Coming to the screens this week: one very warped family and another scared one.
Titli
The Hindi United Family gets a makeover like no other in Kanu Behl’s debut feature Titli. The titular character (Shashank Arora) wants to leave the family trade (carjacking) and buy a parking lot, but before he can embark on his escape plan, he is forcibly wed to Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi), who is also plotting an exit route. Domestic bliss is guaranteed. The movie co-stars Ranvir Shorey, Amit Sial and Lalit Behl.
Goosebumps
RL Stine’s Goosebumps is the latest children’s book series to get the tentpole treatment. Jack Black plays Stine, the fathers of a teenager and the creator of a series of comics about monsters that accidentally get released into the real world. Cue lots of terrified adolescents, computer-generated beasts racing down the alleways of a supermarket and an abandoned carnival while you ponder the most important question of all: when did Jack Black get this old?
Main Aur Charles
Notorious 1970s criminal Charles Sobhraj’s escape from Tihar Prison is the basis of this period movie starring Randeep Hooda as the smooth operator, Richa Chadha as one of the women who is seduced by him, and Adil Husain as the cop who hunts him down. Expect a retro ’70s look, lots of smoky (and smoking) men and women and further proof that lawbreakers are always more fun than lawmakers.
Guddu Ki Gun
Kunal Khemu, the talented comic actor in perennial search of a hit, goes for gold this time. The “gun” of the title refers to our hero’s male organ, which suddenly turns from flesh into the yellow metal that Indians, especially women, are so crazy about. A clever comment on rising gold prices, or further proof that a strange herb with mystical quality sprouts in that corner of Mumbai whence such movies emerge?
Burnt
Cooking as a metaphor for life – been there and consumed that in Julie & Julia, No Reservations, Ratatouille, Chef and The Hundred-Foot Journey. The latest man in white is Bradley Cooper, playing a hard-partying and drug-abusing chef who loses his restaurant licence. His new life goal: to open an eatery that will win no less than three Michelin stars.