Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Leo Staar, Shaun Dingwall
Streaming on: Hotstar
Seasons: 2 seasons, 2 episodes each
To watch or not to watch: a must watch for all fans of whodunnits
Anyone who is a fan of whodunnits, will need to know only a few things:
It stars Rowan Atkinson in the titular role as an serious and intense detective
The series is set in 1960s Paris
The episodes are 90 min long and anthological
The plots are interesting and will keep you guessing
It is extremely refreshing to see Mr. Bean being so serious that he forgets to eat. This will throw the viewer off more than anything else
It is an intelligent series with slight bits of red herrings when it comes to solving the case. The most interesting part of the series are the relationships of Maigret with his constables and his wife. they all have single minded determination towards serving justice and respect each other. Not something commonly portrayed these days.
Unfortunately the series got cancelled after 2 seasons, both the seasons are worth the time.
Starring: Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Sian Clifford, Olivia Colman
Streaming on: Amazon Prime
Seasons: 2 seasons, 6 episodes each
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Season 1: Fleabag is a screw-up. She doesn’t take anything seriously, making life around her chaotic. She owns a struggling cafe, her best friend recently died (accident or suicide, unclear), her sister (Sian Clifford) is massively successful and married, her father got into a relationship with a woman who hates her after her mother’s death. So life is not going well and she is not helping matters. She gets into physical relationships indiscriminately. She doesn’t like her sister’s husband, but he likes her a bit too much, her and alcohol. Even though her relationship with her sister is rocky, she tells her about the husband coming on to the fleabag. That confrontation fired back and she is forced to look at her life’s choices.
Season 2: Fleabag turns her cafe around with the help of a loan from the bank, hasn’t talked to her sister in a year and has ended the unhealthy relationships. The family comes together for her father’s engagement party, along with the priest (Andrew Scott). He is the one person in the whole world who notices Fleabag talking to the audience. The season tackles with Fleabag’s maturity into a person who is taking her life seriously and dealing with the unpleasantness.
END OF SPOILERS
The whole series is beautiful. It is funny, smart, emotional, profound and overall a blast. It is so clever that other than a few characters, Fleabag’s best friend, her on-again-off-again boyfriend and her sister, no other character has a name. Andrew Scott stole hearts with his new-age priest character (named Priest). The interactions of Fleabag with people around her give the correct emotions we need to feel, frustration, longing, sadness, love. The Priest’s speech in the end is something to go back again and again and get perspective on love. This series is a definite must watch.
Divakar Mathur (Manoj Bajpayee) has died in a car accident. His son Dhruv (Adarsh Gaurav) has returned from his boarding school for the funeral. The death has opened a lot of questions about Divakar’s business, as he had been cheating by his friend and business partner Robin (Kumud Mishra). Divakar owed his employees salaries and the police was inquiring about fraud on his part, all a plot to frame him by Robin. Dhruv had been an angry kid, breaking the legs of his classmate in a quarrel, thus shipped off to a boarding school. He wants to find the real reason for his father’s death and get justice for him.
It is a simple movie with few characters and linear story. The creators did try to make it into a thriller, which it isn’t. At all. It is a quest of a son to get to the bottom of the mess, with people around him protecting him from the truth. All the loops and shock-value scenes are quite necessary. Get over those, and there is a beautiful story about a man’s protecting his people and his values and a son reconciling with the biggest loss a boy can.
Liza’s husband has left her with a teenage daughter and a need to find a job to support them. at 40, the job market proves difficult for Liza and at the suggestion for her best friend Maggie (Debi Mazar), she pretends to be 26. This lands her a job at a publishing house as an assistant to Diana Trout (Miriam Shor) and becomes friends with Kelsey Peters (Hillary Duff). She has everyone fooled including Josh, the sexy tattoo artist she dates.
The series follows the career and exploits of Liza as she is always in a whirlwind of her “real” life and “young” life. There is much for her to learn to keep up with the millennials and not get caught in her lie. This is a massive thing she keeps from the people close to her and this adds to all the drama in the publishing world.
It is a guilty pleasure which is superbly written. All episodes end on a cliffhanger and the viewer can’t help but binge to find out what’s going on in Liza’s life. The characters lead a busy life with endless parties, book-readings, dinners and what-nots. There are 7 seasons announced till now with each season having single-digit number of episodes. Only seasons 6 and 7 have more than 10 episodes (yay!). The series is very fast paced and has amazing soundtracks. Though it does get a bit slow in season 3, it picks back up. Season 6 is a bit of a downer, where there aren’t as many twists in the characters’ personal lives (the thing which keeps the viewers glued to the screen with popcorn).
In addition to the main storyline, there are many issues addressed like feminism, sex, drug use/abuse, LGBTQIA and the rapidly changing society – accepting people with any and all life choices. Indirectly, it also targets the changing career choices of millennials,
All in all, a good watch for a quiet night in with ice cream or popcorn.
