-
Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan
Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan's achievement lies not just in going where Bollywood has not gone before. It is in consistently portraying Kartik (Ayushmann Khurrana) and Aman (a superb Jitendra Kumar in his debut film role) as just a couple, not 'homo' or 'hetero'.
Feb 2020
-
Bhoot – Part One
Within its murky labyrinth, with no sense of any direction from writer-director Bhanu Pratap Singh, the film doesn’t seem to end. There is a ghost, a love story, a hate story, a smuggling ring, a church, a red dress, a doll, and a lot of clicking of fingers.
Feb 2020
-
Pagalpanti
Some good actors have lent their names to this mess, for what can’t be any reason other than money and the hits somehow against Bazmee’s name. So let’s not go around passing blame.
Nov 2019
-
Jhalki
If the story is tailor-made for tears, Brahmananda S Singh doesn’t try to spare any. However, the film leaves one unmoved due to its cardboard characters...
Nov 2019
-
Motichoor Chaknachoor
...is a good enough comedy within the circle of its two families and their many side characters, but is astonishingly regressive in how it treats its men, women, marriage, looks, age, even dowry.
Nov 2019
-
Chhichhore
The plot is cruelly manipulative, besides being narrationally uneven, as hospital and hostel jostle for space between present and past.
Sep 2019
-
Halkaa
This setting is again where Panda scores, bringing alive to us the slums we pass by every day, even if the suggestion of grime is fleeting. At the same time, this is where he cheats, by giving us a film about urban wretchedness in easily digestible drawing-room gollops...
Sep 2018
-
Laila Majnu
There is only one true love in this film, and that is what Imtiaz Ali surely has for brother Sajid. For, no one goes from a dud called Jab Harry Met Sejal to a bigger dud like Laila Majnu but for some true brotherly love.
Sep 2018
-
High Jack
There are so many improbables here that it could all fall into place in one laugh riot, or all fall apart in one big mess.
May 2018
-
Hope Aur Hum
...doesn’t believe in subtlety when it comes to drumming home its message of old giving way to the new, saddling Naseeruddin Shah with the burden of making audiences hope that, surely, there is something better around the corner.
May 2018
-
Raazi
That Raazi never becomes a chest-thumping spectacle of jingoism, despite all that is tempting in the preceding sentence, is presumably the work of the refiner sensibilities of writer-director Meghna Gulzar...
May 2018
-
102 Not Out
...is happy making old age seem all sunshine, if you just lifted the blinds.
May 2018
-
May 2018
-
Hichki
...by keeping its gaze focused on the children and overcoming the initial stumbles, Hichki earns itself an ‘A’.
Mar 2018
-
Dec 2017
-
Munna Michael
Munna will dance, Munna will fight, Munna will dance and fight together, Munna will love his father wholeheartedly, Munna will serve Mahinder unquestioningly, Munna will win over the local beauty, and Munna will win all the dance competitions he enters, across cities. Whatever the story is.
Jul 2017
-
The Ghazi Attack
...could have been an engrossing crisis-at-sea drama but the film is so busy slaying Pakistanis that it loses sight of its core strengths.
Feb 2017
-
Running Shaadi
Despite a novel idea and a fresh pairing in Taapsee Pannu and Amit Sadh, this film fails to engage you.
Feb 2017
-
Feb 2017
-
Wajah Tum Ho
Murder and rape, bosoms and hairdos and an unintentional critique of how television news function, Wajah Tum Ho is an unruly mess.
Dec 2016
-
Rock On 2
The only time Rock On 2 hits some ‘Magik’ – the name of their band, remember – is when it lets its hair down and sings...
Nov 2016
-
Gandhigiri
So why does this film have Om Puri, Sanjay Mishra, Anupam Shyam and Mukesh Tiwari? And why does it offer special thanks to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal? Maybe, some questions are better left unasked.
Oct 2016
-
Saat Uchhakkey
...is a delightful slice of life from that new pet haunt of filmmakers, Old Delhi.
Oct 2016
-
Fitoor
All of Aditya Roy Kapoor’s hair is bunched upon his head and all of Katrina Kaif’s is plunged in a Chinar-esque red, in the hope perhaps that you don’t notice their blank faces below.
Feb 2016
-
Bullett Raja
This is not Dhulia trying to make commercial cinema "aesthically better", as he has been emphasising. This is the celebrated director and now a fancied actor completely surrendering himself to it.
Nov 2013
-
Nov 2013
-
Department
If it’s been hard to see any trace of the old RGV in the new RGV, this film has the latter shamelessly tapping into the few good things Mr Varma once made.
May 2012