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An immensely talented but cocky passenger aircraft pilot who likes to live it up takes on his next flight in a hungover state after partying the night before. Still, everything is going smoothly for him until the landing nears. The weather at the destination airport is stormy and he has to reroute. There are a few major hiccups and altercations while landing at the alternate destination but the skillful pilot manages to avert a disaster and make a safe landing.  

Following the incident, the media and the people at large hail him as a hero. He is endlessly thanked for saving countless lives. But soon, an inquiry is started against his ‘possible negligence’ that day. The hero is pushed into a gray area with the law, and many of his decisions come under question. 

Although the Indian thriller “Runway 34” claims to be inspired by a real life incident from 2015, the plot is uncannily similar to Denzel Washington’s 2012 American drama “Flight” which also claims to have been loosely inspired by a similar incident in the US. Too many similarities and coincidences here. 

Available on Amazon Prime, Runway 34 is actor Ajay Devgn’s yet another attempt at direction. Also the film’s producer, Devgn plays the pilot in question—Captain Vikrant Khanna—who is grilled to the bone by Narayan Vedant (Amitabh Bachchan), head of a government investigative body. 

This is Devgn’s third attempt at direction and first display of maturity as a director. Also, as Devgn does not pair with director/producer Rohit Shetty this time, he does not get to fly motorbikes and cars. Instead, he flies a passenger airplane like a normal pilot in a movie that possibly has the most detailed cockpit scenes in the history of Indian cinema. 

As an actor, Devgn is mostly known as a Bollywood action star but he has time and again proved his mettle in hard-hitting drama and thrillers (‘Omkara’, ‘Drishyam’). In Runway 34, he yet again delivers an impactful performance, further strengthening his position as a versatile actor. There is an earnestness about him as Captain Khanna; his performance is powerful yet not overbearing. 

The same set of compliments can be copy-pasted for the veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan who plays the shrewd investigator Narayan Vedant. But it is also not new for the legendary actor to completely own his role.

As a director, Devgn chooses to be realistic in Runway 34. From the very beginning, one can see that the actor-turned-director whose highest grossing films are usually loud and brash means serious business in this one. He seems to understand the changing taste of his audience, especially in OTT platforms.

Runway 34 does not completely glorify a ‘hero’ figure; the protagonist comes with his share of virtues and vices. The film also at all times maintains its proximity to reality and does not instill over-the-top cinematic tropes. 

Unfortunately, a film with such powerful acting and scrupulous filmmaking did not do well in Indian cinemas. Perhaps most Indian audiences are still not mature enough to enjoy nuanced movies. 

Who should watch it? 

If you expect Ajay Devgn to jump out of a flying plane mid-air and stop the impending crash, no, this is not that kind of film. Runway 34 is a serious portrayal of something that reportedly happened in real life. So it keeps the storytelling clean and simple yet also always captivating. For those interested in high intensity thrillers, it could be a good watch.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Genre: Drama/thriller

Actors: Ajay Devgn, Amitabh Bachchan, Rakul Preet Singh

Director: Ajay Devgn

Run time: 2hrs 25mins

https://youtu.be/0zJ7rfxUv3I 

Bookstores in Kathmandu suddenly started stocking up on Lisa Jewell’s thriller novels as ‘every other person kept asking for them’. I’d heard of her, and even downloaded one of her books (‘The Family Upstairs’) on Kindle. But I had never gotten around to reading it. I picked up ‘The Night She Disappeared’ as authors like Lee Child, Marian Keys, Lucy Foley, and Harlan Coben, to name a few, were raving about it. Coben calls it Jewell’s best thriller yet and Child says the suspense is insane. But I thought The Night She Disappeared was okay. It’s not the best thriller I’ve read, definitely not even one of the good ones. But I had fun while it lasted. 

