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Akira
Sonakshi Sinha kicks butt in the A R Murugadoss film but is limited by her role. Despite Anurag Kashyap's deliciously bad performance, Akira falls into a sinkhole.
Sep 2016
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Satyameva Jayate
There was a time, in the 70s and 80s, when B grade cinema embraced this theme—weeding out corruption with extreme violence– with enthusiasm. Satyameva Jayate brings it all back, with all its dialogue-baazi, and relentless background music, piling one improbable, cliché-ridden sequence upon another.
Aug 2018
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Jul 2019
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Street Dancer 3D
The first thing a good dance movie ought to do is give us numbers that make us want to leap up to our feet right there in the aisle, and go shake-shimmy-shake. On that score alone, Street Dancer 3D, the third in the ABCD line, flubs it.
Jan 2020
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Love Breakups Zindagi
...presents characters that are flat, in situations which are flatter.
Oct 2011
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Boss
For all intents and purposes, this could be called Rowdy 2, because Akshay does exactly what he does in that earlier film, but with different co-stars, and a plot that is totally subservient to labelling him Boss every two minutes.
Oct 2013
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Rahasya
...the result is a film that has only a couple of dark moments. The rest is an attempted mish-mash of a crime-of-coiled-passion- cum-police procedural, the confusion only serving to confound.
Jan 2015
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Oct 2016
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Laal Kaptaan
...there are flashes when you feel the film will finally say something important, but then it lapses back into stodgy set-pieces which go on and on.
Oct 2019
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Bajatey Raho
...the film turns out to be clichéd and largely choppy: an idea by itself is never enough, it's what you do with it that counts.
Jul 2013
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Jai Ho
...could have been a pure and simple `Dabangg 3’. It’s not. It’s not even a no-holds-barred South remake either, despite its quarts of spurting blood and broken bones. Jai’s ‘aam aadmi’ catches traction only a moment. In the rest, he goes back to snarling and kicking and scowling.
Jan 2014
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Ok Jaanu
Shaad Ali’s copy Ok Jaanu, with a screenplay by Ratnam, is faithful but pale and predictable.
Jan 2017
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Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana
For a film that ostensibly sets out to speak against the ills of dowry, Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana is surprisingly, and dangerously muted.
Nov 2017
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Game
...is a good Bollywood example of a bad Hollywood film : all slick surface, nothing underneath.
Apr 2011
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Main Aur Mr. Riight
Sobti gets the hungry-actor look right, but the smiley Treasurywala needed to be deeper. So did the film.
Dec 2014
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Sep 2016
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Vodka Diaries
...just why, with a notable exception or two, doesn’t Bollywood make any worthwhile thrillers? Sadly, the reliable Menon is wasted. So is our time.
Jan 2018
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Total Dhamaal
Brainless comedies can be a lot of fun (brain, stop smirking), but they need to be written with smarts. Here, the CGI animals (the climactic chunk of the film is set in a zoo) have more effect than the humans.
Feb 2019
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Aug 2014
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Khamoshiyan
There’s your new Bhatt Brothers film, which does exactly what you expect : plays out familiar erotic-horror-thriller ingredients on new, or almost-new faces.
Jan 2015
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Sarkar 3
The best that can be said about Sarkar 3 is that it is not as terrible as Not A Love Story, and, no, nowhere as ghastly as Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag. That’s small consolation for a film...
May 2017
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Haseena Parkar
...is a long and winding and weary telling of a story which could have been something, but comes off merely as a tired re-tread of tired re-treads.
Sep 2017
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Mar 2018
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Aiyyaa
...a flat, heavy-footed clomp through screechy lines and overstated, dragged-out situations.
Oct 2012
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Chor Chor Super Chor
Turning the tables on someone usually is a fun thing. But the execution is amateurish, so is most of the acting, even if Dobriyal keeps some of it humming.
Aug 2013
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One By Two
This is a case of missed opportunities. Trying for likeability is tough when the film is saddled with a listless plot and pace.
Jan 2014
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Children Of War
There should have been more history and more competence in ‘Children Of War’ for it to be the film it had set out to be.
May 2014