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  • Top 5 Indian Thrillers

    Top 5 Indian Thrillers

    With Phir Aaye Haseen Dilruba, a serviceable thriller streaming on Netflix, let’s look at some of the best thrillers to grace the silver screen in India.

    In no particular order…

    KAUN (1999)

    This Ram Gopal Varma film, starring Manoj Bajpayee and Urmila Matondkar, and written by Anurag Kashyap, is a one of a kind almost 3 parter (Sushant Singh being the third character who enters later in the story).

    A taut thriller about a stranger wanting an entry into a house inhabited by a lady who’s alone, it keeps you on the edge of your seat till the end.

    ITTEFAQ (1969)

    This tightly wound thriller comes from Yash Chopra, starring Rajesh Khanna and Nanda, and was an excellent vehicle to showcase something different from both Yash Chopra & Rajesh Khanna, who are probably known for their romantic sides.

    A story of just one night, this was remade in 2017 with Siddharth Malhotra, but to no great effect.

    KAHAANI (2012)

    This Sujoy Ghosh film, with a cracker of a trailer and a spectacularly calibrated performance from Vidya Balan, and a fantastic supporting cast mostly of veterans from Bengali cinema, had such strong word of mouth that it didn’t take long for the film itself to become a modern cult classic.

    Vidya Balan stars as a woman searching for her missing husband in the beautiful chaos that is Kolkata, and the many truths and untruths that are uncovered.

    And who can forget Saswata Chatterjee as Bob Biswas, the insurance selling hitman who spawned his own spin-off.

    UGLY (2013)

    Ugly, Anurag Kashyap’s sucker punch of a movie, starring Rahul Bhat (an actor rarely seen but so effective), Ronit Roy and other Kashyap regulars, tells a tale of disappearance, of a small girl in a city bustling with bad men & women who’re crooks, and good men & women, who’re crooks.

    The labyrinth of ugliness leads deeper & deeper, until things get truly…ugly.

    KHAMOSH (1985)

    This Vidhu Vinod Chopra film, jam packed with actors from the so-called parallel cinema movement of the 80s (Naseeruddin Shah, Amol Palekar, Shabana Azmi, Pankaj Kapur and many more, are all stellar here), is a whodunnit set against the making of a film within the film.

    Almost student film like, shot on a shoestring budget, the film still holds good after so many years.

    What do you think of the films in this list?

    Any other favorite thrillers of yours that you’d want to see here?

    Use the comments section to let us know.

  • Indian 2

    Indian 2

    Indian 2 – A Short Review

    How the mighty have fallen.

    Shankar, the man who once gave us Robot (Enthiran in Tamil) and Sivaji, and Kamal Haasan, one of Indian Cinema’s all time greats, the finest of fine actors who made us cry in Sadma and laugh in Michael Madana Kamarajan and marvel at in a movie as recent as Vikram (2023), come together to deliver a huge, huge disappointment. And that’s putting in mildly.

    The story starts okay, with Siddharth (Rang De Basanti) and his team of social media vigilantes appealing for the return of Indian ‘Thatha’ (Indian grandpa 🙂 ) to fight never ending social evils, and voila! we have Senapathi, now teaching his special martial arts in a small school in Taipei, react almost immediately, & make his return to India, as the bane to industrialists, babus, & other such indulging in bribes, black money & what not.

    So we have a horribly made-up Kamal Haasan (how did make up from the 90s look better than 2024??), punching an embarassed-looking Gulshan Grover with his index finger in the navel (I kid you not), with Mr Grover turning into an effeminate man blushing at Indian thatha’s sight (again, I kid you not).

    And did I tell you just before this travesty, we are made to witness a gold plated tortoise (yes…a tortoise) crawl up the navel of a barely dressed model who we have seen dance in an item number for no reason!

    And so the movie progresses.

    As Senapathi streams live (!!) on Facebook from museums & goes after social evil!

    S J Suryah, sporting the gaudiest of dresses and shoes, makes an appearance as the main man to be taken down, & probably the main man to be taken down again in Indian 3, a sequel to this sequel well in the works.

    Who’s going to tell Shankar & Kamal, again – all time greats in their fields – to stop with the embarrassment?

    I, for one, hope they change things around & Indian 3 looks & feels like a totally different film.

    A small story change right at the top, with a younger actor picking up the reins from Senapathi, with Senapathi secretly guiding him, & being the kingmaker behind the new king of anti-corruption, would have done great service to the whole movie.

    Other departments are strictly okay, with Anirudh’s background score & music being the worst of the lot, all noise with no room for subtlety.

    Watch Indian 2 on Netflix, where it is streaming now. Though it isn’t a recommendation, perhaps just for love of the great Kamal and Shankar.

  • Thangalaan

    Thangalaan

    This part-period, part-folkore, part-fantasy & part-social-commentary movie by Tamil film director Pa Ranjith, and starring Chiyaan Vikram (of Ponniyin Selvan fame) releases this week.

    Check this space for reviews and more updates.

    Meanwhile, tell us what you expect from the movie in the comments section!