Over the years, Rajkummar Rao established a good will among the audience with his performances and script selection. More often than not, his films are backed by commendable scripts and relatable characters. In an attempt to give an image makeover to himself, he selected the script of ‘Maalik’, a rags-to-riches story. After generating enough curiosity with the trailer, the film was released in theatres today. How did Rajkumar Rao perform in a ferocious gangster role? Did the director, Pulkit, come up with a well-packaged commercial action entertainer? Did the Miss World 2017, Manushi Chhillar, finally score a hit? Let’s figure it out with a detailed analysis.

What is it about?

Deepak(Rajkummar Rao), based out of Allahabad, is from a poor family. Just as in any of the ‘rags to riches’ stories, he aims to become a Maalik(Owner) from a Naukar(Servant). What are the challenges, Deepak, faced in his quest to become a Maalik? Did Shalini(Manushi Chhillar), the wife of Deepak, help him to come out of the mess in which he’s stuck? What is Deepak’s relationship with Minister Shankar Singh(Saurabh Shukla)? Forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

Rajkummar Rao in the role of a deadly gangster performed well. However, he’s miscast in the role. The character like Maalik, commands the actor to possess inbuilt swag but unfortunately, it was missed in the way Rajkummar Rao carried the role. Saurabh Shukla in the role of crooked politician delivered a commendable performance as well. All other actors delivered a standard performance. There’s nothing special to talk about the performances.

Technicalities:

Cinematographer, Anuj Rakesh Dhawan is the only technician whose work is worth mentioning in the film. He captured the Allahabad raw and rustic locales of the 1990s Allahabad well. Editing by Zubin Sheikh is a big letdown, especially in the second half. At least, twenty minutes in the second half would have been edited easily. The last forty minutes of the film dragged on forever and it was a mistake from the editor. Sachin–Jigar’s songs & Ketan Sodha’s background score are very average. Let’s discuss more about the director and writer, Pulkit’s work in the analysis section.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠Pre-Interval Fight Sequence
2.⁠ ⁠Watchable First Half

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Boring Second Half
2.⁠ ⁠Predictable Story
3.⁠ ⁠Routine Execution
4.⁠ ⁠Editing

Analysis:

KGF & Pushpa franchise movies worked out well all over the country but their performance in Hindi markets in India stood out compared to other languages. The commercial performance of the second parts of both KGF and Pushpa showed Hindi audiences’ appetite for well-packaged commercial action entertainers. There is a huge market for such films in the Hindi heartland of India but unfortunately, the Bollywood film makers in the last few years are unable to come up with solid commercial action entertainers. Rajkummar Rao’s Maalik is a desperate attempt to tap the commercial cinema potential in the Hindi markets but sadly what we get to see is a very predictable movie which was heavily inspired by KGF and Pushpa franchises.

The actors(i.e. Yash and Allu Arjun) who played the protagonist role in both KGF and Pushpa are relatively new and yet the Hindi audiences loved those two characters. It is because both Yash and Allu Arjun delivered quite a few ‘playing to the gallery’ moments with their swag and mannerisms. For a commercial entertainer to work well, the actors who play the lead character in the film should have an inbuilt swag and style. It is where, Maalik, struggled. Rajkummar Rao is a very good actor. There’s no doubt about it. He even delivered a good performance. However, it looked strange to see him in such a heavy gangster role. There was no style or swag or anything that we associate with a ‘mass’ hero in a commercial film, in Rajkummar Rao’s persona. Apart from the pre-interval action sequence, his seemingly ferocious performance as a gangster looked forced and out of place.

Another big letdown in the film is the predictability. The writer and director, Pulkit, selected a very routine script and the screenplay he chose to narrate a routine story is utterly predictable. Right from the word go, the audience will easily be able to guess the next sequence, including the twist in the climax. It is surprising to see a young director coming up with such an outdated twist. We have seen that twist in multiple movies in the past thirty years or so, starting with Krishna Vamsi’s Gulabi in 1995. There are two conflicts in the film, one in the first half and the other in the second half. The biggest mistake the director made was to come up with the face-off sequence between the protagonist and the main antagonist, upfront in both halves. It is almost impossible to sustain an audience’s attention with the remaining when a director decides to kill the main antagonist character at the very start of a tug of war. It is where the film lost track. The last forty-odd minutes in the film dragged forever with irritating action sequences one after the other.

Overall, Maalik has a watchable first half at best with a very well executed pre-interval action sequence and a boring second half that dragged on and on with a very predictable screenplay. You may give it a try watching the film when it releases on an OTT platform but it certainly don’t deserve a watch at a theatre.

Bottomline – Man’s KGF & Pushpa

Rating – 2/5

Related

Bhoomi (Priyanka Kumar) and Akash (Vijay Krishna) invite their close-knit friends to celebrate their fifth year of being in a relationship. A fun night, propelled by the couple’s musical performance, turns sour when the two break into an argument. Blame game follows, with both of them calling each other selfish.

The impetus for the fight is as small as Akash, a violinist, overshadowing Bhoomi, a flautist, during their performance. Why are they so fragile in understanding each other despite being together for five years? Well, if time were a measure of a relationship’s health, we wouldn’t have witnessed late-life divorces.

