City of Dreams Season 3 (26 May 2023)

Genre: Political Drama Crime Thriller 

Channel: Disney+ Hotstar

Language: Hindi

Season: 3

No. of Episodes: 9

Running Time: 39-50 minutes

Writer: Nagesh Kukunoor, Rohit Banawlikar

Director: Nagesh Kukunoor

Cast: Priya Bapat, Eijaz Khan, Atul Kulkarni, Sachin Pilgaonkar, Sushant Singh, Rannvijay Singha, Divya Seth, Sandeep Kulkarni, Flora Saini, Siddharth Chandekar, Adinath Kothare

Introduction:

Woven around the power struggle within the prime members of MJS, the leading political party of Maharashtra, their dark & dirty methods and conspiracies, along with their human side, plus the usual police and drug mafia fiasco, City of Dreams Season 3 is a compelling watch with obvious similarities with the real world personalities and happenings. 

Plot:

Before revealing the storyline of Season 3, let's do a quick recap of two preceeding seasons. 

Season 1 (May 2019) was about - assassination attempt on Mumbai’s political stalwart Ameya Rao Gaikwad 'Saheb' (Atul Kulkarni), the leader of MJS Party, which left him paralyzed; his dynamic daughter Poornima Gaikwad's (Priya Bapat) tough crusade to occupy the vacant seat even at the cost of assassinating her brother Ashish Gaikwad (Siddharth Chandekar) and 'Encounter' SI Wasim Khan's (Eijaz Khan) unofficial hunt for Ameya Rao's shooter and the concerned perpetrators. 

Towards the end of the season, Poornima manages to position herself as the next Chief Minister of Maharashtra!! 

Season 2 (Jul 2021) was a mish-mash of several events happening together in multiple character's lives.

Poornima took over as the CM and unleashed hell on Mehka Infra for poor construction and lost lives. She met Jagan Hejmadi 'Anna' (Sushant Singh) to rescue Purushottam (Sandeep Kulkarni), whose mystery woman (Flora Saini) was eventually revealed. She challenged Mahesh Arawle (Adinath Kothare) to a live debate and eventually met him in secrecy. Also, she prepared to inaugurate the Mumbai metro project. 

Ameya Rao came out of his convalescence and immediately started regrouping his people and working towards overthrowing Poornima. 

Towards the end of the season, Poornima's son Amit got killed in a bomb blast meant to disrupt her rally!!

Season 3 starts with Poornima being voluntarily MIA and incommunicado for three plus months on account of being unable to handle Amit's death. 

The interim CM and concerned Ameya Rao asks the reinstated Wasim to locate and bring her back, who finally tracks her in Bangkok in a dazed and self punishing mode, both mentally and physically. 

Wasim helps her to get on terms with her loss, give it the required closure albeit as much possible and gain back her normalcy. 

She returns back to Mumbai and with some initial difficulty, resumes back her CM duties.

Wasim thereafter joins the Drugs Task Force and starts making the concerned strategies and arrests there. 

Vibha (Divya Seth) the leader of the ruling party at the Centre wants to topple Ameya Rao Gaikwad and his legacy in Maharashtra for both her personal history with 'Saheb' and political ambition.

Jagdish Gaurav (Sachin Pilgaonkar), the preceeding CM and right hand man of 'Saheb' offers his alliance to Vibha and provides her some secret information against the Gaikwads plus MLAs that he breaks from MJS, so as to cancel the part's majority in the Legislative Assembly and form a new alliance government in the state. 

Alongside, he carefully maintains the old loyalist and family man card with the Gaikwad duo with full subservience. 

Media mogul Adarsh (Rannvijay Singha) is on Vibha's side for brownie points with the Centre and uses his news segment on television to render a flurry of negative news against the Gaikwads, specially targeting Poornima's Bangkok escapade. 

Eventually, the father-daughter duo, Ameya Rao and Poornima unite to protect the Gaikwad legacy in the state politics.

Poornima handles all allegations and questions with strong logic, intelligence and oodles of confidence. 

Jagdish makes a good headway in breaking the party but Ameya Rao and Poornima along with other party loyalists are able to control the damage on time by striking political & financial deals with a couple of important party members, resulting their come back to MJS, along with many others. 

Towards the end of the season, three of the leading characters are dead!! 

Watch the series to find who and how. 

Analysis:

Season 3 is inarguably the best of all the 3 seasons of City of Dreams webseries, specially in scripting and direction. 

