Vikramaditya Motwane Archives

Sacred Games Season 2 Review: Netflix’s Gangster Drama Has a Ganesh Gaitonde Problem

The second season of Sacred Games remains intriguing and baffling at the same time. It insidiously sprawls and at times, there is no differentiating between intent or accident, quality or scale. Moreover, it has a visible Gaitonde problem, a gospel it has built and now can’t shake.

Manik Sharma July 20, 2016

Pop Culture

Mindhunter Review: A Second Season that’s Actually Good, Unlike Sacred Games

Both Mindhunter and Sacred Games became jewels in Netflix’s streaming crown on the backs of their riveting first seasons. But while Mindhunter manages to recapture the brooding atmosphere that was its signature, Sacred Games’ well seems like it’s starting to run dry.

Dushyant Shekhawat June 25, 2016

Pop Culture

Trapped in the Cities That Are Driving Us Crazy

Vikramaditya Motwane’s Trapped goes to the heart of an inherent paranoia that cityfolk are programmed to feel. We run to these stories for the morbid fascination of possibility.

Nimisha Misra June 20, 2016

Pop Culture

Ghoul Review: Humans Are the Real Monsters in Netflix’s Horror Mini Series

Like Get Out and Pari, the Radhika Apte-starrer Ghoul underlines horror with context and uses it as a device to drive home a point about prejudice and gross injustice. In all three, humans are the hunters – not the hunted.

Poulomi Das April 30, 2016

Pop Culture

#Throwback 2018: Thank You, Sacred Games, for Ganesh Gaitonde, Katekar, and the Gang of Gopalmath

Sacred Games single-handedly ended the drought of smartly written and performed shows of Indian origin, on the internet. It was that unicorn that treated the small screen with the same level of ambition and respect usually reserved for the silver one.

Arré Bench April 24, 2016

Bollywood

The Forgotten Army Review: Kabir Khan’s Story of Bose’s INA Raises Pertinent Questions About Nationalism

Kabir Khan’s Amazon show The Forgotten Army is a welcome departure from hyper-jingoistic historical epics that have become par for the course today. But Khan never quite gets a grip on the complexities of the Indian National Army, which often clashed with its own countrymen who were part of the British army.

Poulomi Das April 20, 2016

Pop Culture

Sacred Games: Sartaj Singh, The Man We Can’t Wait to See on Screen

Sacred Games with its supremely Sikh hero, is the stuff great stories are made of: Men struggling with their burdens, their goodness and their ghosts, and failing spectacularly at it. Will the Netflix series do justice to both the book and its brooding anti-hero?

Sharan Saikumar April 11, 2016

Pop Culture

7 Years of Lootera: Why Vikramaditya Motwane’s Period Film Feels Like a Personal Indulgence

In the last seven years, Lootera’s legacy has assumed a life of its own. Now, the film feels so much like a personal indulgence: It wordlessly captures a specific kind of yearning that we often fail to define during the length and breadth of our own lives. Even though we recognise it the moment we see it.

Poulomi Das April 3, 2016

Pop Culture

Sacred Games Review: India’s First Netflix Original Gets India Right

In Netflix’s Sacred Games, Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane deliver a thriller that doesn’t shy away from being an indictment on religion. The show argues that religion has always been used to shape politics, commit murder, and amass wealth.

Poulomi Das March 26, 2016