A fresh entrant helps No Fathers In Kashmir to ask questions in order to make the film relevant to audiences unfamiliar with the conflict.

The John Abraham starrer suffers from its length, and the pall of dullness that hangs over the proceedings. A spy needs to be a patriot. That’s why he does what he does, knowing that he is ‘deniable’.

Vidyut Jammwal is a dab hand at action, and those bits are watchable. He is fluid and graceful and believable as he kicks and chops his way in and out of trouble.

A tiny cameo by Vijay Raaz illustrates what this film needed more of: a touch of whimsy, a kind of magic. More of this, wrapped in Mohd Rafi’s honeyed voice (yes, that’s why Siddiqui is named Rafi) which wafts over the film, would have made this odd couple romance much more believable.

Abhishek Chaubey’s very scenic Sonchiriya, tramping along those nooks and crevices of the Chambal, expending hundreds of bullets and quarts of spraying blood, made familiar by countless ‘daaku’ films of the 70s and 80s, almost always feels like a retread.

Somewhere deep inside Luka Chuppi is the film it wanted to be: a send-up of the tiresome rituals and hypocrisies which bind socially-sanctioned relationships, and an attack on religious bigotry.

The only people who prevent you from strangling yourself is the forever-bickering couple played by Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit.

What it comes down to is this: yes, we want to make a progressive film, but we have to show our women getting freed up only after getting male approval-and-help.

As promised, Manikarnika does tick all the nationalistic boxes. It is getting a perfectly-timed Republic Day release. And there are plenty of eye-roll moments as it chases the red-faced Brits, and raises the flag. It may have been Jhansi, but it is clearly a prelude to the ‘tiranga’. But what keeps us with the film is Rani Ranaut, who in her best moments, owns her part, the narrative, and the screen.

Almost every moment in the movie is a death of irony, the biggest of them being that Nawazuddin Siddiqui, an outsider on both counts of community and religion, plays Balasaheb Thackeray.