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Tiger Zinda Hai
I’d enjoyed the first one while it lasted. I had fun in this one too, once I got past the whole ‘Come Children, Let’s Make A Spy Story For You’ explanatory mode of the flick, directed this time by Ali Abbas Zafar.
Dec 2017
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Shaitan
...is a mixed bag of a movie, starting off with a bang, and then petering out, not getting where it sets out to go.
Jun 2011
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3 Storeys
Even if not madly original, ensemble pieces can turn out interesting if consistently told. 3 Storeys comes off nice in bits but uneven overall...
Mar 2018
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AK vs AK
Motwane’s movie is not just meta. It’s meta-meta, especially when some parts hit too close to the mark, and some are just tantalisingly off the mark.
Dec 2020
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Club 60
I would recommend 'Club 60', because it brings into the frame an age group euphemistically called the 'silvers', and by touching a chord with its performances.
Dec 2013
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Jugni
The film turns clunky in other places, the first-time inexperience showing, but we don’t really mind, because it has that rare thing : a soul, and of course, song. I came out humming.
Jan 2016
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May 2018
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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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Pagglait
With an ensemble cast and its heart in the right place, this Sanya Malhotra film only veers off-course when it becomes too heavy-handed.
Mar 2021
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Rakht Charitra 2
RGV's intention is not so much to delve into the complexities of Andhra politics, which stay firmly in the backdrop, but to create sequences where death is choreographed in varying ways.
Dec 2010
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Jab Tak Hai Jaan
...what the title manages to say pithily takes the fllm nearly three very long hours, and the pay-off isn’t as sweet as it should have been.
Nov 2012
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Shuddh Desi Romance
Post-interval, there's a discernible dip in energy, and the film gets stretched and contrived.
Sep 2013
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Sulemani Keeda
A little more fun would have put a little more, much-needed spring into Sulemani Keeda...
Dec 2014
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Island City
...works best through these fleeting, arresting visuals, their impact diluting when the director turns her attention towards building the narrative arcs.
Sep 2016
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Bareilly Ki Barfi
Rajkummar Rao blows away the weaknesses of this film with his consummate act, playing the timid 'chota shehari' on the one hand, and the loud 'rangbaaz' on the other. He sweetens the pot, and makes up for the rest of it.
Aug 2017
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Kaalakaandi
Kalaakaandi is a Marathi term for ‘mayhem’, but there’s not enough of it, resulting in the film being more a no-stakes stroll, rather than a breathless roller-coaster.
Jan 2018
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Dabangg
Kashyap fails to keep the pitch consistent, and the dips become more clichéd and pronounced as the film progresses. Dabangg could have been the retro dhamaka of the year; I enjoyed only some of it.
Sep 2010
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Soundtrack
...gives us a story which feels like it is about something : such a relief from the spate of nothing movies that have been infesting our theatres for a while now, even if the result is mixed.
Oct 2011
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Lootera
It has left me with some indelible scenes which are sheer poetry, but this is one of those films that I wanted to like much more than I did.
Jul 2013
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Bhoothnath Returns
...it was neither funny nor serious enough: neither fully ghostly nor ghastly, but somewhere in between.
Apr 2014
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Batti Gul Meter Chalu
Two things mar the movie. Some of the humour made me distinctly uncomfortable: sexist lines inserted for cheap laughs, and a judge made too comic, is not something we expect in a film with good intentions. The other is its inordinate length. It’s run-time is almost three hours: the meter should have stopped at two and a half.
Sep 2018
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F.A.L.T.U
The young gang is watchable, even if they are made to swap sense for a few broad laughs.
Apr 2011
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Life Ki Toh Lag Gayi
I went in expecting nothing, and I was rewarded by a film that surprised me despite some predictable patches, and kept me engaged.
Apr 2012
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Khwaabb
It’s tough to make a true-blue sports film, minus song and dance and melodrama, in Bollywood. This one has tried.
May 2014
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Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey
...the gaps between the intention and the final product : the book's gripping characters and its rousing patriotic tale never comes fully alive on screen.
Dec 2010
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Bhopal: A Prayer For Rain
What makes the film worth your time is the way it states, unequivocally, that the gas need not have leaked if Union Carbide and its employees and its votaries had come together to pull the plug in time.
Dec 2014
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Dhobi Ghat
...a strangely uneven film. Its beginning feels amateurishly put together ; as it heads onwards, though, it finds an easy, flowing rhythm with just the occasional stutter.
Jan 2011
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Guddu Rangeela
Kapoor demonstrates a growing assuredness, which is clear in the robust, cracking portions of the film: all he now needs is a solid hole-less plot with lines to match.
Jul 2015
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Daayen Ya Baayen
...the pleasures of a film like this, made by a director who knows her mountains and its people, are unmistakable: there's not one ounce of fakery...
Oct 2010