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Talvar
A legal petition disguised as a movie, the police procedural takes up cudgels on behalf of the dentist couple...
Oct 2015
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Table No. 21
If there was ever a movie in need of an enhanced computer-generated imagery budget, it is this one.
Jan 2013
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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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Super 30
...suggests that with talent and commitment, it is possible to cross over from the other side of the tracks. Leap high towards your goals, Anand tells his students. The formula is as pat as the solution, but many parts of the journey makes this classroom victory worth the while.
Jul 2019
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Sultan
Sustained by the leading man’s magnetic pull, nicely cast supporting actors, a welcome lack of melodrama, and a setting that looks less plastic than the average A-list movie, Sultan is the apogee of the Salman Khan cult.
Jul 2016
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Sui Dhaaga
What eventually endures isn’t the inevitable heart-warming finale but the honesty of the writing and the performances and the subversions, minor and major.
Sep 2018
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Student Of The Year 2
The sequel that nobody wanted is neither an improvement over the original nor a downgrade of it. The bar is low to begin with, and when the butter-limbed Tiger Shroff is around, it’s easily surmounted.
May 2019
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Street Dancer 3D
The movie leaps to life only in the last 30 minutes, as various crews twist and twirl their way through the inevitable contest. But to get there, you have to wade through sentimental slush and endure trite humour (the tin-eared dialogue is by Farhad Samji) and endless distractions.
Jan 2020
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Aug 2018
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Stree
...evokes nearly every Hollywood sport-movie cliche there is in tracing the transformation of the Speedy Singhs team from underdog to top dog.
Sep 2011
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Soorma
...by downplaying the genre’s excesses – chest-thumping jingoism, macho aggression, excessive manipulation – and giving its hero enough room to find his place in the world, Soorma ensures that this triumphal journey of the human spirit is full of surprises.
Jul 2018
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Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety
The disposable soft-focus songs and foreign locations cannot gild the coarseness of Ranjan’s view of modern romance.
Feb 2018
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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
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Sniff
Sluggishly paced and sketchily written, the movie barely has enough going on to merit 90 minutes of running time.
Aug 2017
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Singham Returns
The delusion of an incorruptible police force dedicated to upholding law and order at all costs and impervious to any manner of inducement pushes Singham Returns onto the same shelf as science fiction.
Aug 2014
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Singh Is Bliing
...is as overstretched as most Bollywood extravaganzas, but it coasts along on its often wacky humour, its minor characters (Lara Dutta is a hoot) and the chemistry between Jackon and Kumar.
Oct 2015
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Simran
The monomania that characterises Simran – the furtherance of the assertion that Kangana Ranaut can carry off just about anything – dooms the movie to repetition and facetiousness. Ranaut gives the role her all, but her relentless optimism and self-belief in the face of trying circumstances are barely convincing.
Sep 2017
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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
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Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan
Filled with subversions both major and minor, the Aanand L Rai production is packed with superbly sketched characters and spot-on performances. It uses a light touch to launch a heavy attack on homophobia, general intolerance and repressive tendencies, and the very foundation of the conventional Indian family.
Feb 2020
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Aug 2017
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Shorts
Despite the realism, grittiness and seriousness on display, four of the five stories aim for poignant and uplifting conclusions that undermine their impact.
Jul 2013
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Shorgul
...the filmmakers’ love for contrivance, simplification and populist rhetoric combine to make Shorgul yet another misfired investigation of the true nature of communal conflagrations in India.
Jul 2016
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Shorgul
The movie is low on major plot developments but it's packed with nicely observed details and memorable characters.
Apr 2011
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Shivaay
There’s a decent Hollywood-style lone-wolf- on-the-prowl action thriller hidden inside this long feature, but it is sacrificed to Devgn’s indulgence.
Oct 2016
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Shimla Mirchi
The plot fits snugly in romcom territory, providing an update to the hill-station romances that were the staple of Hindi cinema in the 1960s and ’70s.
Jan 2020
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Shikara
The epistolary device is one of the clumsy ways in which the movie deals with a knotty issue. Chopra, who has written the screenplay with Rahul Pandita and Abhijat Joshi, picks a narrow-angle lens through which to view the Kashmiri struggle.
Feb 2020
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Shamitabh
Here are the offbeat story, the easily flowing and witty banter, the quirky and urbane characters, and the light-hearted touch. But here are also the unwieldy and stretched narrative (153 minutes), the unresolved climax, the gimmicky nature of the material and the inability to expand on the movie’s premise.
Feb 2015
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Nov 2011
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Shakal Pe Mat Ja
There's the same catatonic acting, the staccato dialogue delivery, the bursts of violence, the over-loud background score, the strange camera angles, the crooked cops and larger-than-life thugs. Perhaps it's time to give the Mumbai gangster genre a rest.
Sep 2011
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Shab
...seems to want to make a grand statement about ambition, migration, exploitation and sexuality, but its scope is limited by the stodgy dialogue, the mostly poor acting (Raveena Tandon has her moments) and incredible levels of contrivance.
Jul 2017