The series has a clear focus, good direction and all the five lead artists have performed exceedingly well. They are - Priya Bapat, Atul Kulkarni, Eijaz Khan, Sachin Pilgaonkar and Sushant Singh. 

Priya Bapat is actually the main protagonist here and shares amazing chemistry with both Atul Kulkarni and Eijaz Khan. She is clearly the discovery of the season on nationwide OTT platform. Her lady like gentle smile and demure body language alongwith her leader like steely gaze is quite impressive. 

Eijaz Khan has got the role of his life and he has ably dug his teeth deep into it. He looks, walks and talks like an encounter specialist with strong loyalty to the lady CM.

Atul Kulkarni has well morphed himself into a loving and proud father of the CM, with his calculations & networking side intact. He easily switches between both the body languages. It's a treat to watch him act. 

Sachin Pilgaonkar has well carried off the complex portrayal of a party changing conniving politician who wears a permanent loyal and indulging albeit deceitful smile (or smirk). Actually, it's quite refreshing to see him in such an avatar. 

Sushant Singh looks quite believable as the stoic and ruthless Anna of minimum words. He has the minimum dialogues and still he has made his mark. 

Divya Seth and Rannvijay Singha in their relatively smaller roles are also impressive.

All the other actors have also acted well. 

Production and costume designs are bang on. Editing is impressive. 

Conclusion:

Blurring the fine line between right and wrong, the movie is a heady cocktail of political conspiracies and turbulent relationships alongwith a drug mafia angle. 

It is beautifully written, wonderfully directed and excellently acted by the aforementioned five artists. 

Do watch it.

Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai (23 May 2023)

 

Genre: Courtroom-Drama

Channel: ZEE5

Language: Hindi

Duration: 132 minutes

Writer: Deepak Kingrani

Director: Apoorv Singh Karki

Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Surya Mohan Kulshrestha, Vipin Sharma, Adrija Sinha, Kaustav Sinha

Music: Sangeet-Siddharth Roy

Editing: Sumeet Kotian

Cinematography: Arjun Kukreti

Introduction:

Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai is a courtroom-drama pulled off effortlessly and effectively by Manoj Bajpayee, the lead artist. 

Plot:

Advocate P. C. Solanki (Manoj Bajpayee) fights a solitary battle for 5 years against an uber rich, influential and highly revered godman (Surya Mohan Kulshrestha), so as to get the rightful justice to minor Nu (Adrija Sinha) wronged (read violated) by him.

As the battle advances from Session Court to High Court and finally Supreme Court, goonism is in full play by the godman's son and team, who resort to intimidation and even killing of witnesses. 

They even try to intimidate and bribe Solanki with a mammoth amount of rupees twenty crore!!

But Solanki manages to stay above greed, intimidation & fear and remains unpurturbed on his path of justice till he gives the case an examplary closure. 

Analysis:

The movie scores high on multiple grounds. 

It has a powerful script with concise screenplay. Not a single frame is lost on unnecessary built up or cheap thrill. 

The direction is quite intelligent and thoughtful. 

Violation of a minor girl and any sort of vibration around relegion or relegious gurus are two of the most sensitive matters and both form the crux of the depicted investigations and arguments in the movie. 

But Apoorv Singh Karki, the director has ably managed to maintain the required dignity & empathy in the scenes concerning Nu and he has kept the arguments against the godman quite logical and completely within the dictum of the Indian law & justice. 

Arjun Kukreti, the cinematographer has not only well captured the iconic bird's eye views of Jodhpur, the Blue City and it's crowded lanes, but he has also captured the court scenes in assorted well conceived angles, thereby making them more effective and engaging. 

Manoj Bajpayee has again surprised with an altogether new style of character portrayal. He is so good and thorough that at times you feel that he is not acting at all but just conversing. 

Watch out for his  scenes when twice big shot national level lawyers with star power and intimidating personalities visit the courts to get bail for the godmen. 

Just notice how Manoj Bajpayee expresses his awe & inspiration for them, how he is puts forward his statements against them while being completely intimidated by them and still how thoroughly he does his job with full determination!! 

Also, watch out for his closing statement at the end of the court case, wherein he uses relegion itself as the weapon to stab the sheer misdeed performed by the relegious guru. Full marks to Deepak Kingrani, the writer for writing this scene. 

All the other actors have also performed well. The editing is good. 

