By Joginder Tuteja




It has been an action packed weekend with Shershaah and Bhuj: The Pride of India arriving on back to back days. While former released on Amazon Prime, latter is playing on Disney+Hotstar.


Shershaah has earned unanimous appreciation for itself and the verdict is out that the film would have been a superhit had it released in theaters. With just the right mix of drama, patriotism and action coming together in this Vishnu Vardhan directed film, audiences have given a nod of approval with good word of mouth all around. The film has garnered good eyeballs for Amazon Prime on its Thursday release and the weekend still on, one can only expect the hype to go further up for this Karan Johar and Dharma Productions backed film.


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One man who has benefitted the most from Shershaah is Sidharth Malhotra for whom this is his second back to back success after Marjaavaan. If the Milap Zaveri directed film was an out and out masala entertainer, this one is a good mix of class and mass coming together which has resulted in the win-win scenario for Sidharth. Of course he would be runing the fact that the film didn't release in theaters because if that would have been the case, the tag of being a 100 Crore Club earner at the very least was definitely up for grabs.


For Ajay Devgn too, Bhuj: The Pride of India would have been a better bet had it arrived in theaters. This one is a 110 minute long non-stop action film and one can't remember the last time a film like this came when there was practically no breathing space between the scenes with one major sequence after another. The Abhishek Dudhaiya directed film kick-starts in such a huge way that it seems like the climax unfolding, and that's the way this stays like during the entire duration. Whether it's on the air or on the ground, there is action all around.


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A film like this would have been a staple offering for the single screen audiences as Ajay Devgn does bring on the swag in the scenes where he appears. That said, he is narrator of the entire film and unlike most affairs where this happens only at the beginning or towards the end, the voiceover stays consistent right through the film's duration. A couple of songs featuring Nora Fatehi and Sanjay Dutt respectively are not there in the film's final cut and as a result the overall duration stays below the two hour mark.


Coming soon


This is going to be a week of multi-starrer affairs as a web series Cartel and an original film 200 Hallo Ho arrive on the same date, 20th August.


Let's talk about Cartel first. This is a web series which has been in the making for two years, considering the kind of scale and cast involved. In fact this is supposed to be a really long offering as well and though it could well have arrived as two back to back seasons [like Aashram], the release would be in one go. A story about gangsters and their world which comes together as a 'cartel', this one is spearheaded by Supriya Pathak who would be seen as a woman with grey shades after being negative in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Ram Leela.


What makes the cast all the more interesting is to see Tanuj Virwani leading from the front after being a key player in another multi-starrer web series Inside Edge. While the promo and the teasers so far promise the actor to be bringing in his characteristic swag, the presence of Rithvik Dhanjani, Jitendra Joshi, Pranati Rai Prakash and Divya Agarwal only makes Cartel bigger.


Another exciting offering of the week is 200 Hallo Ho and as the title suggests, the made-for-OTT film is about 200 women who go on to come up with the cry of 'Hallo Ho' in order to kick-out the years of suppression and oppression. The trailer of this ZEE5 offering gives a good idea about how this one is going to be an intense and gritty affair which would make one sit up and take notice.


Yet again, this one is a multi-starrer and it is a pleasant surprise to see veteran actor Amol Palekar coming back in action. The film features him as a retired judge who finds himself back in the thick of things once all the mayhem around him begins to take a disturbing shape. He is being joined by a good bunch of actors that range from Barun Sobti to Rinku Rajguru (of Sairat and Hundred fame), Sahil Khattar, Saloni Batra, Indraneil Sengupta, and Upendra Limaye.


Release dates


Cartel - ALT Balaji and MX Player - 20th August


200 Hallo Ho - ZEE5 - 20th August



(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)