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Gulaab Gang
Of all the tributes to Sampat Pal’s debatable feminist politics, this one is the narrowest, and the silliest.
Mar 2014
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Shaadi Ke Side Effects
...has gained gloss and glamourous leads but at the expense of variety of tonal consistency.
Feb 2014
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Gunday
It’s formula food for the present day, spiced with flamboyance, a fair sense of rhythm that occasionally slackens during the 153-minute running time, and a clear understanding of the meaning of popular entertainment, Hindi movie style.
Feb 2014
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Hasee Toh Phasee
It is an extremely likable balance between light and shade, the sadness in his beautiful lead woman sitting happily alongside her smiles. The sugar is pleasingly granular.
Feb 2014
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One By Two
...mashes together typical rom-com ingredients with indie-style improvisation, but the result is sequences that play on for too long and moments that work in isolation but never as part of the big picture.
Jan 2014
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Jai Ho
As an employment scheme for various television regulars and forgotten actors from previous decades, Jai Ho is honourable; as an act of self-mythologizing, it is peerless; as cinema, it is disposable. And as a message movie, Jai Ho is pure lunacy (not for nothing was its original title Mental).
Jan 2014
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Om-Dar-Ba-Dar
...prevents easy analysis, let alone glowing reviews, but there is little doubt about its status as a rare gem from India’s arguably sparse trove of avant-garde treasures.
Jan 2014
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Dhoom 3
...sallies forth boldly into Hollywood genre territory but resorts ever so often to longstanding Hindi movie contrivances to keep the plot ticking.
Dec 2013
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What The Fish
Given the wishy-washy story and the inept direction by Gurmeet Singh, the usually dependable actors, Kapadia and Manu Rishi, are unable to make anything out of it.
Dec 2013
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Dec 2013
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Bullett Raja
It is a wishy-washy mix of two brazen hinterland heroes’ misadventures, a revenge drama, and a soap-opera style, hackneyed depiction of Uttar Pradesh politics.
Nov 2013
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Gori Tere Pyaar Mein
Malhotra’s desire to engage with the issues that matter seems to be a response to criticism that Bollywood needs to move out of la-la land and in the direction of realistic cinema, but Gori Tere Pyaar Mein! is proof that this journey is not for everybody.
Nov 2013
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Nov 2013
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Rajjo
...the movie plays out unmistakably in la-la land, with characters that can only be found in other movies about prostitutes and a series of plot developments that bear little connection to the real world.
Nov 2013
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Satya 2
...does have academic value, as a study of a director’s systematic attempts to demolish his legacy and bury one of his most enduring creations...
Nov 2013
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Krrish 3
...is neither Amar Chitra Katha nor Marvel. The Indian superhero stays in an artless, old-fashioned limbo.
Nov 2013
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Mickey Virus
Without any authentic ring to it, and with artless performances and a predictable story, the last thing I could do, while sitting through its more than two hours of running time, was suspend disbelief.
Oct 2013
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Oct 2013
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Boss
The action-comedy category, characterised by such films as Wanted, Singham and Rowdy Rathore, is primarily aimed at boosting the careers of the marquee male stars who headline them. Every actor who isn’t the ubermensch that no force in the world can withstand doesn’t need to bother. Why then should audiences?
Oct 2013
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Besharam
It works to the extent that Kapoor is a star in the popular Hindi cinema mould and can command attention in the dreariest of moments, but even screen gods can’t convert water into wine.
Oct 2013
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Prague
Shukla and screenplay writer Sumit Saxena lay on the twists and turns, tying themselves in knots they are unable to get out of.
Sep 2013
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Phata Poster Nikhla Hero
...makes the strongest possible case yet to the movie trade and viewers that Kapoor cannot be written off easily.
Sep 2013
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The Lunchbox
While being an immensely enjoyable and competent film, the universality of The Lunchbox tends to exclude its setting’s all-important provinciality.
Sep 2013
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Grand Masti
No double entendre is left unused, no body part unmolested and no pop- culture reference forgotten...
Sep 2013
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Shuddh Desi Romance
The big disappointment of Shuddh Desi Romance is writer Jaideep Sahni. Known for scripts and screenplays that retain efficacy of storytelling with commercially viable Bollywood elements, here is non-committal to making his characters fleshy or believable. The director and actors don’t rescue the fragile boat.
Sep 2013
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Zanjeer
...assembles the usual dose of slow-motion fight sequences, songs and flat comic sequences between the first frame and the last.
Sep 2013
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Satyagraha
...a missed opportunity. By translating a phenomenon that captured the national imagination even fleetingly, it could have humanized the Anna brigade. Jha dumbs down, and does it artlessly.
Aug 2013