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Chalk N Duster
Critic reviews and ratings
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...a film worth your time. It’s fast, dramatic and meaningful. Simply put, a good watch.
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Inspite of the many flaws, Chalk N Duster by debutante director Jayant Gilatar is still a watchable film that brings a lump to your throat.
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Director Jayant Gilatar makes a pertinent film with some crackerjack performances by the lead cast. The story and its message is a winner, but the film is technically inept, complete with the limitations of dubbed sound and abrupt cuts.
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A moving film about teachers that could have done without its melodramatic scenes.
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Made with an intention of showcasing the worms in the current education system, where money often gets merit over capability; this film can be lauded to some degree. However, it flounders in the first half due to its tacky narrative approach.
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A little more finesse could have helped Chalk n Duster emerge a topper in the genre. With a subject like this, telling the story well was as important as telling it at all.
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...is not great cinema by any stretch of the imagination. It is often crude and unapologetic in its melodramatic pitch. But its heart is in the right place.
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The film's report card: an A for effort, but with marks cut for general incompetence.
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Mistaking intent for quality, Chalk N Duster’s greatest drawback is that it tries to take the high moral ground without substantiating its material or projecting the least bit of depth
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...gets predictably preachy. No surprises there. It fails to teach in an interesting way despite being in the capable hands of Shabana Azmi, Juhi Chawla and Divya Dutta.
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...while the story and script belongs to the higher secondary classrooms, the level of execution doesn't even rise above the kindergarten standards.
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It is a mark of Bollywood’s extreme gender bias that the likes of Shabana and Juhi must, more often than not, compromise on quality if they wish to play heroines. These remarkable women deserve better than this clumsy, even if well-meaning, film. So does the teaching profession.
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It is a subject that deserves a great deal of attention, but not in the way ‘Chalk N’ Duster’ does it. The treatment is amateurish in the extreme...
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A film about education that fails the watchability test.
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Shabana Azmi and Juhi Chawla’s charming presence and sincere performances aside, this could well turn out to be one of the year’s most forgettable films.
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The movie means well. But the mix of melodrama and awful writing is unpalatable even for the most forgiving audience.
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Aren’t we all guilty of having moved on, with very little time to remember our teachers? But they deserve more than this shrill drama...
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For intention, Chalk N Duster might get full marks, but the execution is so hopelessly ham-fisted that the film can only be described as an absolute botch-up.
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Nothing irritates more than sanctimony and this film is so packed with piety that it looks set to get tax exemption and mandatory school screenings to boot.
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