Kalank
The movie retains its hauteur and attention to period haute couture even as it goes off the rails, finally chugging into its destination after leaving broken hearts and unmet ambitions in its wake.
Apr 2019
The Tashkent Files
...is the kind of movie you get when you arrange an offline meeting of the online community that has rallied behind the Quora question, “Did Lal Bahadur Shastri die a natural death?”
Apr 2019
Romeo Akbar Walter
The twists in Romeo Akbar Walter don’t always work, and the narrative is stretched to 144 unearned minutes. The plotting barely rises above the level of the popular television series CID.
Apr 2019
- Mar 2019
Gone Kesh
The light touch that peppers most of the scenes feels misplaced, given the gravity of Enakshi’s condition and the association between beauty and hair. The shattering of self-image and the tragedy of Enakshi’s plight, given her youth, are barely explored.
Mar 2019
Junglee
The scenes between Jammwal and elephants of various sizes are the best thing about Junglee, after its plea to halt the poaching of the gentle giants.
Mar 2019
Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota
...there is nothing unfeeling about Vasan Bala’s retro tribute to the small, silly and lasting ways in which the movies leave an imprint on the soul.
Mar 2019
Hamid
The movie balances simplicity and profundity, and would have benefited from a leaner running time to better convey its ambitious exploration of loss and abandonment in a region stereotyped as a paradise on earth.
Mar 2019
- Mar 2019
Mere Pyare Prime Minister
...loses direction as it navigates its way through its good intentions and delays an outcome that is predicted from the first frame of the button-cute kids running around the slum.
Mar 2019
22 Yards
...does benefit from nicely etched characters and a feel for cricketing denizens who are sometimes forgotten as the game gets too big for its own good. A T-20 trot becomes a one-day trudge, but the relief at a movie about cricket that doesn’t involve nationalism cannot be understated.
Mar 2019
Badla
Taapsee Pannu is unable to summon up the blank canvas onto which all manner of possibilities can be projected, while Amitabh Bachchan hops on the gravitas train for the nth time.
Mar 2019
Sonchiriya
The film itself is a tangle of ideas, and works better as an existential mood piece than the heavy-duty action drama it often resembles.
Mar 2019
Luka Chuppi
...isn’t quite radical, let alone consistently funny, but the long walk to the altar is far less conservative than it could have been.
Mar 2019
Total Dhamaal
When you throw so much at the screen, something is bound to stick. The screenplay, by Paritosh Painter, Ved Prakash and Bunty Rathore, has enough visual gags and punchlines to distract from the severely tacky visual effects and overwhelming familiarity of such movies.
Feb 2019
Gully Boy
Dreams and reality fuse seamlessly in Gully Boy, Zoya Akhtar’s most heartfelt and accomplished movie yet. Akhtar’s fourth feature is headlined by an outstanding Ranveer Singh, packed with well-picked actors and neatly-etched characters, and filmed with infectious passion.
Feb 2019
The Fakir Of Venice
The decade between its completion and its release shows in every frame. Mumbai and Venice are visibly less crowded than they now are and the actors are younger and more energetic, but the movie’s art world con made little sense then and even less sense in 2019.
Feb 2019
- Feb 2019
Thackeray
Subtlety, or, for that matter, reason, are hardly to be expected from Thackeray, a 139-minute propaganda video for the Shiv Sena as it gears up for the Lok Sabha election later this year.
Jan 2019
Manikarnika
The Manikarnika production isn’t lavish enough to suggest a grand sweep of history, and the focus on its heroine is too narrow to accommodate a larger conversation about the efficacy of Lakshmibai’s actions. There is plenty of leaping and feinting, but not enough reflecting.
Jan 2019
Why Cheat India
Despite being disjointed and overstretched, the 120-minute movie manages to double up both as an expose of the problems that plague the examination system and a commentary on the failure of a generation to secure the future of the next one.
Jan 2019
Bombairiya
...the humour not sharp or bizarre enough, and the narrative too disjointed to hang together.
Jan 2019
The Accidental Prime Minister
...never evolves into anything more than a broadside against the Gandhi clan.
Jan 2019
Simmba
Ranveer Singh’s energy and flamboyance ensure that Simmba appears more engaging than it often is, and Ajay Devgn’s well-timed cameo rescues the film from being a write-off.
Dec 2018
Zero
Khan’s fanbase will possibly be even more perplexed with Zero. By trying to play the man next door rather than a larger-than-life personality, Khan has all too literally let himself be cut to size. The romantic declarations are less effective, the conviction with which Khan has carried off more modest romances is missing, and the package is smaller than before.
Dec 2018
Kedarnath
Despite the brisk storytelling and nicely braided scenes that give a vivid sense of the locations, Kedarnath never achieves the emotional peak that is a requirement of the disaster movie.
Dec 2018
2.0
In 2.0, Shankar’s ability to marry visual effects with populist melodrama serves him well in some of the sequences, even though the larger message is confused and the screenplay is too sluggish for an action spectacle.
Nov 2018
Pihu
...Vinod Kapri has delivered a bona fide suspense thriller that doubles up as a parenting lesson. Effective, yes, but also unsettling? Always.
Nov 2018