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Kill Dil
At every point, you keep wanting Kill/Dil to be so much more – but this isn’t a lazy failure. If anything, Ali tries to do too much.
Nov 2014
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Brothers
One feels a twinge about picking on a movie made with so much craft and care, by a director who errs on the side of too much in the midst of many who do too little, but strip away the pretty wallpaper and you’ll see how generic Brothers is...
Aug 2015
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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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Helicopter Eela
A terrible mother-son story with a Freudian subtext it doesn’t know what to do with.
Oct 2018
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Jab Harry Met Sejal
...ends up a cautionary tale about idiosyncratic filmmakers with a distinct voice working with a big star. Imtiaz Ali gets his biggest star yet, and he’s made his most underwhelming movie.
Aug 2017
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Bewakoofiyaan
...is much more complicated and adult, and by reducing it to a rom-com, Asthana pulls her punches.
Mar 2014
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Aug 2015
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Nov 2015
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Dil Dhadakne Do
All those carefully calibrated line readings. You may wonder if, after filling out the soapy plot with Reema Kagti, Akhtar experienced some kind of soap-opera twist herself, amnesia or something. What else could explain the disconnect between the material and the movie?
Jun 2015
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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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Jai Ho
There is so little to root for in the film – despite such an emotional hook, of man helping fellow man – that we look for scraps...
Jan 2014
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Kick
Movies like Kick depress me – and not because of the ineptness on display, the sheer waste of resources, the utter contempt for the audience. What depresses me is that they become hits, and further the conventional wisdom that this is what masala cinema is all about.
Jul 2014
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Ghayal Once Again
After a while, it’s not the action – it’s the acting. Deol just cannot play emotional scenes convincingly. But at least he looks as if he can move mountains with a single hand, and that’s really what this film needs.
Feb 2016
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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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One By Two
After a while, the film begins to feel like an academic experiment: Can the lives of two not-terribly-interesting people be shaped into an interesting story?
Feb 2014
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ABCD - Any Body Can Dance - 2
How you respond to ABCD 2 will probably depend on how much you follow dance-reality shows on television, how much you like hip hop moves, and, most important, if you’re still at an age where you squeal when people you like show up on screen.
Jun 2015
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Feb 2016
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A Gentleman
Good directors are allowed to make bad movies, but with Happy Ending and, now, A Gentleman, Raj and DK have ventured into a peculiar place: they’re making bland movies. There’s no personality, only empty professionalism.
Aug 2017
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One Night Stand
How much better One Night Stand would have been with better actors, a more committed filmmaker than Jasmine Moses D’souza!
May 2016
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Manikarnika
...is all ingredients. There’s no cook. Technically, of course, there are two: Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi and Kangana Ranaut. But there’s very little in the film that looks “directed”. It’s just a dull series of events...
Feb 2019
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X: Past is Present
It’s interesting, certainly. But look past the style, and there’s little substance.
Nov 2015
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Jan 2017
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Gori Tere Pyaar Mein
We don’t go to rom-coms expecting cold logic, but even as a heart-tugger Gori Tere Pyaar Mein doesn’t quite cut it.
Nov 2013
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Raees
Is it possible to make a relatively “realistic” masala movie? The lines don’t have the punch they should, and the Old Bollywood scenes are an embarrassment.
Jan 2017
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Shorgul
This is a valid, even necessary issue to explore, but the filmmakers aren’t up to it.
Jul 2016
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Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Dobaara
The directors from the Mahesh Bhatt stable know their way around the darker side of desire and they know how to shape characters that are real yet just this side of larger-than-life. Other filmmakers venturing into these waters come off as posers...
Aug 2013
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Sarbjit
How can all this result in such a dull movie, which is neither a gripping familial drama nor a tense legal thriller?
May 2016