Amit Rai’s OMG 2, starring Pankaj Tripathi and Akshay Kumar, doesn’t mince words. It smartly uses religion (sanatan dharm, no less) to broach, and breach, a taboo subject.
Pathaan works because Shah Rukh Khan's raffish charm offensive makes it work, along with the eye-catching trio of Deepika Padukone-John Abraham-Dimple Kapadia.
Jawan is the old-school hero made new, and Shah Rukh Khan takes the character and runs with it.
There are a few contrivances that the plot throws up, but on the whole, 12th is a film which makes you want to celebrate the never-say-die human spirit.
The film makes the cut for the Ranveer Singh and Tota Roy Chowdhury song that imparts a genteel kick up generations of patriarchal backsides, and slides neatly into the sweet spot gender fluid persons hide in, hoping no one will out them, and makes it beautifully seen.
Three Of Us is an unlikely romance, the kind that doesn’t involve grand gestures and loud songs and dance. There’s music enough in the way scenes unfold fluidly, and tell us that when memories die, what is left is compassion.
What this two-hander starring Deepti Naval and Kalki Koechlin also does is question age-old assumptions about maternal love and come up with some uncomfortable answers.
Nandita Das’ Zwigato has Kapil Sharma in an unexpectedly fine turn as a courier guy, called ‘delivery partners’ by their heartless employers who make them work around the clock with little pay and no extras.
Both Anubhav Sinha’s Bheed and Sudhir Mishra’s Afwaah needed wider play in theatres. The films can be seen as companion pieces.
Female desire is still not a ‘topic’ that’s tackled in Hindi movies as much as it should be: this female first romp, starring Bhumi Pednekar (who’s really had a busy year, doing all kinds of different roles) and a bunch of her besties, does exactly that. Let’s talk about sex, baby.
Ratna Pathak Shah, Dia Mirza, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanjana Sanghi are an unlikely bunch who go vrooming off, helping each other out of bad patches, and getting to the highest point of their lives. Women doing their own thing? More, more.