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Khandaani Shafakhana
Shilpi’s debut effort is well-intentioned but suffers from the same hypocrisies that afflict Indian drawing rooms. Not a line of dialogue sticks and there are very few talking points in this film on sex talk...
Aug 2019
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Pataakha
...has enough combustion to light up a night sky, but it fizzles out like a moist rocket. The crackers, like they say, needed more sunning.
Sep 2018
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Mission Mangal
...is respectful and clear of heart, but struggles at times to pick out its heroes. If the answer is no one in particular, that signal is lost in space.
Aug 2019
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Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan
Audiences going for Hindi cinema’s first queer romance will be disappointed. Yes, you get a kiss between the male leads (two, in fact), but no real insight into their relationship.
Feb 2020
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Batla House
All Nikkhil had to do was slow-bleed the suspense, and extend the moral tossup. But Batla House is not that kind of film.
Aug 2019
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Mar 2021
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Dec 2019
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Chhichhore
...has a big point to make about defeat and self-worth, but takes the laziest possible route to get there. For a film about the dignity of trying, it does not lead by example.
Sep 2019
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Dream Girl
...is consistently funny, but structured too much on Ayushmann’s own Vicky Donor to draw a fresh response.
Sep 2019
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The Tashkent Files
...becomes increasingly weird as it goes along. A chaos of quotes, citations, claims and counterclaims grab you by the throat.
Apr 2019
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Malaal
The film is constantly aiming for a large-canvas treatment, often at the expense of local colour and depth. Only because it can.
And, because this is ultimately a launch film.
Jul 2019
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Section 375
...as the politics of Section 375 gradually comes into view, it loses all claim on even-handedness. This is a film too smug about its own neutrality, using it as a front to sneak in a damaging conclusion.
Sep 2019
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Good Newwz
It’s a silly move, ditching a laugh track and filling it up with beat drops and stings. In case the Indian TV industry hadn’t made it clear, noise isn’t news.
Dec 2019
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Kedarnath
Abhishek Kapoor melds two difficult subjects — interfaith romance, natural calamity — while working within a moderate budget. The writing is clunky and the payoff unearned, and everything feels like a drag at the two-hour runtime. The execution hurts the most.
Dec 2018
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Super 30
...is not quite the masala potboiler it wants to become. The emotional beats are grand but disingenuous, while the wit is hollow.
Jul 2019
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War
Despite the toughness of its leading men, the film tires them out with its convoluted writing — which, I am afraid, is the only villain in this skirmish. The rest are just in it for the money.
Oct 2019
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Zero
This film reimagines the all-consuming charisma of its leading man with a cool spin, but constantly cushions it in padding just in case he falls. The result is a middling vaudeville occasionally lifted by a clever line or a peak in the music score, pushing towards a trite and predictable climax that can be seen from space.
Dec 2018
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Family Of Thakurganj
With little resources, filmmakers like Prakash Jha, Tigmanshu Dhulia and Anurag Kashyap made our northern badlands cinematic. It’s the impostors that come now who are balling up the place. They exploit dialect for laughs, landscape for scenery, and violence for plot twists. It’s all so criminally wrong.
Jul 2019
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Dec 2020
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Total Dhamaal
Shall we blame a slapstick comedy for sticking to the slaps? There’s little that’s freshly funny about Total Dhamaal...
Feb 2019
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Setters
...is a Neeraj Pandey movie directed by someone else (Ashwini Chaudhary), one that features Shreyas Talpade and Aftab Shivdasani in place of Akshay Kumar and Manoj Bajpayee.
May 2019
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Laal Kaptaan
...crucial balance between gravitas and fun is woefully amiss in Navdeep’s latest work, a galloping period western, weighed down by its broad historical sweep and dreary philosophizing.
Oct 2019
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Uri
...plays out in the precarious sub-genre of the 'well-made' propaganda. The ambitious production design and consistent visual flair come scarily close to masking out the timely histrionics. The film is well-executed, if not well-intended.
Jan 2019
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Kaagaz
Satish Kaushik is one of our steadiest actor-directors, thriving especially in mainstream fare. But the social realism of Kaagaz largely eludes him.
Jan 2021
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Mar 2019
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May 2019
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Marjaavaan
...an 80s masala template, dance bars and remixes, infuriating rhyme schemes, and a pyro-maniacal obsession.
Nov 2019
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Manikarnika
The film begins as a biopic, but derails quickly into a surreal showdown of unbridled carnage. The facts, if any, get chewed up in the mess.
Jan 2019
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Roohi
Just a few years into its revival, the Hindi horror-comedy has upped and died. The biggest blow was Laxmii (2020), with Akshay Kumar in a red saree, and now another is dealt by Roohi, starring Janhvi Kapoor as a human-witch hybrid.
Mar 2021
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Notebook
It soon becomes clear that Notebook — for all its postcard framings and poetic peg — is still very much about one thing: introducing two new faces to the world, and serving as their showreel.
Mar 2019