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Bombay Talkies
The quartet of shorts that make up Bombay Talkies train a zoom lens on cinema, starting on the outside and slowly drawing us in.
May 2013
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Special 26
...the occasional slackening of the plot is compensated for by the rampant nostalgia.
Feb 2013
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David
...this movie too could have been named Shaitan, and here too Nambiar comes off more super-cool technician than storyteller.
Feb 2013
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Race 2
...the "director duo" – that very moniker is funnier than most of what passes for humour in their films – have somehow pulled off a thriller where we root for the beautiful people. Walking out, I thought, "How did they do this?"
Jan 2013
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Inkaar
Mishra’s point may be that the sexual harassment case was just a red herring and that the real story was about a man and a woman who realised what’s truly important and repriortised their lives, but that’s just cheapening a sensitive issue.
Jan 2013
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Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola
Bhardwaj gives the feeling of having worked hard – really, really hard – on these scenarios and we are torn between admiring the thought and effort that’s gone in and being exasperated by how it all comes together on screen.
Jan 2013
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Table No. 21
...it isn’t everyday that you get a B-movie that makes a convincing case for karma.
Jan 2013
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Dabangg 2
...will delight fans of people being swung around in slow motion as well as those who’ve wondered what the world looks like from the inside of a blender.
Jan 2013
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Nov 2012
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Jab Tak Hai Jaan
It is perhaps a testament to Yash Chopra that he shepherds us past this material without making it look entirely ludicrous. Jab Tak Hai Jaan is a sturdy instruction manual on how to handle melodrama in the classiest possible fashion.
Nov 2012
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Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana
Family is the motor that revs up this wonderful romance, which is as much about the ways we love people as the ways we love food – and this is only fitting in a film whose title embraces both "luv" and "chicken."
Nov 2012
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Chakravyuh
For a while now, Jha has been coming off like a more high-minded clone of Madhur Bhandarkar, picking up a hot topic and embedding his research in creaky subplots.
Oct 2012
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Student Of The Year
How can such a lively premise result in such dullness? The blame may lie with characters who are as clichéd as they come.
Oct 2012
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Oct 2012
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English Vinglish
There is a lot to like in English Vinglish, which is the very definition of a gentle and urbane entertainment, but I couldn’t get past this manufactured premise, which makes all successive events seem manufactured.
Oct 2012
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Barfi!
I was trying to think of another film that’s so sad that made me feel so happy watching it. I still haven’t come up with a name.
Sep 2012
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Joker
Kunder is a daring dreamer of big concepts, but he needs to be a better director to flesh them out with sustained energy. Otherwise a nonsense comedy becomes just… nonsense.
Sep 2012
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Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi
This sort of material, to be pulled off, needs a certain kind of director – Bela Bhansali Sehgal isn’t that director.
Aug 2012
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Ek Tha Tiger
The film seems to be made for the young-at-heart – there’s no heat in the romance, no sex, and there’s no bloodlust in the action.
Aug 2012
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Gangs Of Wasseypur 2
Like Part I, Gangs of Wasseypur II works on a scene-by-scene level rather than as a cohesive whole.
Aug 2012
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Jism - 2
Pooja Bhatt has actually managed something remarkable. She has taken a subject with a love triangle, the threat of terrorism, guns, bloodshed, double crosses, spy operations and an adult-film star and rendered it utterly boring.
Aug 2012
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Cocktail
...is too long, too taxing - after a point, we know exactly what’s coming, and we just wish it came soon enough.
Jul 2012
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Maximum
Had the director Kabeer Kaushik done little more than chart the story of his protagonist, Maximum could have ended up a gripping little film.
Jul 2012
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Teri Meri Kahaani
There's nothing aggressively bad about it, but there's nothing good either - and there's something frustrating when a film that could amount to something ends up being nothing.
Jun 2012
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Gangs Of Wasseypur
...a diffuse epic, content to coast around the revenge plot instead of making it the thrust of its narrative – and what the film loses in terms of dramatic power, it gains in texture.
Jun 2012
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Ferrari Ki Sawaari
So much of Ferrari Ki Sawaari is so original, so one-of-a-kind, that part of the fun of watching the film is just seeing where it will go next.
Jun 2012
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Jun 2012
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Department
Ram Gopal Varma leaves the audience behind and launches into increasingly idiosyncratic ways of telling stories.
May 2012