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Game Over
Clearly, Pannu has worked hard, and there are a couple of genuinely scary moments, but the rest of it is too stretched: even the 102 minute run time feels too long.
Jun 2019
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Bharat
The good thing about the film, despite its eye-roll moments, is the underlining it does of a nation which belongs to us all.
Jun 2019
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May 2019
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India‘s Most Wanted
...the overall result is more a placid seen-it-before run-around than the edge-of-the-seat nail biter that it promises to be.
May 2019
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PM Narendra Modi
As a bio-pic, it inhabits muddled, post-truth territory. As a hagiography though, genuflecting at the altar of the man, it’s perfect. It’s uncritical, unquestioning, high on rhetoric. And there’s nothing accidental about it.
May 2019
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De De Pyaar De
You wish the film had been braver in its intention of creating a really cracking rom-com, instead of playing its clichés for a laugh.
May 2019
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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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Setters
...lays all its cards on the table in the first act itself: the follow-up is over-long and tedious. And, barring a few sharp moments, flat.
May 2019
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Blank
The trick to making us swallow improbable ploys is slick treatment, and keeping everything moving chop-chop. On both counts, the film largely draws a blank.
May 2019
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Kalank
The whole feels like a giant set, stately and ponderous and minus impact; the characters all costumed and perfumed and largely life-less, sparking only in bits and pieces. As a character says, two-thirds into the film, ‘yeh kissa yahin nipat jaata’.
Apr 2019
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Apr 2019
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Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aaata Hai?
The original had a protagonist whose raving and ranting, whose very being the way he was, was alive to the moment. This fully superfluous remake will only make you angry.
Apr 2019
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No Fathers In Kashmir
The best thing about Kumar’s film is that the problems it outlines feel urgent, even if we’ve seen them before, especially and quite co-incidentally in the sudden spurt of films set in the valley which have released in the past few months.
Apr 2019
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Romeo Akbar Walter
The film suffers from its length, and the pall of dullness that hangs over the proceedings.
Apr 2019
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Junglee
There’s not one ounce of complexity in the movie, unspooling in such a linear fashion that even two-year-olds would have no difficulty in understanding it. Maybe that’s the demographic the film will appeal to, with its bright colours and straight-forward story-line, and a smiling hero who can take on an army of scowling bad guys single-handedly.
Mar 2019
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Notebook
Love as a buffer against militancy? What a good idea. But not in this airy-fairy, ineffective way that Notebook propounds: the performances by the newbies, with Iqbal faring just a trifle better than Bahl is as two dimensional as the plot.
Mar 2019
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Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota
Mard works best when it is klutzy and bouncy and light on its feet, and those are the parts which help us go past the occasional flatness: many people in the theater where I saw it were laughing out loud.
Mar 2019
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Kesari
...despite its predictable arcs, the outcome which we already know, and its length, we stay with the film.
Mar 2019
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Photograph
A tiny cameo by Vijay Raaz illustrates what this film needed more of: a touch of whimsy, a kind of magic.
Mar 2019
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Hamid
...eschews complexity for simplicity, for the right reasons. Eight-year-olds can be God’s messengers: Bhagwaan ke asli bhakt, Allah ke bande. Yes, they can.
Mar 2019
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Mere Pyare Prime Minister
...the attempt at balancing the serious with the jokey sits uneasy. And there’s no getting away from the all-hail-the-PM rah-rah-ness...
Mar 2019
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Luka Chuppi
If you really want to kick the bigots where it hurts, you have to do it early and hard. To lament about the horrors of live-in relationships through the film, for a last-minute turnaround live-and-let-live-speech, is not enough.
Mar 2019
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Sonchiriya
...is more a display of wonderful cinematography through which the aridness of the Chambal is lensed, and a series of kinetic hold-your-breath-till-they-end set-pieces (which includes Chaubey’s fondness for Mexican stand-offs), than an exploration of despairing people on the edge of the wedge.
Mar 2019
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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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Gully Boy
...this is a film to enjoy. In today’s India, to bring a Murad and Safeena, their Muslim-ness a matter-of-fact statement, into centre-stage, to give traction to those who live on the wrong side of the tracks, is an act of bravery. ‘Inka time aa gaya’. Rap along.
Feb 2019
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Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga
The idea is brilliant, and ensemble solid. Pity about the flaccid writing which obscures the idea and the intent. What this film needed was more sharpness, more acuity, more honesty.
Feb 2019
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Jan 2019
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Manikarnika
But what keeps us with the film is Rani Ranaut, who in her best moments, owns her part, the narrative, and the screen.
Jan 2019
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Why Cheat India
...is disjointed and disappointing, never quite knowing which side it is on...
Jan 2019