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Kedarnath
A generally watchable film whose scenery does more heavy-lifting than the screenplay.
Dec 2018
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Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya isn’t a cynical rip-off. It’s more the work of a young filmmaker who clearly adores an older filmmaker’s movie, but infuses it with his own new-gen vibe. And that vibe is infectious.
Jul 2014
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Happy Bhag Jayegi
...the comedy, when it works, works so spectacularly that you may not care about anything else.
Aug 2016
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Panga
A superb Kangana Ranaut anchors a sports drama that’s really a story about second chances.
Jan 2020
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Simmba
On his good days, Salman Khan can really carry off a “mass” movie. But based on his extraordinary performance in Simmba, Ranveer Singh can apparently do this even on a bad day.
Jan 2019
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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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The Lunchbox
...a fascinating mix of fact and fiction, documentary-like realism and flights of poetic whimsy.
Sep 2013
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Titli
This is an impressive debut, and the only one I can recall right now that puts up such a loveless, unlovable bunch on screen.
Nov 2015
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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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Jan 2019
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Guzaarish
Just what, exactly, is this oddly bloodless film - a Bhansali movie for those who don't like Bhansali movies?
Nov 2010
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Jannat 2
I went in with low expectations and the film surpassed them at every level, and this isn’t faint praise.
May 2012
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Daas Dev
The film is darkly funny, and a refreshing change from the staid classicism that undermined some of Mishra’s recent work.
May 2018
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Patiala House
Underdog-cricketer story meets emancipation saga in an inoffensive-enough drama that really should have been much better.
Feb 2011
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Mardaani
Coming a week after the dreary Singham Returns, Mardaani is essentially a demo on how to do this kind of film with class and a certain sensibility.
Aug 2014
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Aug 2018
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Baby
The director Neeraj Pandey realises that he isn’t making a film about ideas. He’s making an action movie, a thriller. Baby feels long at over two-and-a-half hours, but there’s nothing that feels redundant.
Jan 2015
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Rann
Varma’s accomplishment in Rann is to transform an entirely predictable outline into an engrossing experience.
Jan 2010
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Break Ke Baad
...the story never really catches fire, and it never makes you invest enough emotion in the continent-hopping lovers - painted as opposites, in typical rom-com colours - ending up together. The hurdles that they plant on their way to happiness appear molehills, not mountains.
Nov 2010
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Ishaqzaade
...works so well because it’s a love story where there’s something more at stake than the question of will-they-get-together.
May 2012
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7 Khoon Maaf
A delectably mounted, dramatically inert black comedy has lots of atmosphere and little else.
Feb 2011
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Nov 2012
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Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga
This very “safeness” is this film’s secret strength. This isn’t Blue is the Warmest Colour. It’s a YashRaj-style romance with two girls. Without discomfiting the mainstream audience, it makes it possible to talk about a “bedroom subject” in the living room.
Feb 2019
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May 2018
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The Sky Is Pink
A tastefully made weepie that’s cheerier than the downbeat material would have you think.
Nov 2019
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Bollywood Diaries
...is a splash of ice-cold water on everyone who stands in front of a mirror and says: Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon.
Mar 2016
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Thappad
Anubhav Sinha is in a golden zone. Thappad is the third of his “Social Issues trilogy”, if you will, and the weakest of the bunch. (The earlier films are Article 15 and Mulk.) But for all its flaws, the core character, the core conflict is superbly unpacked.
Mar 2020
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Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani
The unlikely team of Raj Kumar Santoshi and Ranbir Kapoor serves up a comedy that casts a spell (well, at least for a while).6
Nov 2009