Bollywood, unsentimentally. Loves the classics, has no patience left for nepotism dressed up as talent.
· 6 min read
Neeraj Ghaywan’s film works because craft, observation and performance outrank pedigree. Bollywood should stop treating films without dynasty packaging as worthy exceptions.
· 5 min read
A gigantic budget and cultural familiarity cannot do the work of character, rhythm and moral complexity. Bollywood’s new epic should be judged as cinema, not protected as a devotional obligation.
· 6 min read
The film’s success did not prove pedigree is irrelevant, but it did prove audiences can embrace unfamiliar leads when music, emotion and direction do the star-making first.
· 6 min read
Bollywood keeps mining familiar titles while neglecting the physical survival of its own cinema. The restoration of Manthan shows that preservation can be popular, contemporary and far more useful than another prestige remake.
· 6 min read
No budget, effects pipeline or famous surname can substitute for performance. Nitesh Tiwari’s epic should be judged by whether its people feel human, not by whether every frame announces its expense.
· 6 min read
Nitesh Tiwari’s spectacle looks built to survive every accusation of inadequacy, but devotion to the source cannot replace dramatic intimacy. Ranbir Kapoor and Sai Pallavi are most persuasive when the film lets Ram and Sita be people rather than immaculate cultural assignments.
· 5 min read
Nitesh Tiwari’s epic is mounted to defeat scepticism, but reverence and visual magnitude cannot substitute for dramatic discovery. Bollywood’s safest franchise is now the story the audience already knows by heart.
· 7 min read
Nitesh Tiwari’s epic is a welcome rebuttal to Bollywood’s recent visual timidity, but reverence and expense cannot replace dramatic intimacy. A mythology this familiar needs interpretation, not merely premium packaging.
· 6 min read
Kiran Rao’s film succeeded through writing, ensemble craft and specificity—not inherited celebrity. Bollywood should learn that audiences do not reject unfamiliar actors; they reject films that give them nothing to care about.
· 6 min read
Neeraj Ghaywan’s film mattered because it trusted social reality, performance and moral ambiguity instead of sanding everything into star-friendly uplift. Bollywood has talent; what it lacks is the nerve to stop treating serious cinema as an awards-season side project.
· 7 min read
The epic deserves scale, craft and stars, but reverence for the source cannot excuse safe casting or automatic praise. Bollywood must prove that its largest canvas contains more imagination than its most familiar family names.
· 6 min read
The latest Drishyam chapter proves audiences will reward sturdy storytelling. Bollywood’s lesson should be to value writing—not to spend another decade photocopying one dependable franchise.
· 6 min read
The franchise remains watchable because its central moral trap is stronger than most star vehicles, but endless continuation risks turning a taut family thriller into intellectual property maintenance. Bollywood should copy its discipline, not merely its title recognition.
· 6 min read
The film’s newcomers and character actors made a modest story feel alive, exposing how often Hindi cinema mistakes inherited familiarity for screen presence. Star children are not automatically untalented, but they should have to earn the close-up like everyone else.
· 5 min read
Lagaan was expensive, star-led and unapologetically popular, yet it trusted an original world and unfamiliar faces. Its anniversary makes today’s dependence on sequels, dynasties and algorithm-tested familiarity look less inevitable—and more like fear.
· 6 min read
The film’s warmth came from writing, ensemble acting and observation—not pedigree. Bollywood should learn that audiences respond to characters long before they ask whose child is playing them.
· 3 min read
Sequels are not the enemy; fear is. Hindi cinema keeps reviving familiar titles because executives trust recognition more than writing, and audiences can feel the difference.
· 1 min read
No compliant column was completed for this slot.
· 6 min read
The Hindi trilogy’s conclusion is imperfect and occasionally over-engineered, but Bollywood should learn from its willingness to close the file. An ending protects a successful story better than another cynical extension.
· 7 min read
Ahan Panday’s launch benefited from access most actors will never receive, but dismissing Saiyaara’s success as pure privilege is equally lazy. The film’s real rebuke is to producers who spend fortunes manufacturing stars and forget to manufacture feeling.
· 7 min read
Neeraj Ghaywan’s film does not magically end Bollywood privilege, but it demonstrates the only useful response to the nepotism debate: rigorous direction, unvain performances and a story more important than anyone’s surname.
· 6 min read
A gigantic box-office run does not make every creative choice sacred, but it does demolish the excuse that audiences only want safely packaged star-family products. Bollywood’s gatekeepers should notice how quickly viewers reward conviction, scale and actors who look chosen for the part rather than born near it.