Mansore’s Doora Theera Yaana is a serious relationship drama that speaks about the importance of communication in relationships. The director tries to understand the psyche of people who hold on to a relationship without expressing their expectations from it, primarily out the fear of losing each other.

Akash and Bhoomi decide to go on a one-week vacation to talk their hearts out and decide on their next big step of marriage. From the start, Mansore lays bare the complexities in relationships. What you wear and where you go is often decided by your partner and your response is just a silent agreement.

A still from ‘Doora Theera Yaana’.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Amid the tensions, every moment of understanding feels like a small victory for Bhoomi and Akash. And after every heated exchange, they show up the next day and work out a plan, the best way to make the relationship work. Doora Theera Yaana is filled with such sincere and relatable moments.

The couple has it in them to be in great sync during their musical performances. But, marriage isn’t a stage show. You either grind it out daily or break up to live on your own terms. Mansore’s film is a weighty drama that focuses more on the concept of love than on the process of falling in love.

My favourite scene is the one where Akash talks about how he is trying hard to overcome his insensitive nature. During the same conversation, Bhoomi fears that Akash resembles her dad in personality, with both men not understanding what she wants. These are genuine concerns seen in people in love, so often forgotten by writer-directors dealing with the genre. 

Despite being a road film, Doora Theera Yaana doesn’t use nature as a tool to deliver a picturesque experience. In the metaphor-heavy film, the sea is compared with a relationship, as Akash’s friend, a fisherman, talks about how one can’t measure the depth of the ocean without getting to the bottom of it. The melancholic cinematography and the soothing music maintain the soul-searching mood of the central characters, ensuring that the audience aren’t distracted by the beauty of the backdrop.

ALSO READ:‘Hebbuli Cut’ movie review: A sharp narrative on caste bias with an engaging screenplay

In the final act, we are told how Akash and Bhoomi are chalk and cheese in their worldviews. Bhoomi is career-oriented while Akash, perhaps, wants to see where he goes with his musical talent, before thinking of settling down with a full-time job. The manner in which the couple understands that they want separate things from each other is quite unconvincing. During the trip, Akash and Bhoomi meet strangers, who come across as therapists offering a different perspective on life and relationships. Mansore spends very little time on this plot point, reducing the intended impact of the idea.

The over-reliance on poetic language dents the organic flow of Doora Theera Yaana. I wish the film relied on circumstances to reveal the true selves of the characters. I wish the film had a lot more intensity during its closing portions. From the trivial, the arguments had to get more weighty. When a line in one of the songs says, ‘There is heaviness stirring inside despite being relieved’, you had to feel the pain of separation. That said, Doora Theera Yaana is a one-of-its-kind attempt in Kannada cinema. A full-fledged drama in the era of event films is a bold step.

Doora Theera Yaana is currently running in theatres

Published – July 11, 2025 07:05 pm IST

NEW YORK – It’s too simplistic to refer to “Sorry, Baby” (A24) as a #MeToo movie. Yet the film is topical as well as important and compelling.

There was a time when its main plot point would only have been shared woman-to-woman. That was before daytime TV programs and nighttime dramas brought in light to dissipate shame.

Even today, writer-director Eva Victor’s picture, in which she also stars, is anything but easy viewing. Yet, while the tale it tells is sometimes painful, it’s intimate and droll as well.

This is one woman’s frank account of a sexual assault and of her recovery. It involves harsh satirical portrayals of authority figures, including the police, who fail to help her seek justice. Instead, she has to figure out her own path forward, one awkward step at a time.

Victor plays Agnes, a promising graduate student at a small, rural New England university. The story is laid out in five chapters, each representing a year. But these are not dealt with chronologically. Some shuttling back and forth is needed in order to explain fully her relationships to other characters.

Agnes has a best friend and onetime housemate, Lydie (Naomi Ackie), with whom she shares all her deepest thoughts, while her love of literature and aspirations to become a writer are encouraged by her faculty thesis adviser, Professor Decker (Louis Cancelmi). Decker, it turns out, however, is less a nurturing mentor than a predator.

The attack itself is not seen. Victor shows long shots of Decker’s house, where the incident takes place, over a series of hours, ending with Agnes stumbling out in shock.

She tells Lydie about it in detail while in a tub, going over every confusing moment. Agnes already knows, before the police tell her, that it’s too late for a rape kit. But she’s further crushed to find that the university will do nothing to hold Decker to account, since he resigned the day after committing his crime.

Agnes is not pregnant, and there is no mention of abortion as a possible outcome.

“I can feel in my body that it was really bad,” Agnes says. “But there’s a reason, even if I can’t see it.”

The rest of the movie shows how Agnes, instead of giving way to anger and embitterment, builds her coping skills in the midst of routine activities. These include jury duty, a potential trigger for reviving the trauma.

In another brief scene, Decker is revealed to have preyed on one of Agnes’ classmates as well.

Most impressively, Agnes joins the faculty, moves into Decker’s former office and becomes an instinctively sensitive teacher of difficult fictional texts. Collapsing in anguish is not something she ever considers an option. She moves on courageously, although this is not done by forgetting, but rather by attempting to accumulate wisdom.

The film contains three scenes of implied sexual activity, mature material, including a sexual assault theme, an incidental homosexual relationship and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, occasional banter and intermittent rough language. The OSV News classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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