Ram Madhvani’s biopic on air hostess Neerja Bhanot is a lump-in-the-throat account of courage under fire.

Spotlight doesn’t set up false binaries between print and new media, nor does it treat its reporters as superheroes with notebooks. McCarthy’s no-frills approach and classic shot and reverse-shot storytelling often nudges Spotlight into the television movie zone, but there is no mistaking what is at work here: the good fight to tell a story the way it needs to be told.

The episodic screenplay barely hangs together, and many of the characters are poorly fleshed out. But the performances are strong, particularly by Johnson, Mann and Wilson, some of the observations on the battle of the sexes are acute, and the intimate camerawork brings us closer to the characters, particularly Alice, than we usually would.

The answer to whether this prophecy is fulfilled is delivered after a torturous journey that involves Akash’s workplace tensions, a yoga camp in Alberta in Canada, and many songs in which Samrat sheds his shirt in an imitation of his self-declared hero, Salman Khan. Despite numerous plot twists, the two-hour duration feels as stretched as Samrat’s movie star ambitions. Every now and then, a song that might be better viewed on YouTube shows up to relieve the tedium.

Fitoor’s plot has no central motor to power it through its twists and turns, and no discernible big idea to replace the critique of privilege and entitlement. Despite being residents of one of the country’s most politically volatile states, the characters are largely bereft of ideology.

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Those unfamiliar with the comics may just find some of the relentless action and the new track of a Roman child amusing enough. But die-hard fans will rage at the rewrites to the story, the pedestrian dialogue and childish gags. Like Caesar’s efforts to conquer Gaul, the attempt to tame Asterix for the screen has proved futile yet again.

Saala Khadoos packs in many issues that affect female Indian athletes – poor sporting infrastructure, indifferent and corrupt government officials, and sexual harassment by coaches, selectors and administrators. The movie seeks to warn young women of the perils that could befall them if they lay themselves bare for the glory of the game and the nation. It doesn’t exactly seem to be the appropriate place to suggest that it is perfectly alright for a young boxer to fall in love with a coach who is twice her age, but Saala Khadoos goes right ahead and does just that.

The movie’s general disgust with the idea of gay sex proves that for all its outrageousness, Mastizaade is as tame as they come. The jokes are weak, while Zaveri’s taste for zany puns has soured. The filmmaker’s ability to find sexual innuendo in everyday situations and objects is truly staggering.