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Ae Dil Hai Mushkil
For the first time, Karan Johar comes across like a filmmaker who’s going to end up making love stories with a happily-never-after.
Oct 2016
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Peepli [Live]
An extremely well-made first feature is also extremely overfamiliar, what with its initial investment in farmer suicides giving way to easy potshots at our media.
Aug 2010
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City Of Gold
The travails of a closely-knit milling community make for a few great moments, if not all-out great cinema.
Apr 2010
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Aug 2011
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Laila Majnu
An idiosyncratic take on the legend takes a while to soar, but it’s worth the wait.
Sep 2018
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Mardaani 2
As a pure genre film, Mardaani 2 delivers. It helps that Rani Mukerji is a superb actor.
Dec 2019
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Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu
Who says a rom-com - even one with big-name stars - cannot be shaped with an invigorating voice and vision?
Feb 2012
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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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Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga
This very “safeness” is this film’s secret strength. This isn’t Blue is the Warmest Colour. It’s a YashRaj-style romance with two girls. Without discomfiting the mainstream audience, it makes it possible to talk about a “bedroom subject” in the living room.
Feb 2019
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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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Sui Dhaaga
A surprise-free drama that’s well-acted, sweet-natured, and quite satisfying.
Oct 2018
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Kahaani
...is beautifully shot and put together, and its deeply atmospheric scenes are driven by a superb score...
Mar 2012
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Badlapur
...goes beyond genre and simple homage. It isn’t slick. It has a verité feel.
Feb 2015
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Trapped
Even at a 100-something minutes, Trapped feels a tad stretched, but Rajkummar Rao ensures that the film is never less than watchable.
Mar 2017
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Pad Man
...Balki never loses sight of the fact that what he’s making isn’t an Oscar-bait biopic but a rousing audience-pleaser.
Feb 2018
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Gully Boy
If you’re looking for a good time, Gully Boy is everything you can ask for. It’s just that I wanted it to be more. I wanted it to be the film its lyrics deserved.
Feb 2019
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Airlift
...a fine example of how it’s possible to incorporate Western understatement into a very Indian movie, and, more importantly, a fine model for how our aging heroes can continue playing the action hero.
Jan 2016
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Mar 2016
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Good Newwz
It wants to make you laugh a lot, weep a little, and walk home with a grin. The good newwz is that it checks all these boxes.
Dec 2019
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Sep 2010
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Pari
A rewarding slow-burn story that’s not a ‘horror movie’ so much as a horror-inflected drama about misfits.
Mar 2018
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Jan 2016
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Happy Bhag Jayegi
...the comedy, when it works, works so spectacularly that you may not care about anything else.
Aug 2016
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Chhapaak
This isn’t the angry film I thought it would be. It is, surprisingly, filled with laughter and hope...
Jan 2020
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Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya isn’t a cynical rip-off. It’s more the work of a young filmmaker who clearly adores an older filmmaker’s movie, but infuses it with his own new-gen vibe. And that vibe is infectious.
Jul 2014
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Panga
A superb Kangana Ranaut anchors a sports drama that’s really a story about second chances.
Jan 2020
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Bombay Talkies
The quartet of shorts that make up Bombay Talkies train a zoom lens on cinema, starting on the outside and slowly drawing us in.
May 2013
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The Lunchbox
...a fascinating mix of fact and fiction, documentary-like realism and flights of poetic whimsy.
Sep 2013
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Titli
This is an impressive debut, and the only one I can recall right now that puts up such a loveless, unlovable bunch on screen.
Nov 2015