The Long Take with Akhil, Rohan & Devika

We’re divided on Decoupled, the new Netflix sitcom starring R Madhavan and Surveen Chawla.

We discuss the show’s problematic protagonist, debate whether the humour is tone-deaf or satirical, and wonder how involved director Hardik Mehta was, considering the strong stamp of authorship that creator Manu Joseph has left all over the place.

We also highlight some notable scenes, and draw comparisons to Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm and Hank Moody from Californication.

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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, Google Podcasts, Overcast, JioSaavn, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow The Long Take on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Write to us at [email protected].

Aranyak—the new Raveena Tandon-starrer on Netflix—is so uniformly poor that it has exactly one scene that stands out as being competently made. Otherwise, it never knows what it should be.

We discuss how everything—from Vinay Waikul’s direction to Charudutt Acharya’s writing, and from the accents and forced goofiness to Tandon’s central performance as a small-town cop—is so utterly misguided.

We also talk about how Netflix has been dropping the ball on an annual basis, and why Aranyak wouldn’t have warranted a second glance had it been released on a little-known app.

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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, Google Podcasts, Overcast, JioSaavn, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow The Long Take on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Write to us at [email protected].

The deeply-confusing Bob Biswas—the Kahaani spin-off on ZEE5—continues Abhishek Bachchan’s downward career trajectory.

We discuss the film’s convoluted plot, the nods to John Wick and Jason Bourne, and stylistic departure from Sujoy Ghosh’s original.

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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, Google Podcasts, Overcast, JioSaavn, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow The Long Take on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Write to us at [email protected].

The Beatles: Get Back—a three-part Disney+ documentary series—is a Shoah-like exercise in self-indulgence from director Peter Jackson, a man who has never seen a piece of footage that he hasn’t wanted to make longer.

We discuss the epic’s aimless structure and its demanding eight-hour run-time, but also the moments of musical magic in it, and Jackson’s fascination with restoring old footage.

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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, Google Podcasts, Overcast, JioSaavn, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow The Long Take on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Write to us at [email protected].

Can Dhamaka—the new Netflix thriller directed by Ram Madhvani—reintroduce Kartik Aaryan as a serious dramatic performer?

We discuss whether the film lives up to the potential of its high-concept premise, the various grudges that it bears and how it fares, and how reticent it is to deviate from the Korean original on which it is based.

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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, Google Podcasts, Overcast, JioSaavn, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow The Long Take on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Write to us at [email protected].

Red Notice—Netflix’s latest bid at spawning an action film franchise—feels like it has been created by an algorithm in a Hollywood lab. Will it follow in the footsteps of Extraction, or end up more like 6 Underground?

We discuss how tragically it wastes three of the world’s biggest movie stars in Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot—while pondering over the boring and repetitive careers of the former two.

We also talk about the film’s big twist and how it lies to the audience, wonder where the obnoxious amounts of money spent on it went, and why Netflix is at times happy to just feed the keywords.

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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, Google Podcasts, Overcast, JioSaavn, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow The Long Take on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Write to us at [email protected].

Does Chloé Zhao’s Eternals really deserve the unenviable tag of being the worst-reviewed Marvel movie?

We talk about the film’s glaring plot holes, its false sense of ambition, and how it wastes stellar performers in Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie.

We also discuss the bland action, the absence of Zhao’s distinct style, and the overstuffed roster of 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, Google Podcasts, Overcast, JioSaavn, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow The Long Take on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Write to us at [email protected].

Director Denis Villeneuve’s epic adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune looks wonderful and is filled to the brim with A-list actors, but it is oddly distant and too reverential of the source material. The film’s most subversive moment is when it reveals itself to be half a story.

We discuss its over-reliance on clunky exposition, how it fails to do justice to evergreen themes such as colonialism, and the lack of cultural specificity across tribes and factions in Dune. We also talk about Timothée Chalamet’s uninteresting performance and Zendaya’s glorified cameo.

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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, Google Podcasts, Overcast, JioSaavn, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow The Long Take on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Write to us at [email protected].

Sardar Udham—director Shoojit Sircar’s new film starring Vicky Kaushal as the revolutionary freedom fighter—is an indescribable epic that alternates between a spy thriller and a quiet character study, but has the scope of The Revenant and Lawrence of Arabia.

We discuss the film’s unique time-hopping structure, and the incredible final act, in which Sircar dramatises the Jallianwala Bagh massacre with uncompromising clarity.

We also talk about Sardar Udham’s sustained tone of dread, its dissection of British India and relevance to contemporary India, and the anger that courses through its veins.

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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, Google Podcasts, Overcast, JioSaavn, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow The Long Take on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Write to us at [email protected].

With Rashmi Rocket—director Akarsh Khurana’s new film on ZEE5—Taapsee Pannu finds herself in the unenviable position of having starred in three terrible films in the same calendar year. If Pannu were in Hollywood, no filmmaker would touch her.

Not only does Rashmi Rocket do a disservice to the real-life stories it is inspired by, it also disrespects two beloved film genres by making a mockery of sports films and courtroom dramas.

We discuss Pannu’s poor performance—she plays a Gujarati character with a Punjabi accent, go figure—the film’s strange structure, and blatant product placement that feels like the writers licking the producer’s boots.

And for a film ostensibly about feminism, Rashmi Rocket’s protagonist needs a man to come to her rescue (over and over), and is made to perform an item number—does no see the irony in this?

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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, Google Podcasts, Overcast, JioSaavn, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow The Long Take on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Write to us at [email protected].