Hindi
Loot is past expiry date
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Producer: Shabbir Boxwala, Anup Gandhi. |
MUMBAI: There was a trend a few years back of gathering a bunch of actors of varied images, shape and size, sending them abroad with a stunt coordinator and special effects wizards and putting together a film qualifying as ‘thrilling action adventure shot on foreign locations‘; the foreign tag being a novelty.
In case of Loot, locations like Bangkok/Pattaya, the so-called novelty, have featured in more films than Govinda or Suniel Shetty, the lead players of this movie have; so much for location novelty.
Govinda and Jaaved Jaafery are blundering housebreakers who have a track record of never succeeding; whether as a punishment or reward they are despatched to Pattaya to steal some treasure, with Suniel Shetty and Mahaakshay Chakraborty added as other specialists by art dealer Dalip Tahil. What they don‘t know is that they will be pitted against the biggest dons of the subcontinent, who have settled there, and will become sacrificial goats.
Mahesh Manjrekar is a Pakistani don settled in Pattaya who wants to get rid of super don, Prem Chopra, and become the super don instead. The quartet of Suniel Shetty, Govinda, Jaaved Jaafery and Mahaakshay Chakroborty are told they are robbing a treasure but are instead sent to Mahesh Manjrekar‘s house, who they tie up and loot.
Along with cash, they also lay their hands on some tapes of Manjrekar‘s conversations with other sundry dons in which they talk about liquidating Prem Chopra. On the side is a RAW agent, Ravi Kishan, who has his own sinister ideas of getting his hands on these tapes to make millions. At this point, you don‘t care anymore where the story is going since even the writer seems to have no clue.
There are some super human stunts, Pattaya night life, songs, chase sequences and what have you. But these have all been seen in so many films over and over again. By the time it ends, you are more tired than all those performing the antics.
With a hackneyed script, the film‘s direction sticks to routine as well. Instead of performing, the actors have a style or what you may call “idiosyncrasies”: Sunil Shetty keeps running his hands over his crew-cut, Govinda goes on never-ending, unfathomable diatribes in chaste Hindi, Jaaved Jaafery keeps getting mixed up between a Bhindi Bazaar Muslim and a Sindhi, and Mahaakshay Chakraborty looks all at sea.
The girls have only little more to do here than junior artistes in any other film. Mahesh Manjrekar is a caricature don and hams his way through the film. Other hunks picked up to fill the spaces don‘t matter. Mika as a street gangster is a laughable imitation of 1970s Hollywood films. Music is bad except background score.
Loot, coming as it does ages after its due date, is past expiry date.
Bhardwaj, Mahesh Manjrekar, Ravi Kishan, Prem Chopra, Razzak Khan, Dalip Tahil.
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Producer: Shanti Varma, Raj Varma, Jay Prakash. |
Tension ension Doooor is a huge case of misplaced understandings of film business
Every once in a while there comes a man loaded with cash and misguided notions of capturing the film industry in a short cut to attaining stardom. Films like Tension Doooor are the result: it is a huge case of misplaced understandings of film business.
So here is this guy called Swaraaj Singh, who is so pure-at-heart that when lightning strikes the bus he is travelling on, he is the only one to walk out of it alive. The lightning was meant to strike sinners and he was the only clean soul! He goes back to his village but realises he has lost his hearing (total waste of footage since this has nothing to do with things that follow) but has gained an extra sensory power to read people‘s thoughts. Soon he identifies the frauds in his village but this leads to trouble with the village heads and he is banished from his village. He comes to Mumbai where he meets pickpocket Ali Asgar who suggest they cash in on his gift of reading minds; soon Swaraaj Singh is a most sought after psychiatrist-cum-trouble shooter till his path crosses that of Raza Murad, a traitor, leading to an action climax.
The film has 1960s written all over it, from its titles to story and treatment. It is ancient and there is nothing pleasant to watch on screen. The hero has no qualifications to be one – looks, acting or personality – save for his own money put into the making.
