Sitaare Zameen Par—marketed as the spiritual sequel to Aamir Khan’s 2007 hit Taare Zameen Par—is a shoddily made, preachy, borderline insensitive film with a noble mission.
However, just because it aims to raise awareness about an admirable cause doesn’t excuse its cringeworthy tone, Khan and Genelia Deshmukh’s subpar performances, and its casual othering of the neurodivergent community.
We discuss the film’s many problems before finally finding one aspect worthy of praise.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
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Is Dharma trying to actively sabotage Ibrahim Ali Khan’s career? After the unwatchable Nadaaniyan, the studio has released the equally inept Sarzameen, a feature-length debut for director Kayoze Irani.
We discuss the film’s unintelligent characters and confusing narrative, and wonder if most of it was left on the cutting room floor. We also talk about some of its more harebrained twists and the unintentional political statements it makes.
Sarzameen reeks of something that Netflix and Prime Video passed on, which is probably why it ended up on JioHotstar, a streamer where movies go to die.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, YouTube Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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The Malayalam-language sports comedy film Alappuzha Gymkhana has no stakes, no villain, and no classic structure. This could either have been a bold decision or an act of self-sabotage. It’s somewhere in the middle.
We talk about the film’s underdeveloped characters, its over-reliance on flashy camerawork, and its overlong second half. We also discuss its cultural specificity, its zero-stakes narrative, and its refreshing idea of male friendship.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, YouTube Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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After producing two movies about a hyper-masculine cop who literally lynches people, Nikkhil Advani has attached himself as an executive producer to Stolen, the new survival thriller on Prime Video.
In addition to Advani, the movie needed the support of heavy hitters such as Anurag Kashyap, Kiran Rao, and Vikramaditya Motwane in order to get a release after a festival run that began in 2023. Fortunately, it did, because it’s one of the better-made Hindi features of the year.
We talk about the film’s many layers, and how director Karan Tejpal weaves them into a tight narrative. We also discuss the film’s larger commentary about contemporary India, and some of the writing missteps that it makes.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, YouTube Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning may or may not be Tom Cruise’s final time playing IMF agent Ethan Hunt, but the movie is certainly not worthy of taking on sendoff responsibilities.
We discuss its two standout action set pieces, convoluted plot, and how it compares to its predecessor, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.
We also talk about Cruise’s portrayal as a mythic god and the movie’s over-reliance on exposition.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, YouTube Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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No diplomacy takes place in the new John Abraham film The Diplomat, which is now streaming on Netflix after a theatrical run earlier this year.
While Abraham doesn’t throw any punches in the film, The Diplomat is hardly a toned-down drama for adults.
We discuss the film’s odd narrative choices, unnecessary non-linear writing, and the absolute miscasting of Abraham. We also talk about the film’s problematic perspective, which reduces the female protagonist to a side character in her own story.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, YouTube Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Weeks after Nadaaniyan that starred his son, Saif Ali Khan’s Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins—inexplicably—further lowers the bar for Netflix India.
We struggle to talk meaningfully about the heist movie and instead find ourselves discussing Netflix’s terrible track record in India.
We wonder why an actor of Jaideep Ahlawat’s talent would put himself through this, and eventually get around to poking holes in the film’s plot and questioning the intelligence of its characters.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, YouTube Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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The United Nations should probably intervene and impose sanctions on streamers for wasting over $300 million on movies like The Electric State.
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo—the guys behind Avengers: Endgame and Infinity War—the film somehow lowers the bar for them even further, after the one-two punch of The Gray Man and Citadel.
It’s remarkable how little spark Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown have in this film, which also disrespects Stanley Tucci, Ke Huy Quan and Giancarlo Esposito by isolating them in separate corners of the movie.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, YouTube Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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In Superboys of Malegaon, director Reema Kagti unites three talented male actors in an inspiring story about ambition and friendship. But was she the ideal person for the job?
We discuss the film’s sanitised storytelling, its formulaic narrative, and writer Varun Grover seemingly playing it safe.
We also talk about the abundance of characters and the visible difficulty that Kagti has in fleshing them out.
Along the way, we also discuss the broader points that the movie is trying to make about the business of films and how success impacts fragile human beings.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, YouTube Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.
IsMrs., the Hindi-language remake of the acclaimed Malayalam filmThe Great Indian Kitchen, a better exploration of the same ideas?
We discuss the ways in whichMrs. improves upon the original and the ways in which it falls short.
We also praise Sanya Malhotra’s central performance and highlight the flourishes that director Arati Kadav brings to her version. But the film’s ending—as with the original—remains a sticking point.