Conclusion:

It's an engaging and quite well made movie on an extremely sensitive topic sans any propaganda or scandalous depiction. 

The heart of the movie is in the right place. Do watch it. 

Saas, Bahu aur Flamingo (5 May 2023)

 

Genre: Crime Drama Thriller

Channel: Disney+ Hotstar

Language: Hindi

Season: 1

No. of Episodes: 8

Running Time: 40-55 minutes

Writer: Saurav Dey, Karan Vyas, Nandini Gupta, Aman Mannan

Director: Homi Adajania

Cast: Dimple Kapadia, Naseeruddin Shah, Radhika Madan, Isha Talwar, Angira Dhar, Deepak Dobriyal, Monica Dogra, Ashish Verma, Varun Mitra, Udit Arora, Jimit Trivedi, Vipin Shar

Introduction:

The storyline is set in an imaginative town Hastipur, located in the parched and arid land of north-western India, with a heavy influence of Gujarat-Rajasthan-Haryana belt.

Plot:

Rani Baa's (Dimple Kapadia) 'Rani Co-operative’ that employs an array of shunned women and exports a wide range of handicrafts and medicinal herbs is actually a cover for her well built and well hidden cocaine trade which she runs alongwith her daughter, two daughters-in-law, one adopted son and other cohorts. 

'Flamingo' is their high demand signature product, whose adultered (by a rival) version puts a politician's son in coma and resultantly catches the attention of anti-narcotics cell. 

Alongside, a dead-eyed rival named ‘Munk’ (Deepak Dobriyal) is out with full force and strategies to overthrow Rani Baa and usurp her empire. 

Analysis:

It's fascinating to see matriarchy in a narcotics centric rustic setting in full bloom, be it - shooting, hand-to-hand combat, love, sexual pursuits both without and post marriage, display of traditions in home arena and shrewd & ruthless dealings outside, liaisons with politicians and police and best of all - total secrecy from menfolk at home!! 

Homi Adajania has nailed this make believe world.

Ethnic and fusion costumes, makeup, ancient tattoos, ethnic ornaments are bang on with intricate detailing. 

The production design in totality is quite creative and detailed.

Everyone has acted well. But Dimple Kapadia in the helluva new godmother like avatar with quadrupled acting talent and confidence has outshone everybody. 

Conclusion:

Do watch the webseries for it's innovative & interesting tweak in age old screenplay, oodles of creativity and brilliant acting by most of the star cast. 

Kathal: A Jackfruit Mystery (19 May 2023)

 

Channel: Netflix

Genre: Satire Comedy Drama

Duration: 115 minutes

Producer: Shobha Kapoor, Ekta Kapoor, Guneet Monga, Achin Jain

Director: Yashowardhan Mishra

It's a light hearted fun film made with an array of both time tested and new impactful artists. 

It's a film with enough social messages, some are imparted strongly while some are just hinted upon. 

Apart from the lead trio - Sanya Malhotra, Anant V Joshi and Neha Saraf, the remaining cast comprises of - Vijay Raaz, Rajpal Yadav, Raghubir Yadav and Brijendra Kala. 

It goes without saying that each of them has served their purpose quite well. 

Sanya just lights up the screen with her toothy grin and passive comic display. 

Raghubir Yadav's comic take on an entrapped girl trafficker needs to be seen to be believed. 

The film primarily focuses on the urgent need of finding and safeguarding missing girls rather than employing the country's police force on ridiculous whims of the politicians, but alongside it also hints upon the disparity of caste system, resistance to accept the clout of lady officers both on job and at home, the media circus and last but not the least the labelling of outgoing and free spirited girls as wayward and thus deserving of mal treatment by anti socials. 

Overall, it's a nice time-pass movie.

Garmi (21 Apr 2023) ably unmasks the corrupt socio-political system around university students

 

Genre: Thriller

Channel: SonyLIV

Language: Hindi

Season: 1

No. of Episodes: 9

Running Time: 41-50 minutes

Writer: Tigmanshu Dhulia, Kamal Pandey 

Director: Tigmanshu Dhulia

Cast: Vyom Yadav, Jatin Goswami, Vineet Kumar, Mukesh Tiwari, Deepraj Rana, Anurag Thakur, Disha Thakur, Puneet Singh, Pankaj Saraswati, Pravesh Rana

About The Series:

Made with mostly newbies, it is an excellent and engaging series that depicts how the assorted hierchichal players of university to state level politics automatically choose their next key player aka the upcoming MLA  amidst the batch of unassuming serious students and knowingly-unknowingly prepare him by all means (read atrocities) to readily wear his political crown and ultimately choose the life of a hoodlum cum politician over that of an educated civil servant!!

