New directors to the fore in 2025’s Summer vacay cinema

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Despite the shock to the viewer’s system that was Sikandar, there is decent fare coming up for the audiences this summer vacation season. Academic institutions normally reopen in early June and from April to until then we have a fair mix.

Here are the details. April 4 goes without a release, as it was about giving space to the Salman Khan biggie (by convention now, movies are not released until at least a fortnight after a magnum opus, and if some films turn out as magnum boguses, well, we can’t help it!).

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Coming up on April 10 is a biggie whose trailer has evoked mixed reactions: Jatt. Produced by the makers of the Pushpa franchise and other South hits, the film features Sunny Deol, no less, in his first-ever Southern ambience project. Regina Cassandra co-stars, and Gopichand Malineni directs the film with Randeep Hooda as the antagonist. S. Thaman scores music.

And while this is a Thursday release, Friday the 11^th will see the modest Phule and Chhorii 2, the horror comedy, on Amazon Prime Video. The former is another offbeat and realistic film from Ananth Narayan Mahadevan (who directed The Storyteller just last month) on the great Indian social reformer, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule. A Zee Studios co-production, it features Pratik Gandhi as Phule with Patralekhaa. The other is a sequel to the 2021 film, Chhorii, that had released on OTT and was touted to have done well despite its mediocrity.

April 18 will see Kesari 2, the second film in the Kesari franchise and Dharma Productions’ fourth co-production with Akshay Kumar’s home banner, Cape of Good Films, after Kesari, Good Newwz and Sooryavanshi. Directed by debutant Karan Singh Tyagi, it features Ananya Panday and R. Madhavan. The film is based on the life of C. Sankaran Nair, a lawyer and former president of the Indian National Congress, who also fought for the truth behind the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Alongside this will release the horror comedy The Bhoothni featuring Sanjay Dutt, Mouni Roy, Sunny Singh and Palak Tiwari. Directed by newcomer Siddhant Sachdev, the film’s trailer is tepidly funny, so here’s hoping the film will be better.

April 25 will see another patriotic (but contemporary) drama in Ground Zero alongside the thriller Jewel Thief—The Heist Begins. The former is produced by Excel Entertainment and directed by Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar and features Emraan Hashmi, new Excel favorite Sai Tamhankar and Zoya Hussain.

The latter drama features Saif Ali Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat, Nikita Dutta and Kunal Kapoor and is a Siddharth Anand production directed by Kookie Gulati-Robbie Garewal, forming a director duo after their individual ventures did not work over the last two decades and more. This film will premiere on Netflix.

May will begin with the much-awaited biggie Raid 2, sequel to the Rajkumar Gupta-directed Ajay Devgn film in 2018. Vaani Kapoor and Riteish Deshmukh (as the main antagonist) feature in this action drama co-produced by T-Series. The film releases on May 1.

Bhool Chuk Maaf, a rollicking comedy directed again by a newcomer,          Karan Sharma, promises a laugh-riot and judging by the trailer, promises to be the sixth consecutive success / hit / blockbuster from Maddock Films and Dinesh Vijan. The film features Rajkummar Rao and Wamiqa Gabbi.

The rest of the month has small films coming up. Abir Gulaal, helmed by first-time director Aarti S. Bagdi, features Fawad Khan (in his comeback to Indian films) and Vaani Kapoor. Kesari Veer directed by first-time Prince Dhiman, will star Suniel Shetty, Vivek Oberoi, Sooraj Pancholi and Akansha Sharma, while Suswagatam Khushaamadeed has newcomer Dhiraj Kumar as director and Pulkit Samrat  and Isabelle Kaif as the lead pair, in what is as good as her proper Hindi debut.

However, as if to entice audiences at the end of the vacay season and make us (hopefully) chortle, we get the fifth film (a first for Hindi cinema) in a franchise, Housefull 5. Tarun Manshukhani has been entrusted with this film and the cast reminds me of the Rajkumar Kohli mega-multi-starrers of the 1970s, Nagin and Jaani Dushmun or of last year’s Singham Returns.

Akshay Kumar and Riteish Deshmukh (the two compulsions) and Chunky Pandey yet again as Aakhri Pasta are there. Along with them, we will find Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachchan (from Housefull 3), Nana Patekar (who was to originally do Housefull 4 in the cameo done by Rana Daggubati), Fardeen Khan, Dino Morea, Jackie Shroff (again from Housefull 3), Shreyas Talpade, Ranjeet, Johny Lever, Jacqueline Fernandez and Nargis Fakhri (both from the third film, though Jacqueline also did a song cameo in Housefull and was one of the leads in Housefull 2), Sonam Bajwa, Chitrangda Singh and Soundarya Sharma.

Phew! The cast, at least is Housefull, and here’s hoping the film will also see shows that are full!

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