Kishkindha Kaandam (Malayalam)

On Hotstar: https://www.hotstar.com/in/movies/kishkindha-kaandam/1271336670 . I saw it in Malayalam with English subtitles.

This is a 2 hour movie. For the first 1 hour, it is slow. It is so slow that you may be fed up and feel like giving up.

But then it suddenly grabs you. And refuses to let go. What seemed mundane is now interesting. What was ordinary takes on a new meaning, and you are hooked.

Where this movie starts and where it ends up are poles apart. The journey that it takes the viewer on is just superb, because of the screenplay. It's amazingly well written.

It starts off with the discovery that a gun belonging to a grumpy ex Army officer Appu Pillai (Vijayaraghavan) is missing. This discovery coincides with the second marriage of his son, Ajay Chandran (Asif Ali), to Aparna (Aparna Balamurali).

From a missing gun we go to a missing person - in this case it is Ajay's son from his previous wife, Chachu. 3 years ago, Chachu had gone missing at the same time that his mother suffered a serious medical emergency. At that time, only the grandfather Appu Pillai was at home.

The entire household is centered around adjusting to the old man and his weird habits. He trusts no one, and flies into a rage whenever someone enters his room.

We slowly discover the reason for his grumpiness. Appu Pillai suffers from major memory loss. He can't remember things at all - short or long term. He has devised ways to fight it. But it is a losing battle. He tries desperately to find his lost grandson.

Amidst all this, a small body is found buried on the grounds - it has been put in the ground 3 years ago. Whose body is it?

Aparna, the new daughter-in-law, not only adjusts to all this, but tries to be a part of the household. She finds Appu burning documents from time to time. What is in those documents?

She (and the viewer) can't make up their mind - is Appu Pillai really that forgetful or is he pretending? And is he guilty or innocent? And if guilty, of what exactly?

The side characters like Sumadathan (Jagadish) and Sivadasan (Ashokan) do a good job as well.

Asif Ali and Aparna Balamurali are good at their roles.

But the star of the movie is the father / grandfather Vijayaraghavan. One of the best performances that I have seen in some time. His character grows on you as the movie progresses.

The main question we are asked is this: Is it sometimes better to forget certain things than remember them? 

If you create your own reality, is that a better deal than actual reality?

The cinematography is the icing on the cake. You feel as if you are there, in the small village, far away from it all. All sights and sounds have been captured well. 

The screenplay is masterful. By the time the movie ends, you forget that you got fed up for half of the running time :-).

I will heartily recommend this. Family friendly as well.

Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein (Hindi) (Netflix series)

How far can obsession take you? Usually it is from the view point of the stalker or the one with the obsession. 

But this Netflix series is from the other side - the one who is the object of the obsession (the target).

Vikrant Singh Chauhan (Tahir Raj Bhasin) is a normal person with 

dreams in a small city. 

He has a girlfriend, Shikha (Shweta Tripathi). He is an engineer, and is certain of getting a job in a big city where he plans to ultimately settle down after marrying her.

But fate has other plans. Purva Awasthi (Anchal Singh) is the daughter of the big shot politician Akheraj Awasthi (Saurabh Shukla). 

Purva was Vikrant's classmate in school. She had gone away as a child for a long time, and comes back just as he completes his Engineering.

Purva had always liked Vikrant, and it has turned into an obsession. Vikrant's father, 

Suryakant Chauhan (Brijendra Kala) is Akheraj Awasthi's accountant cum money manager. 

Brushing aside Vikrant's choices, he gets him a job in the Awasthi household.

And there the downfall begins. Vikrant tries to get out of the current job. 

He tries to get the job in another city that he wants, to start a new life with Shikha.

But Akheraj, and his nephew, Purva's cousin, Dharmesh (Surya Sharma) scuttle anything and everything he has planned. 

His job applications get rejection replies. 

On top of that, his family is harassed - electricity and water is cut off, legal notices come, etc.

Vikrant has no choice. He stays in the town. 

Everything else goes back to normal.

But Vikrant knows that he is a "marked man" in another sense.  All roads are leading to Purva.

Vikrant tries all tricks that he can to get out of it. Including trying to kill Purva.

He takes the help of his good friend called "Golden" (Anant Joshi) in his schemes.

Over Season 1, we see the moral decay of Vikrant as he tries to get out of the end game which is his nuptials with Purva.

Purva is ruthless, and the only thing she will not do is kill Vikrant. 

Anything else is ok with her.

So the game continues. People die, get hurt, many twists and turns.

But ultimately in Season 1, Vikrant has to marry Purva.

In Season 2,  Vikrant is obsessed with killing Purva since that is the way out. 

It gets even darker.