For this, the only trait that he has to exhibit is 'garmi' i.e. anger over things that he finds wrong and the will to fight it bang on sans any worry of repercussions. 

The series ably shows how the entire political mesh up is made up of the chief minister and his aides; the local baba, police in-charge and wealthy businessmen and finally the student council's president and vice-president.

The series clearly depicts how the students council's president acts as an effective money churner for his clan even before contesting for MLA seat. 

He clearly influences the university's frequent construction and maintenance orders, all of whom are bound to go to his choice of construction company, who will earn a huge sum out of it and thereby hand him or his supporting honchos a huge commission. 

Police raids, arrests and torture inside the police lock-up are more on the whims of the police in-charge and directives received from his political coalition than what is suppose to happen as per law. 

Alongside the series displays - middle class family system, university activities, caste divide, young love & friendships, greed & betrayal by both friends and enemies etc. 

The Plot:

A young political science graduate (Vyom Yadav) aspiring to be a civil servant arrives from Lalgunj to Trivenipur University.

The once thriving vast university has reduced to being a platform of powerplay by collegiate and state level political players, a ruthless police inspector who sees himself as more than just a guardian of the law, greedy contractors, shrewd politicians and power brokers!!

How will this effect the protagonist's studies and goal of life? 

Watch the series to witness how step by step, the corrupt system sways him away from his original path and self and completely transforms his aura and mission of life!!

Analysis:

The script and direction are expectantly good. Tigmanshu Dhulia has weaved the story nicely with apt narration to eliminate confusion. 

Seasoned actors like Mukesh Tiwari, Vineet Kumar have small but effective roles and they have played their part with lot of conviction. Whereas, Jatin Goswami has a full fledged role and he has simply dug his nails into it. 

The protagonist and other young actors are all newbies, but have performed quite well. They look quite promising. 

Conclusion:

All in all, Garmi a well made series that unmasks the corrupt socio-political system that transforms aspiring students into political puppets. 

Do watch it!! 

Tooth Pari: When Love Bites (20 Apr 2023)

 

Genre: Fantasy Comedy-Horror Thriller

Language: Hindi

Season: 1

No. of Episodes: 8

Running Time: 30-47 minutes

Writer & Director: Pratim D. Gupta

Cast: Shantanu Maheshwari, Tanya Maniktala, Tillotama Home, Sikandar Kher, Saswata Chatterjee, Revathi, Adil Hussain

It's a vampire-human love story wherein a rebellious lady vampire with a damaged tooth and underground abode falls in love with a shy dentist on the streets of Kolkata, something which is a strict no-no!! 

Presence of a vampire slayer witch and her team of Cutmundoos add on to the complexity. 

Full Marks For:

... Originality and intelligent desification of foreign mythology. 

... Applaud worthy cinematography of old Kolkata lanes and houses. 

... Good acting by the entire cast, but Adil Hussain, Tillotama Shome and Sikandar Kher simply outshine everyone.

The lead pair Tanya Maniktala and Shantanu Maheshwari share good chemistry and strong onscreen presence. 

Question Mark For:

... No clarification of hero or villain. No moral message at the end of it all !! 

Do watch it !!

Lost (16 Feb 2023) Is The Latest Hindi Film Release On ZEE5 🙂

 

A young nukkad theatre activist (Tushar Pandey) suddenly disappears without much trail and no one is expressively bothered by this, except his powerless sister and mother, whose plea for investigation fall to deaf ears. 

In fact out of the blue, the police labels him a Maoist and starts questioning (read harassing) his family and associates! 

Yami Gautam, a sincere and fearless crime reporter decides to investigate the matter and uncovers the whole saga, only to realise that the activist is alive but actually lost in the complex system of personal vendettas of politicians, police and Maoists.

The film plot is examplary but linear without establishing the 'why' behind questionable actions.

The supporting characters are sketchily written. Dishy looking Rahul Khanna and intense looking Neil Bhoopalam stay absolutely unutilized and don't bring any extra edge to the story.

Yami Gautam has acted well. Pankaj Kapur has proved that however small a role is and however inconsequential the character is written, he can shine above it all. He is the only thing about the movie that has depth. 

At 124 minutes, Lost is an average film, but still it is a nice watch.