Bombay-Dilli Productions

Direct Pulkit should hang his head in shame and apologise for disrespting actors and disgracing Cinema

Full Bambaiyya Swag, Zero Soul — When Style Goes Bindaas and Substance Takes a Chhutti

There’s something almost filmi about the way Matka King arrives—full swag, full atmosphere, proper Bambaiyya underbelly on display—but also carrying the unmistakable baggage of Nagraj Manjule’s recent trajectory. Because let’s be honest, boss: ever since Fandry, it’s been a bit of a downhill scene. Sairaat was the big dhamaka—runaway success, cultural tsunami, the works—but after that, the filmmaking has felt increasingly… thoda diluted, thoda lost in its own hype.

Matka King continues that pattern—solid on the surface, but scratch it and you’ll find a certain creative fatigue setting in.

Now, full marks where due. The series looks the part. Old Bombay is recreated with genuine mehnat—its claustrophobic dens, sweaty addas, the rhythm of a city running on risk and rumour. The way Bombay is shot has real cinematic ambition. There are passages where the camera lingers, almost lovingly, over the city’s architectural memory—especially around Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus—and you can see the thought behind it.

The use of AI to erase contemporary clutter and restore a more pristine, period-accurate skyline is quite slick. It’s not loud or gimmicky—more like a quiet flex. For a bit, you’re like, arre wah, someone’s thinking visually, not just narratively.

But then, boss, the storytelling kicks in—and things start going thoda off-track.

The cinematography has flashes of brilliance—moody lighting, textured frames—but no consistent gaze. Editing? Arre yaar, kaafi loose. Scenes overstay their welcome, the pacing drags, and the tension never quite builds the way it should in a world driven by chance and consequence. Direction-wise, Manjule seems to have traded instinct for control. Where earlier he trusted silence, here he over-explains. Emotions are spelt out, conflicts underlined—everything feels a bit too designed, too safe.

And then we come to performances—where things get really interesting, and not always in a good way.

Vijay Varma as Brij Bhatti has presence, no doubt. He brings that simmering intensity he’s built a reputation on. But the character feels like it’s carrying a hangover—part Gully Boy, part Darlings. The body language, the pauses, even the emotional beats—there’s a sense of déjà vu. It’s like he’s revisiting familiar territory rather than discovering something new. Effective in parts, yes—but also a bit been-there-done-that.

Siddhartha Jadhav brings a welcome groundedness—earthy, spontaneous, with that effortless Bambaiyya rhythm. He feels the most at home in this world.

Sai Tamhankar delivers with restraint and control, as expected. But again, the writing doesn’t quite give her enough to chew on. She elevates the material, but you keep wishing the material would meet her halfway.

Jamie Lever as Sulbha, though, is where things really go haywire. For someone who’s a household name thanks to her mimicry, the performance screams unpolished craft. The now-on-now-off Malayali accent is frankly distracting—kabhi hai, kabhi gayab—and the emotional beats feel forced. Instead of inhabiting Sulbha, she seems to be performing her. It sticks out, and not in a good way.

And then there’s Kishore Kadam as the corrupt politician Bapat. A fine actor, no doubt—but here, he’s saddled with a role he’s played zillions of times before. The archetypal neta—smug, manipulative, morally bankrupt—it’s all there, but there’s nothing new to discover. It feels like autopilot, both in writing and performance.

This brings us to a deeper, more troubling issue: the painful homogenisation of accents and characterisation across the series.

Everyone seems to be slipping into neat, predictable boxes. Dialects blur into a generic “Mumbai underworld” soundscape. Cultural specificities are flattened. The Parsi characters, for instance, are so pat and 2D they might as well have walked in from The Archies—all quirks, no complexity. Accents become affectations, not identities. It’s like the series wants diversity, but only the cosmetic kind.

And that’s where Matka King really falters.

Because Manjule, at his best, was all about specificity—the sharp edges of caste, class, language, lived experience. In Fandry, every gesture, every silence carried weight. Here, everything feels smoothed out, standardised, made palatable.