He gets a hitman to kill her, but the hitman Jalan (Arunoday Singh) is extra smart. 

He recognizes Purva, and kidnaps her for a huge ransom of Rs 1000 crore instead.

There are also new characters. 

Sherpa (Varun Badola). He offers Aditya Rs 3000 crore if he brings Purva to him instead of to Akheraj.

Guru (Gurmeet Choudhary), who has a very soft spot for Purva.

He's the desi Tom Cruise type who has a team that tries to rescue Purva from Aditya.

He suspects Vikrant, but can't prove anything.

Vikrant helps Aditya since his goose will be cooked if the truth is found.

Along the way, bodies fall like ninepins. There's more gore in Season 2 than in Season 1.

Amongst all this, Purva is like a cat with nine lives. She bounces back every time. Plus she is pregnant with Vikrant's child.

Purva finds out the truth in this season. She catches Shikha, Vikrant and others before they can flee to Nepal.

The series ends with a cliffhanger where Vikrant is shown to be shot in a 

totally different location and bleeding. 

What happened between Purva catching him and him ending up in 

a ragged state, fighting for his life is a mystery.

What will happen next is left as a question - Season 3 will definitely come.

Vikrant's moral decline is shown excellently by the director. Tahir Raj Bhasin does 

justice to this author backed role.

Purva does her part well. The facets to her personality - obsessive and 

trusting towards Vikrant, ruthless otherwise are shown well.

Shikha is not a well etched character. In spite of her family suffering so much, 

she still doesn't leave Vikrant. It's pretty inexplicable, especially in Season 2.

Arunoday Singh does another good job as Jalan the contract killer. 

He has a lot of clarity on what he wants, which is more than what you 

can say for most of the characters in the series.

Anant Joshi does a good job as Golden. But his character flounders and 

then comes back on track multiple times.

Brijendra Kala as Vikrant's father delivers yet another solid performance, as befits his calibre.

You can identify with the father's exasperation towards what he thinks is the sheer lunacy of his son. 

But at the same time, he can't abandon him.

Surya Sharma as Dharmesh does what is expected. 

His character is a little uni-dimensional, but he does justice to the role.

Varun Badola as Sherpa is good, as expected. But far too short a role to enjoy his acting.

As usual, a solid performance by Saurabh Shukla as Akheeraj Awasthi. 

The ability to act with silence, and inspire fear by just a look, is an art. And Saurabh Shukla has it.

Season 1 is better than Season 2. Whenever Season 3 comes, I will have low expectations because it should have logically ended with the 2nd season.

Note: There is a lot of blood gore in this series. So those who don't like it should be forewarned.

Gyarah Gyarah (Web thriller series) (Hindi)

 Gyarah Gyarah (Hindi thriller web series, Zee 5)

Gyarah Gyarah is a Hindi fantasy thriller, inspired by the Korean drama series Signal. 

It is a thriller that investigates crimes that span three different years in three different decades - 1990, 2001 and 2016.

The three central police characters in this tale :

1. Inspector Shaurya Anthwal (1990), played by Dhairya Karwa
2. Inspector Yug Arya (2016), played by Raghav Juyal
3. Vamika Rawat (1990 to 2016, first as Shaurya's junior and in 2016 as Yug's immediate superior officer)

Set in Uttarakhand, you have Yug Arya, who's a different kind of police officer. He doesn't believe in the police bureaucracy. His north star is justice, rather than following orders by his superiors blindly.

Vamika is the common thread connecting both of them in a sense, but she doesn't know it yet. As Yug's senior, she doesn't know about this magical connection, and plods on diligently to solve cases by the book. She has an unrequited love for her ex-boss, Shaurya, who mysteriously disappeared one day many years ago. Vamika has been steadfastly waiting for him, rejecting all proposals that her mother painstakingly brings her way.

Yug and Vamika complement each other well. He wants to work outside the system, whereas she is very determined to work within it. But both are dedicated to justice.

One day, Yug responds to a call on a very ordinary looking police walkie-talkie. Soon, he discovers that it allows him to establish a connection with Shaurya, across a vast gap in time - at the same time each time. This connection, however, lasts for exactly one minute only. Together they work across the boundaries of time on multiple cases, starting with the kidnapping and murder of a little girl. 

Since the call / connection lasts only 1 minute, and also it cannot be anticipated when the call will happen, both have to plan in advance what they want to say to each other. Especially Yug, since he is solving the cases in the present. 

Shaurya was handicapped by outdated forensic technology of his time - no DNA analysis, fancy instruments that give more detailed or precise reports, etc. Yug has this advantage, and hence is able to prove certain crimes that Shaurya just couldn't in his time. This sends a ripple effect into the future which affects the present.

