Dhund (2019)

A round of Russian Roulette in Sudeep Kanwal’s Dhund (The Fog) feels less like a thrilling game of fate and more like a desperate act of honour. It unfurls in Ferozepur, an old Punjabi town situated at the Indo-Pakistan border. It is 1958, a decade since the Partition, and ageing family patriarch Santokh Singh (Vipin Sharma), a grieving widower, engages his son Harmeet (Sharib Hashmi) with a pistol at the dead of night. The old man has the first drink of his life – “I hear this makes you brave,” he remarks. What he must really mean is this: Alcohol acts as a truth serum, and braveness is only a prerequisite to face the truth.