There were two things that were going through my mind before watching Berlin: the lack of 5-star Bollywood movies and the scarcity of good, hard-boiled spy or conspiracy thrillers. I had just returned from the theater after experiencing one of the most headache-inducing films of the year, The Greatest of All Time, and I was bemoaning the state of the genre that it was set in. Movies like Eagle, Tiger 3, Raktabeej, Khufiya, Custody, Pathaan, Vikram, and War make it seem like, in order to tell a story about secret agents or a national or international scandal, a movie has to feature a bunch of nonsensical plotlines, overwhelming action, and impractical technical wizardry. As if that’s not enough, these films also rely on copious amounts of chest-thumping nationalism to titillate audiences. This is when I was struck with the realization that even though I have watched over 200 new films this year,…