OTT Round Up - Sardar Ka Grandson Finds Family Audience, Runaway Lugaai Is For The Masses, November Story Could Have Been Better

Arjun Kapoor and Rakul Preet starrer 'Sardar Ka Grandson' is finding steady views on Netflix.

By Joginder Tuteja

There was a lot of variety in store during the week gone by when it comes to OTT offerings. One movie [Sardar Ka Grandson] and two web series [Runaway Lugaai, November Story] arrived on different OTT platforms and found eyeballs amongst the target audiences.

Sardar Ka Grandson aimed for the family audiences and took a conscious call to have low key promotions and marketing in the pandemic times. They [Nikkhil Advani, John Abraham] wanted the film's content to do the talking instead of shouting from the rooftops. As a result, the Arjun Kapoor, Neena Gupta and Rakulpreet Singh starrer is finding steady views and while the film never aimed to find itself in the record books when it comes to viewings, it belongs to the kind of genre that should cut across boundaries and stays on for weeks and months to come.

A heartwarming commercial film by first-time director Kaashvi Nair that aims to work across age groups, it has found some of the better reviews coming the way of an OTT release. In that aspect, the team would be happy to see the way it has performed so far. As a matter of fact for Arjun Kapoor this has been a double bill week since his Sundeep aur Pinky Faraar also made its OTT premiere.

Meanwhile, Runaway Lugaai has released on MX Player and has turned out to be an expected affair. It was aimed at the gentry with an eye on the masses and in that aspect, the Naveen Kasturia, Ruhi Singh and Sanjay Mishra starrer with a special appearance by Ravi Kishan has reached out to audiences. Over the last few years, many movie and OTT outings have aimed to bring small towns of India closer to the audiences and this is what Runaway Lugaai has managed as well. It is good to see something authentic on screen from director Avinash Das.

On a different end of the spectrum is November Story which has released on Disney+Hotstar. This one is a classic case of a slow burner thriller that revolves around a murder. With Tamannaah leading the cast, there is of course good visibility around the show. However, one has to admit that the promo here was far better as it promised an impressive mounting. The final outcome though has a TV serial feel to it in terms of the framing and other production, as a result of which you do feel that the outcome could well have been far better visually.

Also, though the show has been dubbed in Hindi as well, it takes one back to the 90s when movies were dubbed in Hindi haphazardly and released in theaters (or later on satellite). There is a lot left to be desired, right from the choice of the dubbing artists to the final sound, and as a result of that, it is better to watch it in the original Tamil language along with subtitles.

Coming soon

This week would be rather slow when it comes to OTT outings. There is only one notable show, the third season of Broken But Beautiful, which is arriving on ALT Balaji and MX Player. The first two seasons had been quite popular amongst the youngsters and with Siddharth Shukla & Sonia Rathee coming together, something similar is expected from the third season. The promo of the show pretty much indicates that the scale has been further upped this time around and with powerful drama lacing the narrative, one hopes that the final product is impressive.

Release dates

Broken But Beautiful Season 3 - ALT Balaji and MX Player - 29th May

(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)