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.

Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.

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.

Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.

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.

Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.

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.

Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.

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.

FollowThe Long Take onInstagram,Facebook,Threads, andYouTube. Write to us atthelongtakepod@gmail.com.

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.

Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.

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.

Follow The Long Take on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube. Write to us at thelongtakepod@gmail.com.