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Calendar Girls
Low on surprises, shoddily made and poorly acted, this latest expose indicates that its filmmaker is running on empty.
Sep 2015
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Meeruthiya Gangsters
Quadri’s writing isn’t half as sharply funny or piercingly deadpan as it thinks it is, but that’s par for the course in a movie that celebrates the virtues of taking the easy way out.
Sep 2015
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Katti Batti
The humour misses its mark and the romantic entanglement rarely locks into place. This is a rom-com low on rom as well as com.
Sep 2015
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Hero
An ineffective remake of a 1983 box office hit mislabelled as a classic, Hero is yet another instance of the resilience of the ancient Indian tradition of nepotism.
Sep 2015
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Welcome Back
...spilling over with some good gags, many great lines, and piles of tedium.
Sep 2015
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Phantom
The plodding pace, choppy editing and amateurish exposition are relieved by slick action sequences, suitably dressed-up foreign locations and convincing production design.
Aug 2015
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Gour Hari Dastaan
...is sluggishly paced, and fails to convey the monumentality of the protagonist's mission.
Aug 2015
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Drishyam
...works just fine so long as it reproduces its original twisty quality, but it nevertheless suffers from miscasting and unnecessary scripting tweaks.
Jul 2015
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Masaan
...has memorable performances and a sensitively observed account of decay and redemption.
Jul 2015
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Bajrangi Bhaijaan
Salman Khan will regard Bajrangi Bhaijaan as a career redefining moment, but his limited acting skills show up in every scene.
Jul 2015
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Bahubali
Every frame pulsates with the passion of a filmmaker openly staking his claim as the most adventurous soul travelling through mainstream cinema at the moment.
Jul 2015
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Guddu Rangeela
...starts off on a wholly different note from the one on which it ends.
Jul 2015
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Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho
The satire is seems confidently put across at first but then becomes illogical and unwieldy. Kapri is aiming for a tragicomedy about rural India, but some of his visuals are straight out of a horror movie.
Jun 2015
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ABCD - Any Body Can Dance - 2
...boasts of a couple of popular young stars, 3D and higher production values, but it is mostly a hollow spectacle. The characters are underdeveloped, the 146-minute narrative drags, and all the energy is reserved for the elaborately staged and eye-popping dance sequences...
Jun 2015
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Hamari Adhuri Kahani
Suri’s ability to pass off superficial observations on life and its attendant miseries has paid off in the past in Aashiqui 2 and Ek Villain, but the emotional landscape of Hamari Adhuri Kahani’ completely defeats him.
Jun 2015
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Dil Dhadakne Do
...suffers from the butter-knife treatment when it actually needed a razor.
Jun 2015
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Welcome 2 Karachi
There is a clear sense of a welcome being outstayed, and yet another instance of comedy creators having so much fun amongst themselves that they forget that they’re at the movies, rather than a jam session.
May 2015
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Surkhaab
A sobering look at illegal immigration from Punjab to Canada soon turns into an formulaic woman-on-the-run movie.
May 2015
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Tanu Weds Manu Returns
Rai, who also made Raanjhanaa in 2013, confirms his ability to conjure up a convincing small-town milieu characterised by clamour and kitsch, but his tendency to cram his frames with lots of people crisscrossing the screen, overlapping dialogue and insistent background music results in a sensory overdose.
May 2015
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Bombay Velvet
The plot is needlessly complicated at the expense of emotion, and assembles a set of well-dressed people who seem to want to go someplace but are not quite sure where.
May 2015
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Kuch Kuch Locha Hai
The writing is risible, the acting sub-par and the whole premise too ineptly handled to be offensive.
May 2015
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Piku
...has the same collection of fundamentally decent, endearing and eccentric characters that made Vicky Donor such a winner.
May 2015
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Gabbar Is Back
...is designed as a star vehicle for Kumar’s limited acting skills but considerable fighting prowess.
May 2015
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Jai Ho! Democracy
A gag that’s worth a few minutes of air-time in a sitcom has been stretched beyond repair in Ranjit Kapoor’s movie.
Apr 2015
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Margarita With A Straw
Laila is a compelling heroine and is winningly performed by Koechlin with solid backing from Gupta and Revathy.
Apr 2015
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Court
Chaitanya Tamhane’s elegantly assembled and immensely powerful debut packs together observation, humanism, intelligence and beauty.
Apr 2015
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Ek Paheli Leela
Leone’s risqué image will prove most handy in getting productions off the ground and ensuring footfalls in cinemas, but at least in this movie at least, she is clearly out of place.
Apr 2015