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Photograph
...doesn’t come together as beautifully as The Lunchbox did. The screenplay isn’t as sharp or insightful. In places the film is so quiet that it feels inert. I’m not going to lie – I did get impatient. And yet the next morning, I found myself thinking about Rafi and Miloni. There is a tenderness that stays with you.
Mar 2019
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Mar 2019
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Luka Chuppi
The writing by Rohan Shankar is consistently feeble. Scenes are stretched endlessly and the humour is limp.
Mar 2019
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Sonchiriya
...tries to blend Spaghetti Western style-action drama with social commentary but it isn’t entirely satisfying on either count.
Mar 2019
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Gully Boy
...the beauty of Gully Boy is that even if you are entirely unfamiliar with this world, like I was, the film will still stir your soul.
Feb 2019
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Gully Boy
If you’re looking for a good time, Gully Boy is everything you can ask for. It’s just that I wanted it to be more. I wanted it to be the film its lyrics deserved.
Feb 2019
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Thackeray
A celebratory epic that’s less about a leader’s psyche than his penchant for punch lines.
Jan 2019
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Manikarnika
...Kangana has said that 70 percent of it is her work. If yes, then she is an effective storyteller but the actor in her undermines the director. Because the actor becomes larger than the narrative. But despite these flaws, Manikarnika reveals Kangana as an artist with boundless ambition and I’m excited to see what she creates next.
Jan 2019
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Why Cheat India
...like the hybrid of fact and fiction, needed far more imagination and audacity.
Jan 2019
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Uri
...is an unabashed love letter to the Indian army. If you want nuance or insight into the hearts and minds of brave men and women who willingly put themselves in the line of fire, you won’t find it here.
Jan 2019
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The Accidental Prime Minister
...strategically, a smart move. But here’s what I don’t get – why create such a shoddy product? The Accidental Prime Minister is narratively incoherent, technically sloppy and flat-out tedious.
Jan 2019
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Zero
...left me stumped and eventually, sad. Because when artists take such ambitious creative risks, you are really rooting for them to succeed.
Dec 2018
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Kedarnath
...feels like it belongs to an earlier decade. Apart from Mukku’s character, there is little that is fresh or contemporary.
Dec 2018
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2.0
Shankar’s cinema uniquely combines scale with social message. Just in case you’ve missed the point of this film, at the end, Dr. Vaseegaran spells it out again. Like everything else in 2.0, it’s a tiring overdose.
Nov 2018
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Nov 2018
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Thugs Of Hindostan
A dull attempt at a masala potboiler that hopes star power will trump the script.
Nov 2018
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Andhadhun
With precision and control, Sriram constructs a theatre of the absurd. The surroundings – high-rises, leafy streets and old houses in Pune – seem perfectly normal but what’s happening inside is deliciously twisted. There’s murder, betrayal, sex and a mountain of lies. In short, you can’t look away.
Oct 2018
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Manmarziyaan
Like love, this film is messy and flawed and glorious. You have to sign up for all of it.
Sep 2018
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Love Sonia
The plot feels like it is designed to reflect newspaper headlines and everything gets resolved so easily that it seems implausible. But Sonia’s tortured face will haunt you.
Sep 2018
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Gali Guleiyan
...there is enough to admire in this ambitious first film – especially the unstinting talent of Manoj Bajpayee.
Sep 2018
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Yamla Pagla Deewana Phir Se
...tries to be a comedy, an Ayurveda commercial, a plea for national integration – specifically between Gujaratis and Punjabis – a love story and a moral science lesson.
Aug 2018
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Stree
Director Amar Kaushik and writers Krishna D.K. and Raj Nidimoru create a horror-comedy, which turns out to be subversive commentary on the position and treatment of women in India. It’s clever and very funny.
Aug 2018