Anurag Kashyap decided to drop his director’s hat and strip himself (literally—pun intended) to step into the Malayalam movie industry. Naturally, a bit of Bollywoodization was bound to rub off on this classy film industry. Rifle Club can easily be termed as a spaghetti western, or better yet, a parota