The Paradise (2026)

Jadal’s best friend in The Paradise is named Biryani, which is the most fun this movie allows itself in nearly three hours. Everything else is fists. Srikanth Odela builds a 1980s Secunderabad slum you can practically smell, home to the Savaari, a tribe denied the vote and citizenship and squeezed by a landlord named Shikanja Maalik. That’s a powerful setup, and the film keeps burying it under brawl after brawl. Critics called the screenplay crowded and the second half scattered, and they’re right. The bond between Sonali Kulkarni’s Sammakka and her son, the beating heart on paper, barely gets room to breathe. Nani is the reason to go. He turned up bulked up and ferocious, and he plays Jadal, fresh out of prison, like a guy who never wanted to lead anybody until he had no choice. Raghav Juyal makes Vikram, Shikanja’s son and Jadal’s childhood rival, a properly unnerving villain. A 4.4 because the star and the world are huge and the story is a rumor. $59.22 says you walk out wishing the movie had been about his mom.

What works: Nani gives a ferocious, physical lead performance, and the 1980s slum feels enormous and lived in. Mohan Babu and Sonali Kulkarni bring real weight to their scenes.

What doesn’t: The screenplay is overcrowded and fragmented, and the nonstop fighting drowns out the mother and son story that should carry the film.

Who it’s for: Nani fans who want to see him go full action hero, and anyone who loves a giant, handmade period set.