Hindi
Jio Studios unveils AI-powered Krishna teaser at NAB Show 2026
Global first look of Krishna uses Galleri5 AI pipeline on Azure, Historyverse slate as Jio’s Dhurandhar crosses Rs 3,000cr worldwide.
MUMBAI: Krishna has just dropped a divine teaser and this time the gods are powered by silicon, not just scripture. Jio Studios and Collective Studios’ Historyverse stole the spotlight at the NAB Show 2026 in Las Vegas with the world’s first teaser for their upcoming theatrical feature Krishna, directed by Manu Anand. The big reveal happened during Microsoft’s keynote “Powering Intelligent Media, From AI Experimentation to Real-World Impact,” where the film’s AI-native production pipeline took centre stage alongside Collective Artists Network’s in-house platform, Galleri5.
At the heart of this mythological spectacle lies a fresh cinematic workflow built by Galleri5 on Microsoft Azure’s advanced AI and cloud infrastructure. Forget bolting AI onto traditional VFX or animation, this is an end-to-end, production-grade system woven into every layer: world-building, character creation, shot design and final output. Yet the storytelling remains firmly director-led, emphasising emotional depth, stillness, music and performance rather than pure spectacle. The result? Large-format theatrical cinema rooted in Indian history and culture, but conceived in ways that were simply not possible before.
Collective Artists Network runs Galleri5 natively on Azure, leveraging Microsoft Foundry and cutting-edge AI tools to handle film, episodic and advertising workflows in a secure enterprise environment. Microsoft highlighted Collective as a “Frontier” organisation successfully moving AI from pilot projects to real production-scale deployment in cinema. The technology is also on display at Microsoft’s NAB booth in the West Hall (Booth W1731).
Jio Studios (Media & Content Business, Reliance Industries), president Jyoti Deshpande said the project advances the studio’s mission to take Indian stories global with scale, ambition and authenticity, “With Krishna, we are embracing cutting-edge AI-led filmmaking while democratising these tools to make them more accessible, intuitive and cost-effective for storytellers everywhere.”
Collective Artists Network founder & group CEO Vijay Subramaniam added, “We’re using technology developed in India to carry our culture and history to audiences worldwide at a scale never seen before.”
Microsoft, vice president for telco media & entertainment, gaming Silvia Candiani noted that the media industry has reached an inflection point, “AI is no longer about experimentation but delivering real impact at production scale… By building AI-native creative systems on Microsoft Azure, Collective exemplifies how storytellers can unlock new formats, move faster and realise a true return on intelligence while keeping human creativity at the centre.”
Krishna forms part of Historyverse, Collective Studios’ ambitious slate of history and culture-driven IPs. The slate draws from iconic figures and traditions that shaped the Indian subcontinent, including stories inspired by Kali, Karna and Durga. It builds on the already-released Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh series, showing how ancient narratives can be reimagined for modern screens.
Jio Studios, India’s leading content studio and the media and content arm of Reliance Industries, continues its blockbuster run. The studio’s Dhurandhar franchise led by Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge has become the first Indian film series to cross Rs 3,000 crore worldwide. It also delivered three consecutive years of India’s highest-grossing Hindi films: Stree 2 (2024), Dhurandhar (2025) and Dhurandhar: The Revenge (2026). In just eight years, Jio Studios has assembled a library of over 160 films and series, with more than 60 titles winning over 500 awards. Other notable successes include Laapataa Ladies (India’s official Oscar entry 2025), Stree, Article 370, Shaitaan and Mrs.
The NAB unveiling marks another step in Jio Studios and Collective’s push to blend Indian storytelling talent with frontier technology proving that the future of cinema may well be both ancient in spirit and thoroughly modern in execution. For audiences who love epic tales with a fresh twist, Krishna promises to deliver divine drama, this time with a little help from the cloud.