The story follows the disappearance of 19-year-old teen-mother Tallulah and her boyfriend Zach. It’s 2017 and Tallulah goes on a date with her boyfriend, leaving her baby son Noah with her mother, Kim. The next morning, Kim wakes up to find her daughter hasn’t returned. She calls Tallulah’s friends and finds that she and Zach were last seen at a pool party in a private property near the woods in Surrey. She goes there to inquire and is told that they had called a taxi and left in the wee hours of the morning. 

It’s hinted that maybe the couple ran away. But Kim knows something is off. Tallulah wouldn’t just not come home. She wouldn’t leave Noah like that. A year later, the case has gone cold with no more leads to pursue. Sophie Beck, a mystery writer, moves into a house near the property where Tallulah was last seen. She comes across a sign that says ‘Dig Here’. There she finds a ring that Zach had bought for Tallulah. She then tries to piece together what might have happened that fateful night.   

The story is narrated from three different perspectives—Kim’s, Sophie’s and Tallulah’s. That keeps things fresh and interesting. However, you will easily be able to guess what’s going on, especially if you read thrillers. The writing isn’t that great either. The language feels a little lame at times. But I’d still recommend it if you want a light, breezy read to get your mind off something that is bothering you. 

About the author

Lisa Jewell is a New York Times and Sunday Times #1 bestselling author. Since her debut novel was published in 1999, she has written 18 more books and they have been published worldwide in 25 languages. She is best known for a number of dark psychological thrillers like ‘The Girls’, ‘Then She Was Gone’, and ‘The Family Upstairs’. She was born and lives in London.

Three stars 

Fiction

The Night She Disappeared

Lisa Jewell

Published: 2021

Publisher: Penguin Books

Pages: 482, Paperback 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55922299-the-night-she-disappeared

I distinctly remember watching Bhool Bhulaiyaa back in 2007. I had not watched the movie’s trailer. Watching trailers on YouTube was not really a thing back then. I remember thinking it was an out-and-out comedy when I went to the cinema hall and then getting scared out of my wits when the dreaded Manjulika appeared on-screen. Back then, Bhool Bhulaiyaa was a fantastic movie. It was funny and scary at the same time. 

Fifteen years later, we now get to watch a standalone sequel called ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2’, which is neither funny nor scary. It’s just another Bollywood attempt to capitalize on a successful franchise. Surprisingly, it has done really well at the box office. But like we’ve talked about so many times before in this space, high gross does not necessarily translate to high quality. 

Kartik Aaryan plays Ruhaan Randhawa, a recently orphaned heir who travels wantonly around India as he can afford the lifestyle. On one of his expeditions in Himachal Pradesh, he meets Reet (Kiara Advani), a medical student who plans to go back to her hometown Bhawanigarh, Rajasthan, to get married. 

Befriending each other during the trip, the two take a brief detour, making them miss their bus back home. The said bus plunges down a gorge though, killing everyone abroad. Ruhaan and Reet are saved, but on finding out that her sister wants to marry her would-be groom, Reet decides to let her family believe that she is dead. She then takes Ruhaan to hide for a few days in the family’s old abandoned mansion at Bhawanigarh.

That’s where Manjulika lives! The Manjulika in BB2 is different from the first, with a strong agenda against her twin Anjulika, Reet’s sister-in-law. She has been locked up in a room in the mansion for over 15 years with no one daring to even go near it. Ruhaan and Reet’s clear plan of getting her younger sister hitched gets Manjulika out of her confinement, angrier and fiercer than before. 

Tabu plays the twins Manjulika and Anjulika in this horror-comedy directed by Anees Bazmee. Now we all know Tabu’s track record as a powerful actor, belting out one after another strong performance in Bollywood. She is no less in BB2 as she takes the center stage as the evil Manjulika who wants to destroy everything in her path to vengeance. Even as the homely Anjulika, who is the main target of the wrathful spirit, Tabu is convincing enough. But the problem with BB2 is that the writing, direction and familiarity of Tabu as an actor fail to establish her as a scary ghost.

