This is #CriticalMargin, where Ishita Sengupta gets contemplative over new Hindi films and shows. Today: Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan. |
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| | | Cast: Salman Khan, Venkatesh |
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THERE ARE SOME THINGS you don’t expect from a Salman Khan film: a basic storyline, plot development, laws of physics, principles of biology, and (even) a cursory acknowledgement of women as people. Not for nothing has the actor, over several decades now, played a human-sized cardboard cutout, fought off 30 people at one go, danced with a towel between his legs and cracked a wide range of offensive jokes. I’d argue, the sooner you accept it, the better. The 57-year-old is in no mood to change, having openly expressed similar feelings. Besides, look at it as self-preservation: If you watch a Salman Khan film with zero expectations, there is no way it can break you, right? Right? Wrong. On a hot Friday morning, I woke up to watch Khan’s latest film. The alarm went off at 7.30 and like a prayer, I gave myself a pep talk. “Remember, you are not weak. He can’t do anything to you.” So far so good. Thirty minutes later I was sitting in the darkness of the theater, wildly hoping for a divine intervention — like a nation-wide electricity outage, for the projector to stop functioning, or the multiplex to crumble to the ground — to escape what had befallen me. Here I was, sitting on a chair, but mentally begging for Khan to stop. Dear Reader, this is when I must admit that despite making peace with every anticipated narrative flaw, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan broke me. I don’t recall the exact moment when my spirit left my body. It might have been at the scene when Salman’s jacket enters the frame before he does and the actor chooses to wear it mid-air. It could also be the time when the names of his brothers are revealed to be Pyaar, Ishq and Mo(habbat) who are in love with women called Muskaan, Chahaat and Sukoon. I fear the sight of Khan doing leg day in the guise of dancing might have caused my end. Or, that my sanity was disrupted when his character — excited to marry a girl visibly half his age — sings a song about cats. In the puritanical world of Salman Khan films, invoking this particular animal in a wedding song will be the closest he will come to talking about sex. But I digress. |
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Sai Dharam Tej's Virupaksha Is A Spooky, Well-made Thriller |
Surya (Sai Dharam Tej) and his mother visit their ancestral village of Rudravaram. There, Surya falls for Nandini (Smayuktha Menon). Even as things are proceeding smoothly in their love story, a series of deaths shock Rudravaram. The temple's head priest reveals that the village is haunted by an evil spirit and no one can enter or leave Rudravaram for eight days. Amid all this, Surya starts his own investigation and finds out that there is someone behind these mysterious deaths. The rest of the story follows how Surya unravels the mystery and saves the entire village. — AVAD MOHAMMAD |
| Tigmanshu Dhulia's Garmi Ends Up As A Tepid Affair |
"Yahan, ya toh log bante hai ya total barbaad ho jaate hai." This is one of the more memorable dialogues in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Garmi. Guess which category the show falls into? You end up investing nine hours in a story that revolves around student politics and three central characters. Garmi features a crowd in the guise of a cast. There are over 40 characters in the show and they all get their due space on screen, even if there’s not much to tell about them. It's one disappointment after another, till the narrative finally comes together as it reaches the last episode. — SHAHEEN IRANI |
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| Each week, our editors pick one long-form, writerly piece that they think is worthy of your attention, and dice it into easily digestible bits for you to mull over. |
| In which we invite a scholar of cinema, devotee of the moving image, to write a prose poem dedicated to their poison of choice. Expect to spend an hour on this. |
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