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The Xpose
...despite murder, a catfight, a daring rescue from a computer-generated fire, multiple twist endings, and at least one partially revealed nipple – manages to remain terminally dull.
May 2014
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Children Of War
The problem with Children of War may be that there aren’t enough surprises. A film may be based on fact, but that shouldn’t stop the filmmaker from imbuing it with the zing of good fiction.
May 2014
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Manjunath
This is the kind of film about which you use words like “well-intentioned” and “earnest” and “solid.” But it never catches fire.
May 2014
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Hawaa Hawaai
For a film that skirts melodrama so scrupulously in the first half, the high-decibel contrivances in the latter portions come as a rude shock.
May 2014
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Dekh Tamasha Dekh
...the director, Feroz Abbas Khan, positions the film at the border of surrealism and absurdity – and this tone, gently satiric, makes all the difference.
Apr 2014
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2 States
This material, based on Chetan Bhagat’s novel 2 States: The Story of My Marriage, might have worked if treated with slapstick energy. Instead, Varman tries to class it up.
Apr 2014
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Apr 2014
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Main Tera Hero
...is only half what it could have been – still, that isn’t a bad half.
Apr 2014
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Dishkiyaoon
This is one of those Goodfellas-type stories where a kid announces that he wants to be a gangster. But there’s no edge, no danger.
Apr 2014
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Bewakoofiyaan
...is much more complicated and adult, and by reducing it to a rom-com, Asthana pulls her punches.
Mar 2014
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Gulaab Gang
I walked into Soumik Sen’s Gulaab Gang expecting a fiery feminist drama. I walked out having watched a Tamil/Telugu mass-hero masala movie – only, with women.
Mar 2014
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Queen
It’s too long, too predictable, and too full of bits that needn’t have existed – that lizard bit? that sex shop bit? that casino bit? – but everything is pulled off with such panache (and with such good performances, especially from Ranaut) that you don’t feel like complaining.
Mar 2014
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Total Siyapaa
...despite a few big laughs, the film never becomes the farce it so desperately wants to be.
Mar 2014
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Shaadi Ke Side Effects
...the film feels toothless, pointless, pretending to tackle real issues while really searching for the next easy punch line.
Mar 2014
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Highway
The feeling that we’re on a journey with no use for beginnings or ends is exhilarating.
Feb 2014
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Gunday
The experience is immersive, but solely at a surface level – we’re not pulled in. Zafar is so busy making a movie that looks like a 1970s movie that he forgets to make a movie that feels like a 1970s movie.
Feb 2014
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Hasee Toh Phasee
...the heavier scenes don’t work at all. Part of the problem is that the film, as it goes along, becomes broader and more “Bollywoody”...
Feb 2014
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One By Two
After a while, the film begins to feel like an academic experiment: Can the lives of two not-terribly-interesting people be shaped into an interesting story?
Feb 2014
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Jai Ho
There is so little to root for in the film – despite such an emotional hook, of man helping fellow man – that we look for scraps...
Jan 2014
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Dedh Ishqiya
...the problem with these Ishqiya movies. There’s so much to savour in them, but they never become what they could have been because the heaviness of the love stories, which are the core, are diminished by the lightness, the cheekiness, the tomfoolery in everything else.
Jan 2014
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Dhoom 3
The scenarios are dull. The face-offs are flat. The set pieces are flabby, uninspired...
Dec 2013
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Jackpot
What he (the director) doesn’t do is put together something that can make us care. And the acting is awful.
Dec 2013
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What The Fish
The director, Gurmmeet Singh, rounds up able actors – Deepti Pujari, as a naïf from Saharanpur, is quite good – but they’re let down by a series of sketches that must have sounded good on paper but fall flat on screen.
Dec 2013
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R... Rajkumar
The problem with this kind of cinema is that it’d probably work best as a two-hour show reel of highlights and our filmmakers almost always insist on adding the extra half-hour or hour. There’s just not enough plot or characterisation to sustain these films for that long.
Dec 2013
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Bullett Raja
With so much that’s so fascinating at a conceptual level, it’s surprising how dull Bullett Raja is – and that’s because Dhulia, in his attempts to imbue his material with layers and texture, forgets what made those masala movies work in the first place.
Dec 2013
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Nov 2013
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Gori Tere Pyaar Mein
We don’t go to rom-coms expecting cold logic, but even as a heart-tugger Gori Tere Pyaar Mein doesn’t quite cut it.
Nov 2013