Yes, there is craft. Yes, there is ambition. Yes, there are moments that remind you of what could have been. But the soul—the raw, uncomfortable, deeply political core that once defined his cinema—feels missing.

End of the day, Matka King is decent timepass, even engaging in patches. But it leaves you with that very Bambaiyya aftertaste: boss, sab kuch tha—budget, actors, setting—but asli jaan kahan gaya?

And with Nagraj Manjule, that question hits harder than it should.

This one's almost as exciting as a picnic on a wet afternoon..

Rating; ⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Source: IMDb Highly Rated Shows

The legend whose films revolutionised Indian Cinema.. He was an institution in himself.. RIP

1. Blood Diamond (2006) - 8.0
2. Hotel Rwanda (2004) - 8.1
3. Black Hawk Down (2001) - 7.7
4. Tears of the Sun (2003) - 6.6
5. The Last King of Scotland (2006) - 7.7
6. District 9 (2009) - 7.9
7. Tsotsi (2005) - 7.2
8. Out of Africa (1985) - 7.2
9. The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) - 6.8
10. The Constant Gardener (2005) - 7.4
11. The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) - 7.3
12. Invictus (2009) - 7.3
13. The Lion King (1994) - 8.5
14. Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013) - 7.1
15. Gorillas in the Mist (1988) - 7.0
16. The Interpreter (2005) - 6.4
17. The Siege of Jadotville (2016) - 7.2
18. Zulu (1964) - 7.7
19. The Blue Elephant (2014) - 6.7
20. Chappie (2015) - 6.8
21. The Bang Bang Club (2010) - 7.0
22. Out of Inferno (2013) - 6.1
23. The Wild Geese (1978) - 6.8
24. Africa United (2010) - 6.6
25. Catch a Fire (2006) - 6.7
26. The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) - 6.8
27. The Power of One (1992) - 7.2
28. The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) - 6.8
29. Machine Gun Preacher (2011) - 6.8
30. The Naked Prey (1965) - 7.3
31. The Air Up There (1994) - 5.5
32. The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989) - 6.8
33. White Hunter Black Heart (1990) - 6.7
34. Red Scorpion (1988) - 5.2
35. Ashanti (1979) - 5.5
36. Dark of the Sun (1968) - 6.9
37. Shaka Zulu (1986) - 7.7
38. Mountains of the Moon (1990) - 7.2
39. Safari (1956) - 6.5
40. Zambezia (2012) - 5.8
41. Safari 3000 (1982) - 5.2
42. Safari Drums (1953) - 5.1
43. The Lion of Africa (1988) - 6.0
44. The White Warrior (1959) - 6.2
45. African Cats (2011) - 7.6
46. The Journey of August King (1995) - 6.3
47. King Solomon's Mines (1985) - 5.2
48. Lost in Africa (2010) - 6.1
49. Diamonds (1999) - 5.4
50. In My Country (2004) - 6.3
51. Silverton Siege (2022) - (Rating not available at the moment).