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Hosted byAkhil Arora andRohan Naahar,The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please considerdonating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available onSpotify,Apple Podcasts,Amazon Music,JioSaavn,Overcast,Pandora,RadioPublic,iHeart Radio,YouTube Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Ahead of the Oscar nominations, we discuss one of the most acclaimed films of 2024, writer-director Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light.
We talk about the film’s bittersweet exploration of urban loneliness and the migrant experience, its depiction of Mumbai, and Kapadia’s command over tone. We also talk about the bold mid-movie pivot and how it affects the narrative.
Later, we discuss the film’s Oscars omission and the disrespect that it has been shown by the Film Federation of India.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Jigra, the new film by Vasan Bala, combines his trademark cine-literate sensibilities with mainstream Bollywood tropes.
The odd combination makes for an interesting discourse about the film’s broad sentimentality, its genre credentials, and storytelling that is both contrived and confident.
We discuss Bala’s balancing act and whether it works. Along the way, we talk about Alia Bhatt’s strong central performance, the action set-pieces, and the film’s emotional core.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Deadpool & Wolverine, the only Marvel Cinematic Universe movie this year, levels up in terms of budget but isn't bothered about evolving emotionally.
We discuss the film’s relentless humour, the ugly CGI, and the confusingly complicated plot. There’s time for self-reference, but not for self-reflection in the Deadpool films, as Ryan Reynolds continues to overwhelm every aspect of them.
We also talk about where the film stands in the ever-expanding MCU, and whether it would even work five years down the line.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.
Stree 2 is an overlong, unfunny, and ultimately unnecessary sequel that has no idea how to deliver scares or laughs.
Every scene in the film goes on for too long, the jokes are repeated to the point of redundancy, and some of the diversions are baffling to behold. Why is Akshay Kumar in this? How old is Tamannaah Bhatia’s character? Why are there no rules to this universe?
We discuss the film’s flawed feminism, its boring tone, and that CGI-fuelled climax that goes on forever.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.
Vikramaditya Motwane’s fascination with genre cinema continues. But his latest film, CTRL, isn't exactly going to win him any new fans.
We discuss the film’s mess of a script, which tries to cram in way too many ideas than it needed to. We also talk about its elaborate conspiracy thriller section and its melancholic third act.
Along the way, we praise Ananya Panday for bringing nuance to a string of performances that could be misinterpreted as belonging to the same category.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Kottukkaali, writer-director P.S. Vinothraj’s follow-up to the acclaimed Koozhangal, divided us down the middle.
We speak about the techniques Vinothraj uses to tell an ever-evolving, odyssey-like story about a group of people accompanying a young woman to her exorcism.
We discuss the brief bursts of horror and comedy and talk about the larger points that Vinothraj is trying to make about a deeply rotten society.
We also debate the film’s ambiguous ending and wonder why the filmmaker wants to put us in the shoes of a monstrous male character.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.
Sector 36 is a gratuitously grisly dramatisation of the gruesome Nithari serial murders from around two decades ago. But because it unfolds with zero nuance, the movie mines cheap thrills out of a real-life horror story.
We talk about the strange arcs that Vikrant Massey and Deepak Dobriyal’s characters have been given, the haphazard narrative structure, and seemingly missing sequences that could’ve helped make the story smoother.
We also talk about Massey’s performance in the interrogation scene and the filmmakers’ odd decision to set the movie in Delhi and not Noida, where the actual crimes took place.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.
Kill might be one of the rare movies that actually benefit from a remake—that’s how royally it fumbles both its action and revenge plot.
We discuss the film’s indecipherable approach to close combat, the lead actor Lakshya’s wooden performance, and the lack of inventiveness in the story.
We also talk about the unearned John Wick and The Raid comparisons, and wonder why international audiences seemed to appreciate the film.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.
The year’s biggest Indian hit, Kalki 2898 AD, is just as irredeemable as Prabhas’ other recent films.
But unlike those movies, this one barely features Prabhas at all and drags on for three hours without offering a single character you can latch on to. We talk about the film’s poor construction, subpar world-building, and superficial writing.
We also discuss its shameless sequel-bait of a climax and wonder why people weren’t up in arms about being short-changed by writer-director Nag Ashwin.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.
Angry Young Men, the three-part documentary about writers Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar’s partnership, is a massive missed opportunity.
We discuss the show’s cagey approach to its legendary subjects, the overwhelming feeling of self-satisfaction, and the unearned points it tries to score for highlighting the plight of writers in the film business.
We also discuss the superficial filmmaking, the lack of insight provided by everybody involved, and more than anything else, express our shock at the creative decision not to put Salim-Javed in the same room together.
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Hosted by Akhil Arora and Rohan Naahar, The Long Take is fully bootstrapped. Please consider donating if you enjoy our work.
The Long Take is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, Overcast, Pandora, RadioPublic, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.