Vidya Balan, who played Majulika back in 2007, was a relative newcomer in Bollywood. So when she transformed into a ghost, the effect was surprising and horrifying. Unfortunately for Tabu, her almost three-decade-long career in the film industry has given her too much exposure to be taken seriously as an evil spirit in a film like BB2 which focuses more on industry gimmicks than serious writing and production. 

Similarly, Bhool Bhulaiyaa was made when Akshay Kumar’s career as a comedian was peaking. And so was Rajpal Yadav’s. Karthik Aaryan replaces Kumar in the lead but he cannot match the style, energy and charisma of his senior. The newcomer, apparently a heartthrob amongst young women, is yet to find his mojo in Bollywood. 

The sadder part is Rajpal Yadav losing his charm. He revives his role as Chhote Pandit in the film but the difference of 15 years seems to have taken a toll on the actor’s vivacity. Although BB2 can be called a multi-starrer with the number of famous supporting actors it features, I mention Yadav because he was one of the most memorable characters in the first edition. It is only natural for the audience to expect more from him in this one. 

Who should watch it?

Talking about expectations, maybe BB2’s nomenclature just burdened it with expectation. Maybe if it had taken some other name, a lot of people, including this reviewer, would not have expected much and wasted time on it. Still, BB2’s box office collections suggest this is a worth-a-try movie on Netflix. People who like slapstick comedy and light horror could still enjoy it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2KRKxAb2ek 

Rating: 2.5 stars

Genre: Comedy, drama

Actors: Karthik Aaryan, Kiara Advani, Tabu

Director: Anees Bazmee

Run time: 2hrs 25mins

Prayaag Akbar’s debut novel ‘Leila’ was adapted into a Netflix series by Deepa Mehta. Starring Huma Qureshi, Rahul Khanna, and Sanjay Suri, among others, the series has six episodes and ends on a cliffhanger. I believe you should always read the book first and then watch its film or TV adaptation but, invariably, there are times I do the opposite. And I always regret it. Leila, the book is better than Leila, the series. The series is a little dramatized while the story in the book feels raw and real. Akbar writes well. It’s easy to conjure up scenes in your head. 

Essentially a story about a mother looking for her missing daughter, Leila is set in a dystopian world—a world that seems likely in the near future. It’s unsettling because of its plausibility. The world is divided into ‘sectors’, according to religion in order to maintain ‘purity’. Protected by walls and guarded by Repeaters (young men given the authority to enforce random rules to keep separate people according to race, class, and religion), people need permission to enter these sectors. Anyone who doesn’t follow strict rules is harshly punished. 

At the start of the novel, we see Shalini, the novel’s narrator, and her husband Rizwan, gearing up to celebrate their daughter’s birthday. Next thing we know, Shalini is in a ‘purity camp’—a place meant for women who don’t follow the rules. She’s lost her husband (he’s beaten brutally and probably killed) and her daughter (she vanishes along with her nanny, Sapna). From the camp, she’s sent to live in the Towers outside the city. As broken as her spirit might be, she’s determined to search for her daughter and 16 years on, she’s relentless in her pursuit. 

Leila is a great commentary on how class and religion divide us. It’s a reminder of our  bleak future if we continue to let traditional social constructs determine our actions. The book is also a heartfelt portrayal of maternal love, of the lengths a mother will go to care for and protect her child. Shalini, Akbar’s heroine, could be anyone of us. She’s not courageous or noble. She’s as good or bad as her circumstances. One minute you find yourself hating her for being so stubborn and then loving her the next as you see she’s trying and failing and yet not giving up. 

Those who read and love dystopian stories will perhaps get a sense of déjà vu. It’s oddly reminiscent of the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. But Leila is dark and disturbing (and thus you are hooked) because it’s easy to imagine a future where things are happening exactly as described in the book.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34932175-leila 

Three stars

Fiction

Leila

Prayaag Akbar

Published: 2017

Publisher: Simon & Schuster 

Pages: 263, Paperback