Upperstall

Ikka, produced and directed by Siddharth P Malhotra and currently streaming on Netflix, aims to explore the conflict between moral integrity and pragmatic survival. However, in spite of fascinating premise, the film, more often than not, struggles to sustain tension and engagement due to its convenient and superficial execution choices.

Pritam And Pedro, a six-part series directed by Avinash Arun and streaming on JioHotstar, marks Rajkumar Hirani’s debut as a producer in the OTT format. While engaging enough, the series is disappointing and  surprisingly lightweight, considering the talent associated with it . The series sees Pedro (Arshad Warsi), a middle-aged crime branch Police officer with old-school instincts who gets punished with a transfer to the cyber cell. his worst nightmare.

Shiv Rawail’s Alpha follows an assassin bent on avenging the wrongs that have defined her life. But what begins as a quest for revenge gradually turns into a search for identity as she uncovers the family ties that were taken from her at birth. Bolstered by exhilarating action set pieces and some gleefully over-the-top plot twists, this seventh instalment in the YRF Spy Universe does enough to have its moments as one of the series’ more distinctive entries.

It was towards the end of May 2023 after nearly 25 years of no contact, when Mukund Moorthy, a techie and a family friend, called me out of the blue, saying he wanted to make a documentary film. So, we met in Mumbai and discovered that we were both deeply disturbed by all the negativity around us and by how readily people fueled it by forwarding, commenting on and justifying their biases and hatred.

The Murder Of Rachel Nickell, directed by Lucy Bowden, is a true-crime documentary now streaming on Netflix. A factual companion to the fictional series, The Witness (2026), also streaming on Netflix, the film reconstructs the investigation into Rachel Nickell’s murder in 1992 while questioning the decisions that shaped it. The Murder Of Rachel Nickell begins by introducing Rachel through the memories of the person who knew her the best, her partner, André Hanscombe.

Welcome To The Jungle, the third instalment in Firoz Nadiadwala’s Welcome franchise, is an action-comedy that once again relies on an ever-expanding web of manufactured laughs. Loosely taking off from Tropic Thunder (2008), it joins this year’s growing parade of Hindi comedies that seem convinced entertainment demands the temporary suspension not merely of logic, but of expectation itself.

The Witness, directed by Rob Williams and based on the memoir, Letting Go, by Alex Hanscombe, is a miniseries streaming on Netflix. Centred on the aftermath of a real life murder case, the 3-part series comes across as a thoughtful exploration of grief and resilience, focusing on the lives of those left behind while avoiding the sensationalism commonly associated with most true crime dramas.

Homi Adajania’s Cocktail 2, a spiritual successor to Cocktail (2012), returns to a familiar emotional geometry: a man caught between two women, each vying for his affection, and placing him at the centre of a romantic tug-of-war. While the film initially gestures toward a more mature and complex engagement with relationships, it ends up getting undermined with familiar narrative shortcuts and a tilt towards a more safer conventionality.

Pritha Chakraborty’s second feature, Phera (Return), traces the tentative repair of a fractured relationship, exploring how the demands of contemporary life can erode intimacy and turn bonds of affection into distances that appear impossible to overcome. Pannalal (Sanjay Mishra) lives alone in his crumbling ancestral home in the small town of Kalindipur in West Bengal.

David Dhawan’s latest outing, Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai, revolves around an old-fashioned farcical predicament, staged in the broad style long associated with his brand of filmmaking. Beneath its chaotic energy, however, lies a film whose humor soon turns into an endurance test. Jaswinder Ahuja, aka Jass (Varun Dhawan), is a wedding photographer whose marriage to Bani (Mrunal Thakur) is collapsing under conflicting priorities. He wants children, while she remains focused on her career.