Time is a major factor in the series. A Cold case unit is set up after successful resolution of the first case. This gang of incorrigible, defiant police officers is given really old cases. Including a serial killer one, which had shaken up the police many years ago.

There's a law that is coming into effect that cases older than 15 years are not to be investigated anymore. So the team has to race against the upcoming statute of limitations in the very first case. 

Messing with time, as expected, has unintended consequences or side effects.

When the relation of the story to the title is made clear, it is a small but delicious moment for the viewer.

Shah Rukh Khan himself has said that he has five standard expressions and he works with those limits. 

By that comparison, Kritika Kamra has two. 

One expression is when her character (Vamika Rawat) is in love, and one for everything else. The "in love" expression is her patent one, reserved for Shaurya Anthwal, and the remainder for the rest of the series. But she delivers her dialogues with the requisite punch.

Shaurya Anthwal (Dhairya Karwa) is a simple character. Lot of action, less thinking. He is brave and doesn't fear to tread anywhere. But detection doesn't come as easily to him. Yug's help takes him in the right direction many times.

The best of the lot is Raghav Juyal (Yug Arya). A troubled back story. A dear one dying by suicide. Being a witness to the kidnapping of the girl as a small child himself. All have left an indelible mark on him and made him what he is today. He is only after justice, by almost any means necessary.

Harsh Chhaya, such a talented actor, is criminally wasted. As the IG of Police, he is keen on doing things that are politically correct or advantageous to him and his unit rather than the right thing to do. 

His philosophy is that someone has to be found guilty of the crime, and the case must be closed. Whether that person actually did the crime or not, is immaterial.

But Harsh is stuck using "b****ch**" as a punctuation symbol in every sentence (comma, full stop, exclamation, etc.). And you can make out that giving gaalis is not his forte. So it seems really forced. 

Ironically his character is the only one giving cuss words, and is the sole reason why this can't be called a family friendly series.

There are flashes of brilliance, though. Brijendra Kala's portrayal of a decent man torn between duty to justice and to his loved one, touches your heart.  Nitesh Pandey gives what probably was his last (or one of his last) performances, and makes you miss him. Gautami Kapoor as the grieving mother fighting for justice for her daughter, who was kidnapped and killed 15 years ago (2001), gives just the right touch to her role.

The direction is taut. Grips you most of the time and doesn't leave you feeling bored. No fancy theories about time are spun, and things are kept simple - mess with time and something else will change.

Right now only Season 1 is playing. Season 2 is strongly indicated.

In short, will definitely recommend.

Rautu Ka Raaz (Hindi) (Zee5)

Slow film, but very nice. Set in a small village (Rautu Ki Beli, Uttarakhand), it shows a slowly deepening murder mystery.

Normally nothing happens here. Very cozy place. Fixed itinerary for everyone, especially the police compared to other places.

But then something happens. The location is a school for the blind. The warden (female) has died. It seems it is a natural death.

But then the autopsy report says - "suspicious death". Now the investigation starts. Everyone has something to hide. And the needle of suspicion starts to point towards the owner / trustee of the school - a local big man called Manoj Kesari.

Nawazuddin as the inspector / SHO ("Deepak Negi - tez hai par ajeeb hai"), who himself suffers from a form of PTSD, is the main character. But all the others are well etched too. All the folks in the police station, the various characters in the school - Principal downwards - are endearing.

The way the dead warden's (Narayani Shastri) character evolves in the viewer's eyes as more information tumbles out is done very well.

There's political pressure, love, complex relationships, greed, etc. It just seamlessly swirls from one scene to another. It manages to keep you engaged till the end.

It's not a top notch mystery at all. But something about it just feels good. Family friendly- a bonus.

https://www.zee5.com/movies/details/rautu-ka-raaz/0-0-1z5577122

Maharaja (Tamil)

A film that starts off looking like a comedy, turns seriously dark and also has a twist at the end.

A salon owner - Maharaja (Vijay Sethupati) comes to the Police station to file a complaint for a missing iron dustbin called "Lakshmi". At first he is not at all taken seriously. Lot of hilarity ensues. 

But when he is willing to pay ₹7,00,000 for it, the police start giving it top priority.

The real reason for his quest comes later. Slowly but surely the movie turns darker and darker with intrigue added to the mix. The end has a twist that few would see coming.

Nithilan Saminathan - the director - has a non sequential approach to story telling. It works for the most part.

Anurag Kashyap as a villainous character does a good job. 

Vijay Sethupati is fantastic. He doesn't let you feel any gaps in the story. Makes it all look easy.

There is violence which is gruesome at times. Definitely not a family friendly one.

