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Prague
...weighed under this heavy story and all its twists that aspire for meaning. You keep looking for something to hold on to, and you keep coming up empty.
Sep 2013
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Jan 2015
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Begum Jaan
...climbs up to a high-pitched melodramatic perch, and progresses in episodic lurches, never climbing down.
Apr 2017
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Yeh Faasley
The film begins promisingly, setting up little mysteries. But too soon, the plot starts developing holes, and the execution turns lax.
Mar 2011
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Housefull 2
Basically, Sajid in full flow, celebrating juvenalia. No plot (don’t be silly), decibel levels cranked high, situations careering from one gag to another, characters spewing rapidfire lines which are meant to make you guffaw.
Apr 2012
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Chauranga
The trouble with ‘Chauranga’, despite its crucial subject, is that treads familiar ground without taking the tale too far.
Jan 2016
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Mumbai Saga
In Sanjay Gupta’s better films, the bad guys used to be more interesting, the action used to be classy. This John Abraham-Emraan Hashmi film, however, feels jaded.
Mar 2021
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Satyagraha
This is a film whose anthem is 'Janta Rocks'. Which sort of goes with 'Politics Lite', doesn't it?
Aug 2013
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Jab Harry Met Sejal
What you need in such films with their flimsy one-line plots, is the magic and mystery of love between two people. And full-blown wonder. All in short supply in Jab Harry Met Sejal, which comes off as a mix of Ali’s older films, in its flashes of Jab We Met, Tamasha and Love Aaj Kal.
Aug 2017
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Fukrey Returns
...the situations are so tired and contrived there’s nothing that even such capable hands as Richa Chaddha and Pankaj Tripathi can do, to retain our interest.
Dec 2017
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Besharam
Besharam is not a film. It is Bollywood's brightest young star stooping to conquer, in search of the mass market.
Oct 2013
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Main Tera Hero
The good Govinda fronted for him, David used his superlative editing skills to keep up a rat-a-tat-pace, and we all happily rolled down the aisles. But it’s been a while since Dhawan hit his stride.
Apr 2014
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Crazy Cukkad Family
...promises a lot of fun cock-a-doodle-do, but delivers much too much cockamamie, instead.
Jan 2015
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ABCD - Any Body Can Dance - 2
The only way a film like this can beat predictability is to deliver as many surprises as it can. But the writing department is the weakest : clichés abound as the characters whirl about frantically in an attempt to shed cardboard.
Jun 2015
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Mirzya
This problem plagues this lush, good-looking production right through, and makes it much less of a film than it could have been.
Oct 2016
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Maatr
Crass, cringe-inducing and downright sordid, this Raveena Tandon rape-and-revenge thriller makes you ask just one question -- who writes this stuff?
Apr 2017
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Love Sonia
More focus on what happens to the girls when they are yanked from that life would have made Love Sonia fresher, and given the characters more to play with. That is not something we see too often, and there is a tiny glimpse of it in the film. The rest of it is same-old.
Sep 2018
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Yaariyan
...seems to have been cobbled together from ‘Main Hoon Na’ and ‘F A L T U’, and ‘Student Of The Year’, even going back to ‘Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar’.
Jan 2014
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Chalk N Duster
It is a subject that deserves a great deal of attention, but not in the way ‘Chalk N’ Duster’ does it. The treatment is amateurish in the extreme...
Jan 2016
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Befikre
...that thing, between the two people who are looking for forever, failing at it, and finding it — the crucial elements of terrific romcoms — needs more depth. It needs more feeling. Which ‘Befikre’ doesn’t have.
Dec 2016
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Parmanu
You will get the money shot of Abraham and co walking in slo-mo to swelling background music, enveloped in a comic book feel. You will not get crucial nuance and detail, essential requirements for a film to be to taken seriously.
May 2018
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Mohalla Assi
...is not much of a film. It’s just a collection of choppy scenes, making it seem that it was censored heavily. It’s been in the making for five or six years, and you can see later add-ons: Deol is earnest, but not really convincing as an Assi dweller.
Nov 2018
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Student Of The Year 2
This class of 2019 is awash with predictable beats, which is to be expected from an underdog story, but that it is so clichéd and stilted, is disappointing: from KJo I expect much more swish and sparkle.
May 2019
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Yeh Saali Aashiqui
...the trouble with the film is that the treatment of both the romantic angles, as well as the watch-the-femme-fatale-in-her-red-lips, is dated and troubling.
Nov 2019
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Stand By
Despite its good intentions, and some nice on-field sequences where winning and losing is on display, 'Stand By' is marred by its clichés and long-windedness.
Aug 2011
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Nov 2012
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Zanjeer
There really is nothing in this film that catches your eye except for a few set pieces, and a new male face which could make some space for himself if he gets something better.
Sep 2013
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Fugly
...begins with a hint of promise, and it could have gone down some paths less travelled. But it meanders, and loses its way.
Jun 2014