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Jan 2020
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Jabariya Jodi
Hindi cinema needs to get real about getting real. It is exploitative to borrow a milieu and short-change its people. Such meanness belongs in politics, not art.
Aug 2019
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Feb 2019
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Helicopter Eela
The story certainly has its moments, but the schmaltzy grammar adopted by Sarkar fails this messy story about prodigy mothers and prodigal sons.
Oct 2018
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Gully Boy
It’s ambitious but accessible, mainstream yet not machine-made. The mix is overpowering — the sound of the movies, the voice of the streets.
Feb 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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Gone Kesh
...goes slack with the drama at crucial junctures, which makes the second half predictable. Still, this film is enough of a joy.
Mar 2019
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Aug 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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Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga
The hush-hush handling doled out to homosexuality in this film is bound to do more damage than good. Here’s a story that is more concerned about the squeamishness of the Indian viewer than the emotional journey of its characters.
Feb 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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De De Pyaar De
...is the sort of nightmare you want to unleash on a disgruntled gender studies professor; the film is bookended by two women rationalizing male infidelity as a mild derision.
May 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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Jan 2020
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May 2019
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Jun 2019
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Bhaiaji Superhittt
Films like Bhaiaji Superhit were once considered senseless fun. Today, they bear the shuddering foretaste of a zombie apocalypse, one where out-of-wind actors raise the undead of their past glories and come rushing towards the audience, desperate for one last bite.
Nov 2018
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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 2020
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Article 15
Cynicism and hope strike a precarious balance in Mulk director Anubhav Sinha’s new film. The procedural drama paints a grim picture of caste-based violence in rural India.
Jun 2019
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Mar 2020
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Andhadhun
The trailer had promised intrigue and duplicity, and the film delivers profusely on both fronts.
Oct 2018
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Amavas
...the film refurbishes old creeps just for the sake of it, with no added ambition or intent attached...
Feb 2019
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AK vs AK
That’s the thing about the mockumentary format: unless you really dial it up, the fakeness starts to show.
Dec 2020