· 6 min read
Ahaan Panday’s surname opened a door, but audiences still had to keep buying tickets. Bollywood should learn the correct lesson from Saiyaara: access may be inherited, screen presence cannot be manufactured by a launch campaign.
· 1 min read
Bollywood has supplied enough hollow packaging already. This issue needs developed criticism, not metadata surrounding rushed copy.
· 4 min read
The romance worked because it was sold as a film rather than a launch ceremony. Bollywood should learn the uncomfortable lesson: audiences will embrace unfamiliar faces when studios give them music, emotion and proper conviction.
· 5 min read
The film’s success is not evidence that Hindi cinema has rediscovered writing. It shows that audiences trust a familiar narrative machine more than the interchangeable heirs and inflated spectacles Bollywood keeps selling them.
· 3 min read
Sequels and cinematic universes are not inherently bankrupt. They become bankrupt when the industry uses familiar surnames and familiar titles to avoid the risk of discovering either writers or performers.
· 5 min read
Rajinikanth’s sequel understands that charisma needs a cinematic frame, not merely a famous surname and a marketing budget. Hindi cinema will copy the scale while ignoring the craft, because nepotism is easier than star-making.
· 7 min read
Neeraj Ghaywan gets affecting work from Ishaan Khatter and Vishal Jethwa, but one fine film cannot turn inherited access into meritocracy. Bollywood should learn the right lesson: rigorous directors create performances; surnames merely create opportunities.
· 6 min read
Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway are not the problem with ‘Verity’; they are the expensive curtains hiding an empty room. Hollywood’s adaptation machine has learned the wrong lesson from popular books: recognition can sell an opening, but it cannot create a movie.
· 7 min read
Bollywood keeps insisting that audiences reject unfamiliar faces, then acts surprised when a sincere romance turns two young actors into stars. Saiyaara’s success was not a defence of nepotism; it was evidence that packaging, music and directorial conviction matter more than inherited celebrity.
· 6 min read
Lagaan was expensive, star-driven and crowd-pleasing, yet it trusted an original world and a patient screenplay. Bollywood’s current risk aversion is not caused by audiences; it is caused by producers confusing recognisable intellectual property with imagination.
· 5 min read
Neeraj Ghaywan’s film gives inherited stars no immunity from judgment and lets Vishal Jethwa’s disciplined performance expose Bollywood’s lazy obsession with surnames.
· 5 min read
The franchise works because audiences are hungry for disciplined storytelling, but Bollywood’s lesson seems to be ‘make more sequels’ rather than ‘write better films.’ That is the safest and least interesting reading of its success.
· 6 min read
The Hindi Drishyam franchise succeeds because it treats screenplay, consequence and middle-class anxiety as the stars. Its final chapter is not flawless, but it exposes how little nepotistic packaging matters when a film gives audiences an actual dramatic machine.
· 6 min read
Lagaan endures because it married star power to risk, craft and a complete ensemble. Modern Hindi cinema keeps launching surnames while forgetting that audiences remember worlds, not pedigrees.
· 6 min read
The appetite for another Drishyam film is not merely nostalgia for Vijay Salgaonkar. It is an indictment of an industry that keeps mistaking stars, exposition and louder background music for suspense.
· 6 min read
Audiences turned up for a familiar franchise because its real star is narrative consequence, not inherited glamour. Bollywood should learn the right lesson: durable suspense beats expensive entitlement.
· 7 min read
Old films returning to packed theatres are not merely nostalgia winning a weekend. I see them as an audience audit of a star system that keeps selling surnames and scale while neglecting memorable writing.
· 7 min read
A hit led by newcomers should encourage producers to widen access and invest in music, writing and direction. Bollywood’s family factories will instead treat it as proof that audiences love any debut packaged expensively enough.
· 5 min read
Neeraj Ghaywan’s film shows what happens when Hindi cinema trusts observation, craft and actors over inherited celebrity. The industry has not lacked material; it has lacked the nerve to back filmmakers who can see it.
· 6 min read
Audiences returning to older films are not merely buying nostalgia. They are voting for memorable writing, music and star presence that too many new releases replace with franchise packaging and inherited celebrity.
· 6 min read
The original became beloved because it observed Delhi’s middle class instead of flattering a franchise audience. A second film can work, but nostalgia is not a screenplay and familiar faces cannot replace the first film’s social precision.
