It was an all-women show over the week gone by with web series Black Widows and anthology of short films, Unpaused arriving on ZEE5 and Amazon Prime respectively.
Let's talk about Black Widows first. The series brings together Mona Singh and Swastika Mukherjee together with Shamita Shetty making a comeback after her last major release, Cash. A thriller centered on the core plot of the three women plotting the murder of their respective husbands, this one also doubles up as a dark comedy.
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Parambrata Chattopadhyay and Raima Sen have a major role to play as well in Black Widows which has a predominantly Bengali starcast coming together, courtesy director Birsa Dasgupta who has earlier made web series Mafia. A popcorn entertainer, this one is easy on eyes and doesn't really tax your brains much, hence staying on to be an entertainer at the core of it.
On the other hand Unpaused is a two hour long anthology of five short films that have been stitched together with a common theme of 'lockdown'. While Glitch [Gulshan Devaiah, Saiyami Kher] is a futuristic love story by Raj & DK where all love stories too transpire in a virtual world, courtesy COVID phobia which refuses to die down, Rat-a-Tat [Lillete Dubey, Rinku Rajguru] by Tannistha Chatterjee shows a bond between a woman who regrets her marriage falling apart and a girl who revolts against her parents to make her career as a production designer.
While these two stories have their moments, with latter being more impressive, the weakest of the lot is Vishanoo [Abhishek Banerjee, Geetika Vidya Ohlyan] which is basically Citylights [Rajkummar Rao, Patralekha] set in the times when COVID had just emerged as a reality, hence resulting in migrants struggling to make their way back home. This one just meanders all over the place and doesn't even fetch a conclusion per se.
No wonder, the stories which you marvel most are Richa Chadha's The Apartment and Ratna Pathak Shah's Chand Mubaarak where your heart goes out to the protagonists. Former is directed by Nikkhil Advani and is in fact the most 'complete short film' of them all. Riding on the theme of infidelity and suicide, this also scores hugely due to endearing presence of Ishwak Singh [Paatal Lok]. Also, it is good to see Sumeet Vyas in a brief, but impressive, part as a mean guy all over again after Dark 7 White.
It is tough though to pick the best of the lot between this story and the one told by Nitya Mehra, where she shows an unlikely bond between a never-been-married up-market woman [Ratna Pathak Shah] and an auto-driver [Shardul Bhardwaj] who hails from Bijnour and is trying to make a living in Mumbai. While the lady of the house is of course effective, it's Shardul who is the biggest surprise package of Unpaused. In a role that could have been picked by Late Irrfan Khan or Nawazuddin Siddiqui with glee, Shardul bags the opportunity in a big way, and how.
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Coming soon
With Christmas round the corner, each of the major OTT platforms is coming up with a signature offering. Disney+Hotstar [Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors], Amazon Prime [Coolie No. 1], Netflix [AK v/s AK], and Sony LIV [Sandwiched Forever] have their dates locked between 24th and 25th December to unleash some of the most awaited web series of movies before the close of 2020.
Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors is second in the Criminal Justice franchise which has been put together by Applause Entertainment. This time around, Rohan Sippy is at the helm of affairs with director Arjun Mukerjee giving him company. Pankaj Tripathi and Anupriya Goenka take forward the franchise with Kirti Kulhari joining her, around whom the show revolves. There is a murder in the scheme of things and an investigation that follows promises to unleash ton loads of skeletons.
Coolie No. 1 is the biggest masala entertainer to be arriving on the OTT medium this year. A complete family entertainer by David Dhwan that waited for more than six months to arrive on the big screen, this Varun Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan is just the kind of package film to bright up Christmas. For producers Vashu Bhagnani, Deepshikha Deshmukh and Jackky Bhagnani, this is life coming back full circle after their production house debuted with Coolie No. 1 with Govinda and Karishma Kapoor back in 1995. This one is indeed a biggie in the offering.
AK v/s AK is a film that is as realistic as it gets, what with Anil Kapoor and Anurag Kashyap playing themselves. Latter kidnaps Sonam Kapoor and now former has to go all out to get her back from the villain's clutches. The whole promotional and marketing campaign for the film has been quite unique and it would be interesting to see how the end result turns out to be.
On the other hand Sandwiched Forever is a fun web series set to arrive on Christmas and this one too is directed by Rohan Sippy. An urban comedy featuring Ahana Kumra and Kunaal Roy Kapur in lead roles, this one has veterans Atul Kulkarni, Zakir Hussain, Divya Seth Shah and Lubna Salim coming together as well on both sides of the apartment where the young couple lives, hence the title 'Sandwiched Forever'. By the look of things, this should turn out to be a cool affair while catering to the urban markets.
Release dates
Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors - 24th Dec
AK v/s AK - 24th Dec
Coolie No. 1 - 25th Dec
Sandwiched Forever - 25th Dec
(Joginder Tuteja is a trade expert and film critic, and loves to talk and write about anything that is related to films. Views are personal)