All in all, will definitely recommend if you have the stomach for it.

https://www.netflix.com/in/title/81690671?s=a&trkid=13747225&trg=cp&vlang=en&clip=81727943

Anweshippin Kandethum (Malayalam)

Anweshippin Kandethum --> Seek and you shall find. This Malayalam movie lives up to its title. I saw it on Netflix.

The movie is a police procedural drama. Set in 2 parts, it joins both of them quite well.

SI Anand Narayanan (Tovino Thomas) has always thought differently from other police officers. He is more interested in solving a case correctly than sucking up to his superiors. 
Naturally this independent streak gets him into trouble. 

The movie starts with him being suspended, and waiting to meet the SP. In between he starts remembering the case that got him suspended.

Anand was the initial lead into a murder of a young girl, Lovely Mathan. He suspected the hand of someone in the nearby monastery, but is prevented by his superiors from going ahead. The superiors frame a history sheeter and try to beat him into confessing. Any suggestions given by Anand are dismissed. He is sent to get biryani for them instead of taking part in the investigation.

But Anand bypasses them, and uses proper police investigation to arrive at who murdered Lovely. He learns some shocking secrets along the way.

Unfortunately, as the team is taking the killer to the court, he/she escapes. After a chase, the killer is run over by a train and dies.

The team bears the brunt of his/her death. They are suspended for negligence. Not only are they branded killers in public opinion, but also they don't get the satisfaction of having proven in court that they were right.

Flashback ends, present begins. The SP (who is sympathetic to them, unlike the previous superiors) gives them a cold case. 6 years old. Another young girl (Sridevi) was murdered. Multiple teams have tried to solve it, including a reputed officer, and failed.

The team takes it because 

a) They get something to do

b) If they fail, nobody is going to say anything because others have failed before.

The team goes to the village, which is highly antagonistic to them because the previous police had used heavy handed means while investigating. 

But slowly and surely, they make progress. Thread by thread they unravel the mystery. And find the culprit.

Who was the actual murderer comes as a real shock in the end (at least I couldn't guess it). 

The cinematography captures the essence of the village in both cases. The lives of ordinary people, the simmering politics, buried resentments, the tension in the air when people have to deal with police, all are presented well.

The movie never develops a fast tempo. But that I think is deliberate. It is a relatively slow, but not at all boring journey. The emotions in the team, their highs and lows, all are captured pretty well.

There is no gore, no extra bloody scenes. Just plain mystery, and the unravelling of it. It makes this a wonderfully different film, and totally family friendly.

All in all, recommended.

Kadak Singh (Movie)

 Saw Kadak Singh on Zee5 (Hindi).

A man  - A. K. Srivastava (Pankaj Tripathi) apparently tries to commit suicide, and ends up in the hospital. There it is discovered that he now has retrograde amnesia due to the suicide attempt. 

The amnesia is so bad that he doesn't even remember his own daughter. He only remembers his younger son, that too at year 5 (the son is now 17, the daughter is older).

A. K. was investigating a major chit fund scandal as part of his work at the Department of Financial Crimes (DFC). He suspects that his suicide(?) was related to that scandal's investigation. Interestingly, one of his colleagues had earlier committed suicide a few days earlier, and he too was looking into the same case.

His extremely strict demeanour at home has led his children to give him the nickname of "Kadak Singh".

Since he remembers almost no one, he trusts no one. The Rashomon effect method is used well in this movie. There is a daughter Sakshi (Sanjana Sanghi), a love interest Naina (Jaya Ahsan) - his wife died in an accident years ago, a colleague, a boss, a head of the department. Everyone tells their own version of the story. 

It is A. K. who has to put the pieces together, and decide which pieces are correct and which are false.

A. K. may have forgotten people and places, but his procedural memory - he was the top investigator at his department - is intact. In all of this he is helped by the nurse at the hospital - Ms. Kannan (Parvathy Thiruvothu). She is the only one he can trust, because she has no vested interest in him or the events surrounding him.

The supporting cast is good. Sanjana Sanghi is an unexpected pleasant surprise. She showcases all the aspects of being an elder daughter in a house with a dead mother and a "married to his work" father, and a druggie younger brother, well.

Arjun (Paresh Pahuja) as the devoted junior colleague, who has full faith in his boss' ethics, and Tyagi (Dilip Shankar) as A. K.'s boss, do a good job. So does Naina as his love interest. 

The surprise package is the nurse, Kannan. With extremely limited scope, she still manages to show so many emotions as to endear herself to you.

Amidst all of this, Pankaj Tripathi stands tall. His eyes are expressive. His acting is as close to perfect as can be. He is one of my favorites, and proves again how good he is in this film.

Where the film lacks is in pace. It is slow (but steady). And is hampered by the fact that it is shot mostly indoors (hospital), thereby limiting the options for increasing the tempo.

But overall, will definitely recommend.