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Tiger Zinda Hai
If you can see Tiger Zinda Hai for what it is, you too may not mind its unabashed blend of swag, silliness and schmaltz.
Dec 2017
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Monsoon Shootout
Four years has been an unfairly long wait for mainstream Indian theatre-goers, but our reward is a nicely engaging film with several morally compelling questions at its core.
Dec 2017
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Dec 2017
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Firangi
Clearly Dhingra has his heart in the right place. What he also needed to have in place was substantive writing.
Dec 2017
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Kadvi Hawa
...is a bitter pill to swallow, and one that is designed to compel us to look within.
Dec 2017
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Ajji
Sushama Deshpande’s striking face and screen presence, and young Sharvani Suryavanshi’s natural acting are no doubt worthy of a full-fledged film. Ajji, as it stands now though, is well begun but just half done.
Dec 2017
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Tumhari Sulu
Vidya Balan and Manav Kaul are wonderful in Tumhari Sulu. And despite its exasperating folly as it draws to a close, Tumhari Sulu is a throat-achingly, side-splittingly hysterical entertainer.
Nov 2017
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Qarib Qarib Singlle
...is fun in bits and pieces mostly in the first half, but conflicted about what it wants to say and, therefore, tedious beyond a point.
Nov 2017
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Ribbon
...is a deceptively simple, remarkable film with a risky concept that has paid off. It is without question one of India’s best of 2017 so far.
Nov 2017
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Ittefaq
...may not be perfect, but it is clever enough. Bollywood rarely does thrillers well. This one is not brilliant, but it is fun while it lasts.
Nov 2017
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Ranchi Diaries
To be fair, Ranchi Diaries is not repulsive or puke-worthy or anything of that sort. It is just one of those thingies that makes you want to ask: why did anyone bother to make this? Seriously, why?
Oct 2017
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Chef
It is pleasant in parts, pretty almost throughout, and the cast is appealing. In the absence of heft and a commitment to its genre though, it remains an ineffectual film.
Oct 2017
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Judwaa 2
...skates on thin ice on occasion, but for the most part passes muster without being earth-shatteringly good anywhere.
Sep 2017
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Haseena Parkar
...ends up being a staccato narration of facts, rather than a story pulsating with life.
Sep 2017
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Newton
It is not often that an Indian filmmaker takes to comedy in a setting this dismal – Masurkar and his co-writer do, without being condescending or trivialising the almost depressing circumstances it chronicles in lands far beyond the India most of us are exposed to.
Sep 2017
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Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi
...sometimes you can take an age-old stereotype and still make a refreshing comedy out of it. Patel ki Punjabi Shaadi is not even worthy of being deemed crude or offensive – it is just plain blah.
Sep 2017
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Sep 2017
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Shubh Mangal Saavdhan
...is super-fun till it gets superficial. It is, to borrow the tagline of another film now in theatres, sundar, susheel and risky in its first half, flails about in the second, but remains entertaining overall.
Sep 2017
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Babumoshai Bandookbaaz
...while the film remains engaging throughout, it is hard to ignore the post-interval lack of substance.
Aug 2017
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Aug 2017
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Toilet
Unfortunately, that intention and all its positives are completely overshadowed by its cringe-worthy keenness to bow and scrape before the present government and its head, an aspect of the film that lingers as much as its pluses because all the obsequiousness is packed into the latter half.
Aug 2017
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Gurgaon
The film is a slow burn but make no mistake about it: the explosion is coming.
Aug 2017
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Raag Desh
If you plan to watch it, do not go looking for Border or LOC Kargil. This one is more akin to Sankalp Reddy’s Telugu/Hindi The Ghazi Attack (2017), albeit even more under-played and also less swish on the production front. Raag Desh is a docu-drama, not a high-pitched weepie.
Aug 2017
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Jab Harry Met Sejal
...is occasionally funny, but not half as funny or cute or ruminative as it clearly thinks it is. Hats off to Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma for managing to raise the Centigrades in this otherwise pakau disaster.
Aug 2017
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Mubarakan
...despite the considerable dip in pace in the second half, Bazmee has delivered to a great extent with Mubarakan. The film does not strain the viewer’s intellect too much yet does not demand that we – to quote a reviewer cliché – “leave our brains at home”.
Aug 2017
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Indu Sarkar
While Indu Sarkar’s narrative is more engaging than Bhandarkar’s recent works, it is still inadequate.
Jul 2017
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Lipstick Under My Burkha
It is unrelenting in its social commentary, unapologetic about the mirror it holds up to Indian patriarchy, and reminds men that women – even those old enough to be their mothers – have sexual desires.
Jul 2017
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Shab
Restraint cannot mean zero vitality, yet that is what you get in Shab. Worse, the film does not have anything new to say.
Jul 2017
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Jagga Jasoos
...brings together a range of quality ingredients, but something has gone wrong in the cooking of it. It is highly engaging up to a point, but needed tighter writing and direction to stay on course.
Jul 2017
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Mom
The emotional pull of the first half and Sridevi’s acting excellence notwithstanding, Mom in many ways is as dangerous as the loud, raucous, not-even-pretending-to-be-progressive-about-women commercial Bollywood of the 1970s and ’80s.
Jul 2017