Desi talk

www.desitalkchicago.com – that’s all you need to know 17 ENTERTAINMENT July 25, 2025 The Hunt Is A Gritty, Gripping Procedural Narrative T he real-life assassination of India’s premier, Rajiv Gandhi, in May 1991, shook and shocked the nation. After a grueling investigation, the coterie of culprits was caught. Hap- pily, no corrupt cop was involved, though there was incredible red tape for such a prestige probe, especially towards the end of the investigation. The story has been documented in a book named Ninety Days: The True Story of the Hunt for Rajiv Gandhi’s Assas- sins, by Anirudhya Mitra, and that forms the background of this 7-episode series named The Hunt: The Rajiv gandhi Assas- sination Case. Procedural dramas, even in fiction or cinema, tend to be by nature plodding and stretched, and this one is no different. The series is made for obvious reasons in both Hindi and Tamil, as the back- drop was Tamil Nadu and the culprits were affiliated to LTTE (The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as the Tamil Tigers, a militant organization that fought for Tamil Eelam, a separate state in the north and east of Sri Lanka). The Tamil accents even for the Hindi version makes things authentic but quaint, but one wishes still that the docu-drama was speeded up. Amit Sial plays the leader of the team, D.R. Kaarthikeyan, with aplomb, and heads a team of doggedly diligent police officers who put together the pieces of the puzzle with grit and rare integrity. Sleepless nights, sudden failures, of- ficial criticism from the powers above, clashes with the Tamil Nadu police—the obstacles are many and humongous. But they scythe through all these and come up trumps, nailing the one-eyed mastermind, Sivarasan (Shafeeq Mustafa), but sadly not alive. However, Anjana Balaji as Nalini, Sai Dinesh as Murugan live to tell the tale of how things were set in place, apart from what was found out from interrogations of others and evidence that came in, some- times through lucky breaks. The dry run conducted a fortnight earlier on Prime Minister V.P. Singh remains a chilling truth and is not known to many, though. While the screenplay is leisured, the actors are all brilliant. Kaarthikeyan’s core teammates, Amit (Sahil Vaid), Amod Kant (Danish Iqbal), Ragothaman (Bagavathi Perumal), Radhavinod (Girish Sharma) and Ravindran (Vidyut Garg) are precise and hit the bull’s-eye in their sharply delineated characters. The ‘baddies’ are no less. Sivarasan (Shafeeq Mustafa) is outstanding, while Anjana Balaji as Nalini and Sai Dinesh as her husband Murugan score high, especially in the jail sequence where Ravinder tricks them into a confes- sion. Yes, the police torture scenes tend to become a shade repetitious. Technically, the series is state-of-the- art and the most brilliant aspect of it is Sangram Giri’s cinematography, which reproduces the feel (as expressed in films of that era) of the early 1990s. Tapas Relia’s background score is excellent. The script (Rohit G. Banawlikar, Nagesh Kukunoor and Sriram Rajan) and direc- tion are first-rate. Kukunoor gets every- thing pitch-perfect and is in his element yet again after many great movies and the classic series, City of Dreams. Another ace from SonyLIV, this one. Rating: **** PHOTO:TrailerVideo Grab Amit Sial and team of actors enacting the Special Investigation Team that solved the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case in 90 days. By RajivVijayakar Tanvi—The Great Makes It To List Of Best Movies On Persons With Disabilities M ost movies on protagonists with disabilities tend to be successful. But that is the commercial viewpoint, which is valid because exposure to understand- ing diverse such ailments (some rare) is a must even in 2025 India where igno- rance and social stereotyping still thrive. And without entertaining the audience enough to work at the box-office, such enterprises, however diligently made, are fruitless. Example: if a film is to be made on staying on in one’s motherland, it should be as heartfelt as Naam (which hit the jackpot), not as boring and unrealistic as Swades(which flopped). Weeks ago, we watched the brilliant Sitaare Zameen Par, the spiritual sequel to another masterly film, Taare Zameen Par. And now, making a gigantic evolution as filmmaker and writer, Anupam Kher directs a sensitive, sensible, thought-pro- voking motion-picture experience named Tanvi—The Great. Thankfully, it joins a fairly long and illustrious list that also comprises Koshish, Iqbal, Black, Barfi! and Hichki. And if Jagga Jasoos, Sparsh and Khamoshi—The Musical did not make it, there were individual-specific reasons for it, again in the crucial department of audi- ence appeal. Tanvi… centers around Tanvi (Kher has taken inspiration from real-life niece, Tanvi, who is an autistic and features prominently in the post-climax, along with his mother Dulari, all of 97 today, and brother Raju Kher). The reel Tanvi here is essayed by his student, (in his academy, An Actor Prepares) Shubhangi Dutt, who can be described by the French as c’est magnifique. If she does not win an award, it will devalue the award and not her. Shubhangi has apparently spent a fortnight with the real Tanvi and had been instructed by Anupam to “observe her soul” rather than mimic her. And what she has achieved will last her a lifetime as an understanding actor and an evolved human being. Every expression, gesture, movement and reaction seem to have come from someone who must have lived an autistic person within here for the duration of the film’s making! The story is set between Delhi and Lansdowne, a hill resort where there is also a military base in Uttaranchal. Tanvi is Vidya Raina (Pallavi Agnihotri)’s autistic daughter, and her husband, Captain Samar Raina (Karan Tacker) had died in an enemy explosion, on the way to realize his dream of hosting the Tricolor at Siachen, the world’s highest battleground. When Tanvi’s mother has to attend a lo-o-o-ong convention (the only hyper- bole element in the story, and avoidable at that!) on Autism in NewYork, the ‘burden’ of looking after Tanvi falls on Samar’s grandfather, Col. Pratap Raina (Anupam Kher), a widower now who lives alone in Lansdowne. Pratap initially does not un- derstand Tanvi and almost wants Vidya to cancel her trip so that he is not left alone to look after her. But Vidya predicts that he will come to understand her slowly, and her prediction is not just bang-on but comes true beyond expectations! As Tanvi, who makes friends pronto, wins over not just her grandpa but also her music teacher there, Raza Saab (Bo- man Irani) and Brigadier Joshi (Jackie Shroff), she also discovers her father’s unrealized dream (she was 7 when he died) of hoisting the Tricolor at Siachen after foraging through his room (which has been lovingly preserved by Pratap). Her only dream now is to fulfil that, but there are two obstacles: she has to join the Army, as only their personnel can go there, and the Army does not allow autistics in the force! And now, despite reasoned discouragement from her grandfather, Tanvi begins and completes her military training and appears for the interview. What happens next? The thrill element at the end becomes a shade less in impact because of the Utopian end and a slight excess in length. But for a message film like this, the rather implausible climax can be overlooked. Anupam Kher and Jackie Shroff (both especially), Pallavi Joshi, Boman Irani (to- tally charming in his demeanor), M. Nas- sar (in the recruiting interview), Arvind Swami, Gautam Ahuja as Joshi’s son and Devender Madan as Joshi’s mother strike home in their performances along with Iain Glen and Ashish Kauhsik in smaller roles. The script is heartfelt, the dialogues wonderful (Kher with Ankur Suman and Abhishek Dixit) and the production values superb. Kher’s direction is passionate and if it can be faulted at all, it is in the underuse of the brilliant songs of M.M. Keeravani and the spot-on lyrics of Kausar Munir. It is to the writers’ credit that the written word does not resort to melodra- ma and yet stirs our emotional chord. The background score too is perfect. Watch this film for its passion, its magic and the takeaways. Rating: **** By RajivVijayakar PHOTO:Universal Communications Shubhangi Dutt in Tanvi—The Great.