To watch or not to watch: Better watch the original BBC Criminal Justice or the American series The Night Of
Starring: Vikrant Massey, Pankaj Tripathi, Jackie Shroff, Mita Vashist
An innocent man Aditya (Vikrant Massey) is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is regular college student, looking to get to a party by driving his father’s cab. A pretty, rich girl gets into his cab looking to hire and asks him to take her from one location to another and was obviously on drugs. Because of the delay, he misses his party and the girl invites him over to her place, where they drink alcohol, do drugs and have sex. Aditya wakes up in the middle of the night and finds the girl stabbed to death. He remembers nothing and tries to flee the scene of the crime with the murder weapon in hand. Ensues a long legal battle, Madhav Misra (Pankaj Tripathi) being the constant as legal help on the outside, even though he is way out of his depth in this case. Aditya also becomes street smart in the jail with Mustafa’s (Jackie Shroff) help, who runs a gang in the jail. The whole experience strips Aditya of his innocence and takes his family through emotional, financial and societal roller coaster.
The series is a play-by-play adaptation of The Night Of starring Riz Ahmed and John Tuturro, which is in turn an adaptation of the BBC series called Criminal Justice.
It is a 10 episode series which could have just as easily been wrapped up in 5; it is unnecessarily stretched. Pankaj Tripathi outshines everyone as always, playing the role of a down-on-his-luck lawyer with the heart of gold with élan. He is eccentric with little social skills and gives comic relief along with intensity seamlessly. Vikrant Massey is believable as a wronged college student and the character arc throughout the series is heartwarming. Jackie Shroff is given a lot of screen time to appease the star of yesteryear and is the only actor the series could have done without. If someone is watching the series, they can simply skip the parts with him in them.
There is nothing exceptional or attention grabbing in the direction or cinematography – it is primarily about acting and secondarily about the plot. It could have been much better if the social issues like the drug abuse amongst youngsters and class discrimination had been woven into the story line and made part of the reason of accusation, but they lost a lot of opportunity to make the series stand for something and be more than just storytelling. Viewers can easily swap Criminal Justice with The Night Of, which is also on Hotstar.
Tara and Karan are wedding planners at Made in Heaven. It is a new endeavour for both. Tara has to prove to the world that she isn’t gold-digger and Karan wants to be a success after the failure of his night club. They both have a lot riding on this new business and it shows by the effort they put into their clients’ wedding preparations, going beyond the call of duty.
Behind the glitter of the expensive weddings, all the members of Made in Heaven have their own personal hell to deal with. Karan is gay in a country which casts taboo on it. Tara has risen in life by marriage to the industrialist Adil (Jim Sarbh) who is mostly an absentee husband.
Things aren’t always black and white for the duo. They have to do whatever it takes to make the weddings happen. And in one case, not happen, all the while dealing with behind the scenes stuff that go into running a start-up
Each episode of the series deals with one aspect of the marriage scenario, like an anthology, with the personal lives of the protagonists being the continuous story in the background.
The series is critically well made, seamlessly dealing with the societal issues in the country, not giving goody-two-shoes solutions to them. It is a very real look at our society and how the women and homosexuals are wrongly treated, getting more respect and acceptance than a molester. There are episodes with weddings where parents want a “pure” daughter-in-law; then a bride who cheats and lies to get married; a groom who wants dowry – all the while the wedding planners swoop in to save the day. While Kalki Koechlin and Jim Sarbh are constant in the series, there are some stellar performances delivered by Neena Gupta, as a concerned mother, Deepti Naval as an elder bride, Shweta Tripathi as a bride with hidden strength.
It is refreshing to see something this norm defying by the Hindi media, specially as an original from Amazon Prime. This is completely out of the box – some moments where direction was the show stopper some where the sheer performance stole the show. This series is not for the faint of the heart; it needs an open mind and a big heart.
To watch or not to watch: A must for binge watchers over a weekend
Starring: Michael Huisman, Carla Guigno, Henry Thomas, Elizabeth Reaser, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Kate Siegel, Victoria, Pedretti, Lulu Wilson, Mckenna Grace
A family of house flippers moves into the Hill House. Nellie and Luke are the youngest twins, Theo is the middle kid, Sheryl the second eldest and Steven the eldest kid. After moving in the house, strange things start happening. all seven members experience something paranormal and unique to them. Things get progressively bad, when one day, the mother dies under suspicious circumstances and the family moves out. Fast forward a couple of decades, the siblings have moved on with their lives, each with their own issues. They need to face the old demons to get on with their lives.
There are a total of 10 episodes. The first 5 episodes focus on the lives of each kid from the time they entered the Hill House till the present time. The rest focus on the protagonist, Hill House. It has all the making of a spooky horror, a unique in its category, without the cheap shock-and-awe tactics.
