Woman centric
The Six Triple Eight (2024) – Worthy war drama
Clickable links in red Genre – WW2 Drama Time: 2 Hour 10 minutes Platform: Netflix Director: Tyler Perry Cast: Kerry Washington. Ebony Obsidian. Milauna Jackson WW2 has millions of untold stories which are still being revealed. While the war was usually viewed through the lens of “Allied Good vs Axis Evil”, there are…
Read MoreThe Old Man. Season 1 (2022). Season 2 (2024) – The Past is Never Dead and Buried
Genre: Spy Movie Time: 7 episodes x average 50 minutes Platform: Disney Hotstar SEASON 1 “You get to be my age in this business and one way or another, you will have something personal with just about everyone”. “Better way is to keep things buried in the ground than to wish them…
Read MoreUlajh (2024) – Dull and Uneven
Clickable links in red Genre – Spy + Conspiracy thriller Time: 2 Hours, 8 minutes Platform: NetFlix Director: Sudhanshu Saria Cast: Janhvi Kapoor. Roshan Mathew. Gulshan Devaiah. Many spy thrillers commonly talk of honey trapping which is sexually entrapping a male and blackmailing him to obtain secrets. The opposite of that is…
Read MoreKleo – Season 2 (2024) – Goofy Quirky Fun
Clickable links in red. Director: Isabel Braak. Nina Vukovic Genre: Spy thriller Time: TV series – 6 x 55-minute episodes Platform: Netflix Cast: Jella Haase. Dimitrij Schaad. Julius Feldmeier. The open ending of Season 1 (see here for the post on Kleo Season 1) left no doubt that the infamous red suitcase, which Kleo…
Read MoreFoul Play (1978) – Surprisingly good comic thriller
All clickable links in red Writer, Director: Colin Higgins Genre: Comic thriller Time: 1 Hour 51 minutes Platform: You Tube Alfred Hitchcock made 58 films over 50 years of which 11 were superb spy films, though they were marketed as “suspense thrillers”. His films influenced and continue to influence generations of filmmakers, in…
Read MoreCrew (2024) – Somewhat bittersweet
Genre – Drama, Comedy (Dramedy?) Time: 2 Hours Director: Rajesh Krishnan Platform: Theatrical Release (Soon on Netflix) Divya Rana (Kriti Sanon) is a pilot turned air hostess who has concealed the truth from her family that she didn’t get a job as a pilot but only as an air hostess. Jasmine Kohli (Kareena…
Read MoreKhufiya (2023) – Slow, refreshing and engaging
Music and Director: Vishal Bhardwaj Screenplay – Vishal Bhardwaj, Rohan Narula – based on Amar Bhushan’s story Cast: Tabu, Ali Fazal, Wamiqa Gabbi, Azmeri Haque Badhon, Navnindra Behl, Ashish Vidyarthi (All links are in Blue) Using a mole, Heena Rehman, code-named Octopus (Azmeri Haque Badhon), an Indian operation to “neutralise” the Bangladeshi “Jihadi” defence…
Read MoreKleo (2022) – ROCKING GOOD!
It’s 1987, and the Cold War is in full swing. Kleo Straub, an unofficial “wet work” specialist – meaning assassin – is infiltrated through The Wall into West Berlin to assassinate a target. She reaches the nightclub and entices the target, but not before an off-duty West Berlin cop Sven Petzold (Dimitri Schaad), tries…
Read MorePOINT OF NO RETURN – 1993 aka The Assassin – Lost in translation?
Director: John Badham Cast: Bridget Fonda. Gabriel Byrne. Dermot Mulroney. Anne Bancroft. Conspiracy theorists will love this film. The premise is simple. A secret Government department trains young people convicted of severe crimes into an assassin squad. In this case, a female drug addict Maggie (Bridget Fonda) who has been involved in a…
Read MoreCarmen – No Man’s Woman
An Opera. Stage shows. Musicals. Multiple film versions, including a Flamenco-based film. Even a Bollywood Film. A story that continues to fascinate. About a free-spirited woman who can’t or won’t be subdued by any man. “No one tells Carmen’s eyes where to go but Carmen”. That line summarises her character. If she is fiery,…
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