🎬𝐓𝐨𝐩 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬🍿✨

1. Schindler's List (1993)
2. Titanic (1997)
3. A Beautiful Mind (2001)
4. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
5. Apollo 13 (1995)
6. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
7. The Imitation Game (2014)
8. Spotlight (2015)
9. The Revenant (2015)
10. Sully (2016)
11. Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
12. Dunkirk (2017)
13. The Post (2017)
14. Darkest Hour (2017)
15. Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
16. Green Book (2018)
17. Vice (2018)
18. First Man (2018)
19. The Social Network (2010)
20. Ford v Ferrari (2019)
21. 1917 (2019)
22. Just Mercy (2019)
23. Bombshell (2019)
24. Harriet (2019)
25. Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
26. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)
27. Richard Jewell (2019)
28. Captain Phillips (2013)
29. The King's Speech (2010)
30. The Blind Side (2009)
31. Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
32. Moneyball (2011)
33. American Sniper (2014)
34. The Theory of Everything (2014)
35. Erin Brockovich (2000)
36. Goodfellas (1990)
37. Hotel Rwanda (2004)
38. 127 Hours (2010)
39. The Fighter (2010)
40. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
41. Bridge of Spies (2015)
42. Unbroken (2014)
43. The Founder (2016)
44. Hidden Figures (2016)
45. The Danish Girl (2015)
46. Invictus (2009)
47. The Elephant Man (1980)
48. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
49. Sully (2016)
50. The Pianist (2002)
51. Into the Wild (2007)
52. Ray (2004)
53. Milk (2008)
54. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
55. The Hurricane (1999)
56. The Last King of Scotland (2006)
57. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
58. The Great Debaters (2007)
59. The Fighter (2010)
60. The Butler (2013)
61. The Big Short (2015)
62. American Hustle (2013)
63. Invictus (2009)
64. Lincoln (2012)
65. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
66. The Aviator (2004)
67. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
68. The Elephant Man (1980)
69. My Left Foot (1989)
70. Chaplin (1992)
71. Frida (2002)
72. Hotel Rwanda (2004)
73. Monster (2003)
74. Zodiac (2007)
75. Selma (2014)
76. Steve Jobs (2015)
77. Jackie (2016)
78. The Walk (2015)
79. The Man Who Knew

゚ ゚ ゚

The best 42 Heist Movies you should watch!🎬🍿✨
1. Ambulance
2. Den of thieves
3. Inside man
4. The vault
5. The town
6. The Italian job
7. Heat
8. Ocean's eleven
9. The bank job
10. Heist of the century
11. Baby driver
12. Army of thieves
13. Triple frontier
14. The usual suspects
15. Now you see me
16. Inception
17. The Steal
18. Wrath of man
19. Ocean's 8
20. Hurricane heist
21. Focus one
22. Takers
23. The misfits
24. Coin heist
25. Honest thief
26. Army of the dead
27. Red notice
28. This is a robbery
29. Ant man
30. Going in style
31. Logan lucky
32. Triple 9
33. King of thieves
34. Tower Heist
35. Gone in 60 seconds
36. Rogue one
37. Marauders
38. Hell or high water
39. The thieves
40. The swindlers
41. Heist
42. The con artists

📽️Navy Seal Movies 🍿✨

1. Seal Team Six: The Raid on
The Terminal List (2022)
2. Act of Valor (2012)
3. Redemption Day (2021)
4. Tom Clancy's Without Remorse (2021)
5. American Sniper (2014)
6. Lone Survivor (2013)
7. The A-Team (2010)
8. The Eleventh Hour (2008)
9. Captain Phillips (2013)
10. SEAL Team VI (2008).
11. Avengers: Endgame (2019) 12. Platoon (1986)
13. A Man Called Otto (2022)
14. The Rock (1996)
15. Battle Royale (2000)
16. A Veteran's Christmas (2018) 17. The Terminal List (2022)
18. Leave No Trace (2018)
19. Obliterated (2023)
20. The Predator (2018)
21. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016)
23. Tom Clancy's Without Remorse (2021)
24.American Sniper (2014)
25. The A-Team (2010)
26. SEAL Team (2017)
27. Triple Frontier (2019)
28.Jarhead 2: Field of Fire (2014)
29. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
30. 22 Minutes (2014)
31. Battle Los Angeles (2011)
32. Down River (2018)
33. Hunter Killer (2018)
34. Obliterated (2023)
35. Renegades (2017)

Third National Film School of India, in the beautiful Arunachal Pradesh 🙂

‘FTII brings big honour to INDIA’

A Student film "Sunflowers were the first ones to know" is the winner of La Cinef Award at 77th Cannes Film Festival

Student director Shri Chidananda S Naik received this prestigious award at Cannes on 23rd May 2024

The Film is based on folklore from Karnataka & was produced as part of FTII’s year end coordinated exercise of TV- wing.

Many congratulations to ChidanandNaik (Direction), Suraj Thakur (Camera), Manoj V (Editing) & Abhishek Kadam (Sound), for this big achievement.

The reception of this prestigious award is a historical achievement for Indian Cinema.