The problem with Netflix shows is, the build up is too exciting and there is a lot of anticipation. The expectation is set high and the shows don’t deliver on that. In the case at hand, the story was consistent, though the conclusion was unsatisfactory; it leaves a lot to be desired. One thing needs to be said, the ending was anything but conventional. There are gaps in the storyline which are non-discernible because of the superior direction. The back and forth between present time and backstory is seamless.
To watch or not to watch: A good watch over a slow weekend
Starring: Ayushmann Khurana, Parineeti Chopra
Abhimanyu Roy aka Bubla (Ayushmann Khurana) is the best selling author of pulp horror-sex genre. He is trying to pen a romantic novel and is caught in a writer’s block for 3 years. This effort is leading him to his past and the time he met the love of his life, Bindu Shankarnarayanan (Parineeti Chopra) when he was maybe 10 years’ old. Bindu had moved in the house next to Abhi’s in Kolkata. They strike a friendship which lasts for most of their adulthood. As they grow up, they go their separate ways and drift apart. They do bump into each other’s lives periodically, and one time Abhi confesses his love to Bindu. Their relationship is good as long as it lasts, but eventually, they do part ways. All the things he has learned about Bindu and life, becomes the protagonist of Abhi’s latest book.
The movie is a potpourri of different romantic movies, a patchwork of sorts – each piece in itself will seem ordinary but together it fits beautifully. the front runner emotion in the movie is nostagia, with Abhi thinking about Bindu and his relationship, compared to the dull existence in his current life. Parineeti Chopra’s role as Bindu is a stereotyped Yash Raj girl, full of life and a rebel. Both the actors’ chemistry on screen seems natural and believable. Their history is out of When Harry Met Sally, where they keep running into each other at different stages of their lives. Towards the end, it takes on a 500 Days of Summer vibe. Because of constant back and forth between now and then, the movie is a bit choppy in parts.
Though it is not a perfect movie, it makes the audience emotional and eager to know how the lives of the characters turned out. The dialogues do not have anything worth remembering or quoting, they are downright pedantic at times. The growth of the characters from kids to middle-aged is mature and kind of validates the mistakes people make in their lives and sends a messge that lives do go on despite that. Watch the movie for the performances and the portrayal of a different mature relationship. It goes well with a glass of wine and popcorn.
To watch or not to watch: Definitely watch this one
Starring: Kay Kay Menon, Ashish Vidyarthi, Tisca Chopra, Ashwini Kalsekar
Ayesha Mahajan is found dead in her room one morning by her nanny Remi Fernandes (Ashwini Kalsekar). Her father, Dr Sachin Mahajan (Ashish Vidyarthi) is sleeping off the previous night’s alcohol in his room and her mother, Dr Aarti Mahajan (Tisca Chopra) is in Pune to perform a surgery. The police are called in to investigate the crime to their apartment, but they prove to be incompetent. There are no apparent motives for the crime and no possible way it could have happened. The case goes to CBI officer Sunil Paraskar (Kay Kay Menon), who unearths decades-old family history, filled with deceit and illicit romances.
This movie is based on the Aarushi murder case, though it has been fictionalized here. It is gripping and fast-paced from the beginning and the entire two-hour run is a nail-biter. Kay Kay Menon, in his role as an honest and intelligent CBI officer, is very convincing. The performances by every member of the cast are at par and make the movie seem lifelike. The plot with ultra-rich doctors and their complicated lives is portrayed with elegance. It is a must watch for anyone who is into a good piece of whodunit. It does get a bit “swaggy”, with Kay Kay Menon being the one with the middle-class panache, which is oft repeated, it can be forgiven for the simplicity of the movie overall
To watch or not to watch: Meh. Can watch it, or not. Not missing out
Starring: Robert De Niro, Edward Newton, Marlon Brando, Angela Bassett
Nick Wells (Robert De Niro) is a master burglar, the kind that can open any safe and undo the bobby traps lying on the way to it. He is advancing in age and decides to lead an honest life with his girlfriend. In comes Max (Marlon Brando) and Jack Teller (Edward Norton), who convinces Nick to pull the last heist worth $4 million at Montreal Customs House. Jack is working at the site as a mentally challenged janitor and gains the trust of his colleagues, which he exploits for the heist. The heist is planned entirely by Nick, though the plan isn’t without its glitches.
The movie is a typical heist movie. In fact, there are a few aspects which make it look like a prequel to The Italian Job. There are the same expected twists which seem almost obligatory in any heist movie. Compared to some of the newer movies, this had an amateurish feel to it (for example, the Ocean series). There is no taking away from the performances by any of the cast members, which is a shame for a poor script. Edward Norton is perfection as a mentally challenged man, complete with speech difficulty. This was also Marlon Brando’s last movie.
They could have written a few more twists and presented them in a way where they jump out. since the formula for any such movie is almost set in stone, it is the execution which makes all the difference. It was a heist movie, plain and simple. It laids out the rules and formulae for all the other movies of this genre to come.
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