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Aiyaary
...tackles a bold subject, one that is worth exploring alongside the frequent tales of battlefield valour. There is palpable and relatable outrage at the rot within the system, but the response is inchoate and not particularly clever.
Feb 2018
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Desi Boyz
The movie is judgement-free, but it's also very pat. Buried underneath the piles of clothes discarded by Rocco and Hunter is a full-on sex comedy that's dying to come out.
Nov 2011
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Hamid
The movie balances simplicity and profundity, and would have benefited from a leaner running time to better convey its ambitious exploration of loss and abandonment in a region stereotyped as a paradise on earth.
Mar 2019
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Chhichhore
The movie begins as a rambunctious college campus comedy, quickly moves into the sentimental family drama zone, returns for the fun and games, shifts back into tear-jerking territory, and finally runs out of breath with only some of its ambitions realised.
Sep 2019
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Shikara
The epistolary device is one of the clumsy ways in which the movie deals with a knotty issue. Chopra, who has written the screenplay with Rahul Pandita and Abhijat Joshi, picks a narrow-angle lens through which to view the Kashmiri struggle.
Feb 2020
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Dharam Sankat Mein
...isn’t a patch on Oh My God! or PK, both of which boldly lampooned the commercialisation of religion, but the very fact that it exists, dares to broach the matter of Islamophobia among Hindus, and has been passed by the Central Board of Film Certification redeems it somewhat.
Apr 2015
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Talvar
A legal petition disguised as a movie, the police procedural takes up cudgels on behalf of the dentist couple...
Oct 2015
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Jolly LLB 2
Despite its liberal and humanist values and attempts to create a convincing portrait of the workings of the Indian legal system, Jolly LLB 2 is frequently guilty of dramatic overreach.
Feb 2017
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Lipstick Under My Burkha
The sexual politics isn’t always on target, but the emphasis on sexual freedom is. The script wobbles as the four tracks evolve and get far too complicated to be smoothly straightened out, but it is at its entertaining best when the women get all hot and heavy.
Jul 2017
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Pihu
...Vinod Kapri has delivered a bona fide suspense thriller that doubles up as a parenting lesson. Effective, yes, but also unsettling? Always.
Nov 2018
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De De Pyaar De
The movie barely works as an age-gap saga but is more effective as a comedy about moving on and finding new soulmates. Ranjan and Jain heavily pad up material that is just about enough for an extended sitcom episode with songs, uneven comedy and needless melodrama. Ironically for a film directed by an editor, the pacing is sluggish.
May 2019
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Feb 2019
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Saala Khadoos
The movie is unnecessarily overblown but also curiously affecting due to the knockout performances of real-life fighter and debutant actor Ritika Singh and Mumtaz Sorcar as her elder sister.
Jan 2016
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Section 375
In the interests of free expression, then, it is necessary to hear the support for patriarchy laid out by Section 375 – just as it is possible, in a democracy, to decide for yourself whether the movie is an effective legal drama or a bilious defence of deeply entrenched sexism in Bollywood.
Sep 2019
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Khiladi 786
The anything-goes movie is packed with so many random characters and even more random jokes that moments of inspired humour emerge out of the hodgepodge.
Dec 2012
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Bhoothnath Returns
The overly busy screenplay, which clocks at 155 minutes, is packed with so many ideas that it unfolds at the pace of a multi-phase election.
Apr 2014
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UnIndian
Although he clear finds pace bowling much easier than dancing, Lee delivers his one-liners with flair.
Aug 2016
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Munna Michael
The undemanding and unpretentious script races from start to finish, pausing to give Shroff numerous opportunities to display his outstanding dancing and fighting skills.
Jul 2017
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2.0
In 2.0, Shankar’s ability to marry visual effects with populist melodrama serves him well in some of the sequences, even though the larger message is confused and the screenplay is too sluggish for an action spectacle.
Nov 2018
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Bala
...extends its leading man’s predicament in more interesting ways, and is an altogether more humorous and layered examination of a widespread problem than Ujda Chaman. And yet, every time Latika appears on the screen, a shred of legitimacy falls to the floor, just like one of the many strands leaving Bala’s scalp at an alarming rate.
Nov 2019
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Bobby Jasoos
...harnesses the classic tropes of melodrama—coincidences, conflicts, the perfect resolution—to deliver a feel-good fairy tale of a remarkably mobile heroine who gets up and leaves whenever she feels like.
Jul 2014
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Welcome 2 Karachi
There is a clear sense of a welcome being outstayed, and yet another instance of comedy creators having so much fun amongst themselves that they forget that they’re at the movies, rather than a jam session.
May 2015
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Tanhaji
People will write powadas, or ballads, about you, Tanjahi is told. They did, and the movie often has the quality of a ballad – it’s heavily embellished, romantic and simplistic. Tanhaji loudly sings its hero’s praises, creating a spectacle that is thrilling when in battle mode and troubling when considering the dynamic between the Marathas and the Mughals.
Jan 2020
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Players
...it never makes the mistake of taking itself too seriously and manages to successfully Bollywood-ise a Hollywood speciality - the big-budget heist movie.
Jan 2012
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Sultan
Sustained by the leading man’s magnetic pull, nicely cast supporting actors, a welcome lack of melodrama, and a setting that looks less plastic than the average A-list movie, Sultan is the apogee of the Salman Khan cult.
Jul 2016
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Dream Girl
The movie’s aims include supplying a joke every minute, which it often does, and delivering a comic take on urban loneliness, which it doesn’t quite do.
Sep 2019
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Luv Ka The End
If the film hits its target audience – undiscerning teenagers – then the poorly written characters and the script contrivances shouldn't matter.
May 2011