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Chef
It is pleasant in parts, pretty almost throughout, and the cast is appealing. In the absence of heft and a commitment to its genre though, it remains an ineffectual film.
Oct 2017
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Judwaa 2
...skates on thin ice on occasion, but for the most part passes muster without being earth-shatteringly good anywhere.
Sep 2017
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Haseena Parkar
...ends up being a staccato narration of facts, rather than a story pulsating with life.
Sep 2017
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Newton
It is not often that an Indian filmmaker takes to comedy in a setting this dismal – Masurkar and his co-writer do, without being condescending or trivialising the almost depressing circumstances it chronicles in lands far beyond the India most of us are exposed to.
Sep 2017
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Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi
...sometimes you can take an age-old stereotype and still make a refreshing comedy out of it. Patel ki Punjabi Shaadi is not even worthy of being deemed crude or offensive – it is just plain blah.
Sep 2017
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Sep 2017
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Shubh Mangal Saavdhan
...is super-fun till it gets superficial. It is, to borrow the tagline of another film now in theatres, sundar, susheel and risky in its first half, flails about in the second, but remains entertaining overall.
Sep 2017
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Babumoshai Bandookbaaz
...while the film remains engaging throughout, it is hard to ignore the post-interval lack of substance.
Aug 2017
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Aug 2017
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Toilet
Unfortunately, that intention and all its positives are completely overshadowed by its cringe-worthy keenness to bow and scrape before the present government and its head, an aspect of the film that lingers as much as its pluses because all the obsequiousness is packed into the latter half.
Aug 2017
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Gurgaon
The film is a slow burn but make no mistake about it: the explosion is coming.
Aug 2017
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Raag Desh
If you plan to watch it, do not go looking for Border or LOC Kargil. This one is more akin to Sankalp Reddy’s Telugu/Hindi The Ghazi Attack (2017), albeit even more under-played and also less swish on the production front. Raag Desh is a docu-drama, not a high-pitched weepie.
Aug 2017
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Jab Harry Met Sejal
...is occasionally funny, but not half as funny or cute or ruminative as it clearly thinks it is. Hats off to Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma for managing to raise the Centigrades in this otherwise pakau disaster.
Aug 2017
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Mubarakan
...despite the considerable dip in pace in the second half, Bazmee has delivered to a great extent with Mubarakan. The film does not strain the viewer’s intellect too much yet does not demand that we – to quote a reviewer cliché – “leave our brains at home”.
Aug 2017
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Indu Sarkar
While Indu Sarkar’s narrative is more engaging than Bhandarkar’s recent works, it is still inadequate.
Jul 2017
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Lipstick Under My Burkha
It is unrelenting in its social commentary, unapologetic about the mirror it holds up to Indian patriarchy, and reminds men that women – even those old enough to be their mothers – have sexual desires.
Jul 2017
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Shab
Restraint cannot mean zero vitality, yet that is what you get in Shab. Worse, the film does not have anything new to say.
Jul 2017
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Jagga Jasoos
...brings together a range of quality ingredients, but something has gone wrong in the cooking of it. It is highly engaging up to a point, but needed tighter writing and direction to stay on course.
Jul 2017
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Mom
The emotional pull of the first half and Sridevi’s acting excellence notwithstanding, Mom in many ways is as dangerous as the loud, raucous, not-even-pretending-to-be-progressive-about-women commercial Bollywood of the 1970s and ’80s.
Jul 2017
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Jul 2017
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Tubelight
...with Tubelight, my glass is half full and not half empty. When your head points out several exasperating aspects of a film and you still find yourself weeping with it, there is something to be said about the director’s ability to strike an emotional chord.
Jun 2017
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Bank Chor
Despite its many misses, Bank Chor has more verve. Whatever little progress Bumpy has made as a filmmaker, however, is far outweighed by the insidious messaging of this film which cashes in on the prejudices that wrack Indian society today below a mask of good intentions, comedy and thrills.
Jun 2017
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Raabta
It is hard to imagine why Vijan chose to make his directorial debut with this unremarkable enterprise in which Sushant Singh Rajput, Kriti Sanon and pretty visuals are all drowned out by tedium.
Jun 2017
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Jun 2017
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Hindi Medium
The film’s achievement is that it tells us things we already know yet forces us to think about them, and has lots of fun while doing so.
May 2017
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Sarkar 3
...too is lacklustre and ordinary. Coming from the House of Ram Gopal Varma, in some ways that counts as worse than being bad.
May 2017
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Mantostaan
Manto’s writings are as relevant to our troubled times as they were when he lived. Their enduring meaning and beauty are completely lost though in this poor production.
May 2017
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Baahubali 2: The Conclusion
..is a cocktail of fun stunts, attractive stars, grand settings, terrible acting, conflicted attitudes and closeted conservatism.
Apr 2017
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Noor
The film’s pluses do not eclipse its minuses though. Its news office milieu is poorly sketched...
Apr 2017
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Begum Jaan
Begum Jaan’s intriguing basic concept deserves a writer who could have expanded on it to better effect. And the lovely Vidya Balan deserves better than this soulless film.
Apr 2017