Most of these were released a couple of days ago, I just haven’t gotten around to watching them yet.  Because I’m not terribly excited about any of them.  So I am going to squeeze them all into one post.

First, Madaari, Irfaan’s action movie.  It looks like your standard “victims of violence become perpetrators of violence, but we still aren’t quite brave enough to take a firm stand on the Kashmir issue” kind of film.  Like Wazir or Fitoor or any one of dozens of other movies that have been released like clockwork since the late 90s.  On the plus side, at least Jimmy Shergill’s still getting work!

Bollywoodhungama pointed out how interesting it is to contrast this with the other recent Irrfan Khan trailer, Inferno from Hollywood.  Irrfan shows up about a minute in, for literally 3 seconds.  And he is being used as the usual “wise Asian exposition machine” kind of role.

It’s pretty clearly an international market share casting. The Dan Brown movies are generally aimed more at the international market than the home one, just like Spider-Man (also Irrfan Khan) and Jurassic World (also Irrfan Khan) and The Martian (supposed to be Irrfan Khan, until he dropped out for Jazbaa).  What makes this really silly is that right now Captain America: Civil War is going gangbusters business in India just because it is a big fun family movie, released during a time when there aren’t any other options.  You don’t have to toss 3 seconds of Irrfan Khan into a Hollywood movie to get the Indian audience to turn out!  They aren’t sitting there going “does it have a desi actor in it?  It does?  Okay, then I’ll watch it!”  They are going “is it a good movie that I can go to with the whole family?”  Because, you know, the Indian audience is also just a human audience with taste, like everywhere else.

Speaking of audience pandering, Diljit’s new song/video for Udta Punjab just came out!  I am sure they cast Diljit so all the Punjabis should watch this movie, even though it is about how horrible their region is.  And Alia is going to break my heart, I can feel it.  It’s going to be another Highway style performance.  Although I might be distracted by desperately wanting to her to Wash Her Face the whole time.  And also, hair.

Oh, and here’s the full Udta Punjab trailer, which I missed somehow when it first came out.  It looks a lot more hopeful and light than the song!  Maybe Alia will save Shahid from the drugs and he will buy her a shower, and it will end with a huge Punjabi wedding for Shahid and Alia and Diljit and Kareena!  I can always hope!