There’s been so much interesting content on OTT. Subhash K Jha picks his Best Original Feature Films on digital platforms.
Khufiya
Where to watch: Netflix
Khufiya is many things at the same time.
It is on the topmost layer an espionage thriller about a spy at R&AW, selling confidential information to the neighbouring country.
Ali Fazal plays this character with such straggling imprecision that I thought we would lose focus on the spy’s brazen antics (how did he get away with it for so long?)
Director Vishal Bhardwaj wastes no time in exploring hazy characters played by lazy actors.
His focus is the ever-resplendent Tabu, who has earlier created enduring magic for the director in Maqbool and Haider.
In Khufiya, Tabu plays a number of roles. Her spy-with-a-secret Krishna Mehra is a sum-total of so many elusive emotions that I shudder to think what she would have been in lesser hands.
Cutting through the acres of ambiguity and symbolisms that run through his work, Bhardwaj delivers his most coherent and compelling film in years.
Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Gaya
Where to watch: Neflix
A good looking film with heart, debutant Director Arjun Varain Singh has cast Sidhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday and Adarsh Gourav as best friends, negotiating their way through dating, heartbreak and other modern emotional ailments.
Sharply written and convincingly performed, not only by the trio (Panday is a surprise) but also every actor in the smallest of roles.
This is the surprise of the year.
Mast Mein Rehne Ka
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
In this era of toxicity, Mast Mein Rehne Ka is filled with hope, humanism and compassion.
For that only, a standing ovation for actor-turned-Director Vijay Maurya, who earlier directed the fairly watchable series Crash Course.
Maurya’s foray into feature filmmaking is fresh, moving and endearing.
The chawl culture of Mumbai, those cramped gullies where most of the working class look desperately for breathing space, is captured by Nagraj Rathinam’s restless camera.
Kathal
Where to watch: Netflix
Kathal celebrates the silliness of power-drunk politics when Vijay Raaz (as glib and glorious as ever), a local MLA in a small town in North India, loses his prized kathals from their tree.
The entire police police force is deputed to find the missing fruits.
It is all hilariously inappropriate, and Sanya Malhotra’s cop act as Mahima Basor, and her subtle smirk says it all.
Her frown breaks into a twinkle whenever she is next to her subordinate Saurav (played with a jaunty innocence by Anant Joshi). The ongoing romance between Mahima and her junior is one of the valued assets of this comedy but this isn’t about the laughter of triviality being given administrative priority.
Kathal tears through the rip-roaring surface to reveal the tragic and terrifying emptiness of caste politics.
Pippa
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
There aren’t too much bullets and bloodshed in this war film.
It’s not your Bridge Over the River Kwai or Border kind of violence-torn war saga.
Based on the real experiences of war hero Brigadier Balram Singh Mehta from his book The Burning Chaffees, Pippa takes its time to get to the point: There is no point in shedding blood at the border.
Sure, India helped East Pakistan in creating Bangladesh.
But at what cost?
Was the bloodshed worth it?
Director Raja Krishna Menon (whose earlier credits include the gripping Airlift) takes his time to gather the plot into a compendium of collective war images.
