Force of Nature

VIDUTHALAI PART 2| Director: Vetrimaaran Cast: Soori, Vijay Sethupathi | Theatres

You separate humans from birth from top to bottom to side. “Aren’t you the separatists here?” asks Perumal (Vijay Sethupathi), the leader of the People’s Army, which is fighting against the takeover of their village by a mining company. The state has launched Operation Ghosthunt for him, but he remains elusive. While the first part, released in 2023 dealt with the life of the ordinary policeman, Kumaresan (Soori), caught between his corrupt bosses and the angry rebels, the second part draws down on the psychology of a so-called separatist, who chooses violence as the only answer to oppression. Sethupathi is magnetic as a man who leads from the front, as much as Soori was heartbreaking as the police­man whose job often is to bide his time.

KALKI 2898 AD | Director: Nag Ashwin | Cast: Prabhas, Kamal Haasan, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan | Theatres

A dystopian universe, Prabhas as the saviour, a stellar director coming off a huge hit. No, we’re not talking about Salaar. Nag Ashwin, who recreated the world of Telugu star Savitri in Mahanati, has turned his attention to a full scale science-fiction universe which was enough to get fans excited at Comic Con. With Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, and Saswata Chatterjee adding firepower to the cast, one can only hope that Prabhas’ dialogue delivery has improved. With cinematography by Djordje Stojiljkovic, the film teaser says it all: “In a world taken over by darkness, a force will rise,” before the camera moves to Prabhas rising to full height. The end begins now.

MERRY CHRISTMAS| Director: Sriram Raghavan | Cast:Vijay Sethupathi and Katrina Kaif | Theatres

Sometimes violence is better than sac­rifice, says Vijay Sethupathi’s voiceover in Merry Christmas. That may well be the defining phrase of the whole year in Indian cinema, where post-pandemic North-South collaborations are finally bearing fruit to unveil a series of macho, muscular heroes who have marauding visions. Sriram Raghavan’s thriller with Sethupathi and Katrina Kaif is an art house version of the noisy spectacles that have been planned and its pleasures are very specific to Raghavan’s style of film­making. Easter eggs of old cult classics, beautiful women with deep, dark secrets, men who think they are smarter than they are, and a series of twists and turns that would confuse a pretzel.

STOLEN| Director: Karan Tejpal | Cast:Abhishek Banerjee, Shubham Theatres

Two urbane young men at a railway station help a poor woman look for her child. Has he been kidnapped, or is he lost? What starts as an uneasy confron­tation between entitled and disenfran­chised India becomes a more complex movie where the privileged themselves are polarised among those who care and those who look away. Taken from a real life mob lynching, the film, like Sudhir Mishra’s Afwaah, is an examina­tion of social attitudes and how they often have nothing to do either with economic class or education.

FIGHTER | Director: Siddharth Anand | Cast:Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, Anil Kapoor | Theatres

Deepika Padukone in a bikini wrapped around a bare chested man in a turquoise sea with foreign extras swaying in vaguely Bol­lywood moves to vaguely familiar tunes. Normally, one would pass on what seems to be an aerial version of Pathaan, but there is some­thing irresistible about magnificent men and one woman in their flying machines. Patty, Minni and Rocky, here they come.

BERLIN| Director: Atul Sabharwal | Cast:Aparshakti Khurana, Ishwak Singh | Theatres

It’s been raining spies across mainstream and indie movies in Hindi. Berlin prom­ises more claustrophobic suspense and some dramatic confrontations. It is 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin is about to visit India, and a hearing and speech- impaired young man, Ashok (Ishvak Singh) is accused and arrested by the Bureau for his alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate Yeltsin. He could be KGB, ISI, CIA, or all three, or none of them, says the espionage boss, played with perfect abruptness by Rahul Bose. A mild-mannered teacher, Pushkin (Aparshaki Khurrana) is brought as a sign language interpreter. When he asks for a detailed job description, and says he has been given only a brief, all Bose tells him is this: “It is a brief, hence it is brief, not in detail.” Delicious in its bureaucratic intricacy, it is the flipside of the Tiger/ Pathaan globe trotting franchise. “It is a matter of national security, the government wants to know, the country needs you.” In Bose, you will find echoes of today’s TV screamsters.

PUSHPA: THE RULE| Director: Sukumar | Cast: Allu Arjun, Fahadh Faasil, Rashmika Mandanna | Theatres

The last time we saw Bhanwar Singh (Fahadh Fasil), he was stripped to his underpants and frustrated at Pushpa’s continued existence. Pushpa (Allu Arjun), the king of red sandalwood smug­glers, returns to trouble him, with his signature mix of insolent bravado and mother-worshipping victimhood. He told a police officer in Pushpa: The Rise, “The world has given you a gun.” He adds, “It has given me an axe.” And when the axe swings, there will be blood. “Pushpa won’t bend,” he promised us. It won’t stop Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat from trying to force him to do so.

