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Jannat 2
It is a macho, chauvinistic world. The movie itself, though, acts rough and raw but isn’t gritty enough
May 2012
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Beyond The Clouds
Majid Majidi tries to combine his minimalistic approach with Bollywoodian melodrama with disappointing results.
Apr 2018
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Why Cheat India
Complex problems need complex cinema. Why Cheat India prefers to stay on the surface than dig deeper.
Jan 2019
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Dabangg
The film held the promise of churning the masalas to the core but stops well short of it. The real film itself has little more to offer than its own trailer.
Sep 2010
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Not A Love Story
It does, seemingly, have a real story to tell and a pertinent point to make but in the end is an opportunity lost.
Aug 2011
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Kajarya
There are many stories that lie hidden in the depressing newspaper headlines. The art is in giving them a compelling, emotional shape on screen. Madhureeta Anand succeeds but marginally so in Kajarya.
Dec 2015
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Ajji
The only thing new here then is turning an arthritic grandmom into the avenging angel. Ajji is no more than Mom and Maatr at their most excessive; it just locates the same rape narrative at the other end of the social spectrum.
Nov 2017
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Kesari
All that has stayed on with me is the landscape—the brown, arid earth pitted against the majesty of the snow-laden, silver mountains. If only panoramic settings could make a good film.
Mar 2019
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Panipat
Gowariker may have taken liberties with history, but doesn’t play around with the form. He sticks to the tried and tested, the long and langourous and old-fashioned. However, he is unable to achieve the epic sweep despite the declamatory dialogue, opulent costumes and the big song-n-dance set-pieces.
Dec 2019
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Bombairiya
This kind of multiple stories device has been used time and again in cinema to great effect. Bombairiya, however, is a call to give it a long, if not permanent, rest in Bollywood. Its use in the film feels entirely needless...
Jan 2019
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Fukrey Returns
The quirky characters and their oddball humour is again the mainstay even as the thin plot gets stretched to its utmost limits. You want the things to come to a closure fast even as they drag on and on with one laboured situation piling atop another.
Dec 2017
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Aiyaary
What could have been an engaging tale of army corruption ends up a convoluted film with confusing narrative devices.
Feb 2018
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Jun 2017
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Satyameva Jayate
Director Milap Zaveri dishes out the same old vigilante justice cinema that we grew up watching in the 80s with a special doff of the hat to the classic Deewar (1975). But his added tadkas can’t hide the essential staleness of the concoction.
Aug 2018
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Fitoor
...wants desperately to be a grand, epic romance but depends way too much on its stunning Kashmir canvas to achieve that than characters and story that you can empathise with.
Feb 2016
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Rustom
...there is nothing remotely credible or engaging in the thriller. The film, in fact, feels like a parody of the several murder mysteries and court room dramas we have seen down the ages.
Aug 2016
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Judwaa 2
Dhawan updates the original with some new, contemporary, international scenery but fails to update the attitude for today’s times.
Sep 2017
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102 Not Out
Based on a Gujarati play of the same name, Umesh Shukla’s film is unable to leave its inherent theatricality behind. It gets unchanging in terms of the give and take between the duo and leaves the viewers static too. It stirs nothing within, leaving you unmoved.
May 2018
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Thackeray
The film is not just a justification but a no holds barred celebration of the ruthlessness.
Jan 2019
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Dilwale
The deliberate attempt to repackage and sell the Kajol-SRK romance of yore backfires, seeming like a pale shadow of the magic there once was.
Dec 2015
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Romeo Akbar Walter
Fashioned along the lines of the childish, old-fashioned B-grade Bollywood-Hollywood thrillers, RAW is all about the hidden transmitters and surveillance rooms and gratuitous third degree torture in ISI detention centres, laughable polygraph tests and sundry similar procedurals and investigations.
Apr 2019
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Mohalla Assi
Despite being based on a strong piece of writing, it feels utterly weak and washed out.
Nov 2018
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Begum Jaan
...is shrill, shouts at the viewer in every frame. No wonder even perfectly fine actors end up overdoing things.
Apr 2017
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Jazbaa
Gupta has a stellar cast, but loses out on this advantage with his slipshod direction.
Oct 2015
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Traffic
...wears thin, feels rushed. There is neither much of an emotional tug nor an edge-of-the-seat urgency that the film promised to deliver.
May 2016
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The Fakir Of Venice
Released a decade after it was made The Fakir of Venice, disappoints with the lack of alchemy between the lead actors.
Feb 2019
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Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aaata Hai?
The narrative meanders pointlessly, as a bizarre background score plays on noisily and the climax feels just as needlessly knotty. The film would have actually been better titled as Albert Pinto Ki Ajeeb Dastaan.
Apr 2019
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Oct 2015
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Mirzya
As in each of his films Mehra is not content with the usual, is highly ambitious with his craft but doesn’t quite hit the target here.
Oct 2016
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Maatr
...like one of the vigilante justice sagas of the 80s—old fashioned, rough, loud, over the top, and all about offering some kind of emotional catharsis through violence to the woman wronged, rather than any significant thoughts for us to ponder on.
Apr 2017