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Naam Shabana
...leaves you with a niggling question: why create a heroine in the action hero mode, with both mind and heart, and then give her a big bro to ‘help’ her out? This results in second-guessing your biggest asset, wondering if she is a liability.
Mar 2017
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Phillauri
The pacing is not just languid, it is positively slow, and it allows scenes to go on for much longer than they should.
Mar 2017
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Anaarkali Of Aarah
This film hits all the right spots. With Anar, Swara Bhaskar gets a role worthy of her. Debut director Avinash Das is a filmmaker to watch out for. And, it is a ladies-oriented film. We simply cannot help cheering.
Mar 2017
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Anaarkali Of Aarah
Rajat Kapoor delivers a stand-out performance as a man struggling in the changing economic scenario but is failed by the uneven film.
Mar 2017
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Machine
...is the kind of film the director-duo would have got away in the 90s. Or maybe not. Even the squelchiest of plots need some acting chops and charisma: none of the young people, including the debutant Burmawla, is in possession of these crucial ingredients that makes a star.
Mar 2017
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Trapped
Given Motwane’s skills at creating emotions, and Rao’s ability to channel them, Trapped doesn’t take us as far over the edge it could, or should have.
Mar 2017
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Badrinath Ki Dulhania
Alia Bhatt is pitch-perfect as dulhania with a mind of her own. Varun Dhawan impresses as a boy-struggling-to-be-a-man. Together, they offer us a flavourful romance which takes down patriarchy.
Mar 2017
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Commando 2
...nothing can be worse for an out-and-out-actioner than to be shackled by sarkaari slogans.
Mar 2017
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Jolly LLB 2
...is a pure win. It has a solid plot, a strong sense of time and place and rhythm, and a message that is delivered without sanctimony.
Feb 2017
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Kaabil
Hrithik does all the heavy lifting and remains the only bright spot in this dispirited mess of a movie. He still has the moves. What he needs is a plot.
Jan 2017
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Raees
And that’s where the film gets stuck, between the two stools of restraint and full blown tamasha...
Jan 2017
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Coffee With D
Grover, who is a well-known TV artist, is the only one who seems serious about this enterprise. Everyone else seems in on the joke.
Jan 2017
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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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Haraamkhor
...despite some strong moments, the film suffers from slightness and disjointedness: did the censorship process snip off more than we could chew? Was there more? A second film from the clearly talented Sharma will give us a clue.
Jan 2017
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Dangal
It could have easily turned into a vanity project, which is a clear and present danger. It could have been made more polished that it needed. But it stays real, because the star ratchets it up when required, and lets it go in the rest.
Dec 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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Nov 2016
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Dear Zindagi
Both Shah Rukh Khan and Alia Bhatt show spark but the film needed a plot to hinge the performances. Too many dialogues that say too little take the joy away from the film.
Nov 2016
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Tum Bin 2
Two guys, one girl, and the mess they can create amongst themselves may be the oldest story in the book, but it can quite easily be refreshed given the right story and treatment. Unlike the first one which brought these elements together nicely, it doesn’t happen here, despite some well executed moments.
Nov 2016
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Force 2
The way it plays out, ‘Force 2’ forces us to stay far too much in the been here-seen that territory.
Nov 2016
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Mahayoddha Rama
...my expectations that it was going to be a delightfully subversive take on the epic were dashed almost as soon as it started.
Nov 2016
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Ae Dil Hai Mushkil
...hope that Johar will come up with something newer and sharper the next time around.
Oct 2016
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Shivaay
The only thing your eye can rest on is the spectacular scenery. The rest is a bloated star vehicle.
Oct 2016
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Oct 2016
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Oct 2016
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Tutak Tutak Tutiya
...a series of grimaces and groans studded in a risible script, in which we rapidly lose all interest after we’ve finished smiling weakly at the leading man’s accented Hindi as the boorish Krishna, and his puerile attempts at getting rid of a doormat of a wife (Tamannah Bhatia).
Oct 2016
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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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M.S. Dhoni
This film had potential to present us with the recent Indian cricketing story, warts and all. Sadly it’s more hagiography than biography: the cricketer is reduced to a being singing-dancing Bollywood hero rather than a top-flight cricketer, a master strategist, and a captain who led from the front.
Sep 2016