Performances: Standout Stars

Where the real and the epic meet

1. KAMAL HAASAN

Much before Jawan, there was Indian in 1996, with father and son both played by the same actor, and both bent upon expos­ing corruption. We now have Indian 2, again with Shankar at the helm, and Kamal Haasan back as Senapathy from Singapore who cannot resist using tall, sharp objects as spears and stabbing various vil­lains. There will be a lot of Kamal-spotting in 2024. He will be seen in Nag Ashwin’s Kalki 2898 AD and in Thug Life, which he is currently shooting with Mani Ratnam.

2. MOHANLAL

His work defies age and in 2024, he shows no signs of slowing down. Malaikottai Vaaliban has the scale of an epic and with his muscu­lar frame and distinctive voice, he is mesmerising as a strongman. “Sight is the only truth. All unseen is a lie. Everything you have known yet is bluff. That which shall unfold now is the truth.” The movie was shot across several geographies for over 130 days, unusual for Malayalam movies, which usually have far quicker turnaround times.

3. KAREENA KAPOOR KHAN

She is all glamour in The Crew, where she plays an air steward, along with Kri­ti Sanon and Tabu, but it is in The Buckingham Murders where she truly blossoms as a grieving mother, Jaspreet Bhamra, who has to solve a crime that seems all too personal. Directed by Hansal Mehta, The Buck­ingham Murders continues Khan’s evolution as an actor with maturity and tenacity playing a woman who has lost her child to a shooting spree, and is assigned a case of a missing child.

4. ALIA BHATT

She was all prickly prettiness in Rocky aur Rani kii Prem Kahani, and cool young hacker in Heart of Stone, but Jigra should give her something to truly sink her teeth into. Vasan Bala’s mix of action and emotion­alism is always a delight to watch (Mard ko Dard Nahi Hota, 2018, and Monica O My Darling, 2022) and as a sister out to protect her brother, Jigra should stretch her skills.

5. PANKAJ TRIPATHI

Biopics are tricky for actors. They can either go over­board in mimicking their subject, or they can capture their essence on screen without descending into impersonation. In Main Atal Hoon, we will see Pankaj Tripathi do a remarkable job in encap­sulating the spirit and the soul of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, one of the coun­try’s most beloved politi­cians. The dramatic pauses, the use of hands, and the tilt of the head are as per­fect as is the enunciation.

6. KONKONA SEN SHARMA

The actor rarely puts a foot wrong, etching women of heartbreak who refuse to accept their circum­stances. In Anurag Basu’s Metro…In Dino, she revisits the spirit of the single woman pluckily in search of love. In Killer Soup, she plays Swathi, a woman who has waited a long time to get what she wants, endured many indignities and survived many men to get the restaurant of her dreams. Yet there is a part of her that still believes in love. Few women can play flawed women with such belief, creating compel­ling and memorable characters.

7. PRITHVIRAJ SUKUMARAN

The actor’s cinematic out­put is so vast and prolific that it is all too easy to gloss over the work that goes into creating each character. As with every year, Prithviraj has many releases but it is as a man battling the desert in Blessy’s The Goat Life that he truly comes to life. Based on a real-life story of Najeeb (and on Benyamin’s Malayalam book of the same name), a Malayali immigrant who was sold as a goatherd in Saudi Arabia, the film has been a passion project for both Blessy and Prithviraj.

8. JR NTR

Jr NTR is always exciting to watch onscreen and the suc­cess of RRR has given him a particular sheen. Much is expected from him in Devara Part I, a self-proclaimed epic starring Saif Ali Khan as a worthy opponent. Directed by Koratala Siva, Devara has several underwater se­quences, for which needed Jr NTR had to train for extensively.

9. VIJAY VARMA

If 2023 was Vijay Varma’s breakout year, 2024 prom­ises to solidify his creden­tials as a leading man. He has roles lined up in IC 814, a Netflix series based on the 1999 hijacking, as well two Netflix movies, Afghani Snow, co-starring Tripti Dimri, and Murder Mubarak, with Sara Ali Khan. What should stand out is his reported role in the untitled Sujoy Ghosh thriller with Shah Rukh Khan and his daughter Suhana Khan.

10.DILJIT DOSANJH

The actor-singer’s easy-go­ing charm belies an actor of considerable gravitas. We will see him in Imtiaz Ali’s Amar Singh Chamkila based on the eponymous Punjabi pop singer who was shot dead, along with his singer wife, Amarjot, at the height of militancy in Punjab in 1988. The movie is expected to revisit the tal­ented singer’s music and life, both of which are now the stuff of legend.

About The Author

Kaveree Bamzai

Kaveree Bamzai is an author and a contributing writer with Open

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