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Pagglait
Pagglait’s setting, its characters, their sadness, banter, rituals, hypocrisy, everything rings true and has familiar familial warmth. It’s when Bist has to take the story forward that the plotting gets weak and cliched.
Mar 2021
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Love Aaj Kal
...has an annoying, irritating, glacial pace, and at some point after interval, I tried to fix my glare at the head of the man sitting in front, to check the speed at which hair grows.
Feb 2020
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Shikara
The problem with Shikara is not that it wants to tell the story of a people forced out of their homes. But that it paints the common Kashmiri Muslim as a colluder, an active one at that.
Feb 2020
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Malang
Mohit Suri’s film is set in Goa for a reason. It allows him to show smoking, drinking, drugs, rave parties, lots of skin and random sex without having to bother about a story. So, he didn’t bother.
Feb 2020
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Panga
...mostly spurns melodrama, and instead gives us a world we can connect with and live in for a bit.
Jan 2020
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Street Dancer 3D
...true to the simple minded genre of let’s-dance-to-challenge-and-conquer-all, is a chitrahar of grand, impressive, foot-tapping dance performances strung together by a very silly but melodramatic story that carries a moral — love all, hate none.
Jan 2020
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Good Newwz
Watch Good Newwz — for the brave idea incubating in its tummy, and for Mr Dosanjh. He is effortless and outstanding.
Dec 2019
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Pati Patni Aur Woh
...it would have made for a much more engaging retelling of a B.R. Chopra naughty classic.
Dec 2019
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Panipat
Directors like Gowariker do no service to the nation or their audience by twisting the truth, ignoring military, diplomatic, common sense follies and rewriting history with jingoistic fervour. They condemn us to repeat historical wrongs.
Dec 2019
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Motichoor Chaknachoor
...is simple but its plot is full of gentle little twists and turns that surprise, delight and take the film in unexpected directions.
Nov 2019
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Marjaavaan
...this illegitimate offspring of many B-grade items mating with each other is worse than C-grade. It is third-rate.
Nov 2019
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The Sky Is Pink
I felt impaled by the film’s relentless emotional badgering, constant telling us, and not showing, how terribly tragic it all is.
Oct 2019
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Saaho
...given the film’s tortuous, tangled plot involving compromised cops, many fake identities, umpteen car chases and dreary duels involving burly goondas of various ethnicities from East Europe and Africa, what stays with you is a sense of exhaustion, like after a long, wasted day.
Aug 2019
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Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aaata Hai?
Ranade’s Albert Pinto Ko… is only interested in expressing its gussa. And that made me gussa.
Apr 2019
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Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota
MKDNH’s strength lies in its clever, political screenplay, funny, crisp dialogue and the film’s goofy disposition to have fun.
Mar 2019
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The Accidental Prime Minister
...the film, coming as it does in election year, has an agenda — it’s politically motivated. And the motive of this tacky, third-rate propaganda piece is all too apparent in the story it wants us to go home with, and the characters it wants us to hate and love.
Jan 2019
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Dec 2018
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Thugs Of Hindostan
...after sending the pesky writers on long leave, they proceed to throw cash at the the art director, the CGI team, the costume wallas, the extras, the star’s hair stylist, colourist, the carpenters… anything and everything except the story, the dialogue, the writing.
Nov 2018
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Mulk
...when mainstream Bollywood begins to get it right, when it finds the strength to articulate what’s right and wrong in a way that sits with audiences for a long time, there is hope.
Aug 2018
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Vishwaroop II
...it’s an education to come across a film so badly written, acted and directed.
Aug 2018
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Aug 2018
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Vodka Diaries
...is a very bad, very poor, often-incoherent and illogical pirated copy of Shutter Island.
Jan 2018
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My Birthday Song
...is needlessly convoluted and so annoyingly pretentious that you want the whole thing to be bleeped out of your memory.
Jan 2018
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Ajji
...is bold in its decisions of what it shows and what it doesn’t. It’s sensitive and yet determined to make us see, imagine, join the dots. It’s not interested in making us comfortable, help us tide over all that’s unpleasant, violent, vile.
Nov 2017
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Moh Maya Money
My grouse is with the screenplay. Written by Bhardwaj and Mansi Nirmal Jain, it’s uneven, much like the film’s cinematography and scene-setting. At times smart and crackling, but also, for long spells, dull and sparse.
Nov 2016
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Parched
Writer-director Leena Yadav’s Parched left me, well, rather parched. While in some respects it quenched my thirst, but — to further stretch the sexual hint in the film’s title — mostly it left me high and dry.
Sep 2016
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Kerry on Kutton
The film is flawed, not just in pacing, but also some characters. But nothing that damages it in any serious way.
Jul 2016
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Mastizaade
Arre bhai, here we are, with cinema tickets. Corrupt us, please. But for that Bollywood will have to man-up first and stop pretending we are a nation of gurgling morons who get off on montages of cleavage.
Feb 2016
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X: Past is Present
Watching most of X felt like being dragged through a bad drug trip of some sad hostel boys.
Nov 2015
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Main Aur Charles
Watch it for not just an incredible performance by Hooda, but also how smart biopics can be made.
Oct 2015