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Sep 2017
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Poster Boys
This one's tricky as it has to sensitively portray the plight of the characters while ensuring the screwball humour doesn't take away from the proceedings. On that count, the maker (Shreyas Talpade helming a film for the first time) does fairly well.
Sep 2017
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Mr. Kabaadi
A half-hearted attempt at muddling our minds, this one's a tiringly painful watch.
Sep 2017
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Baadshaho
A formulaic plot, heavy-duty dialoguebaazi and characters with ulterior motives, collectively make this 136-minute celluloid attack on the senses much to endure.
Sep 2017
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Shubh Mangal Saavdhan
The film perseveres to ensure it doesn't make light of the dysfunction in question, and chooses instead to parody the mayhem triggered by it. This is because aside from all the gags about performance pressure, ED happens to be a serious, rarely spoken of, debilitating condition that has altered marriages. But then, as they say, no hard feelings.
Sep 2017
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Qaidi Band
That director Habib Faisal has helmed this one is not apparent through the film. But the filmmaker tucks in quintessential emotional nuggets that remind one of the filmmaker's signature cinematic flourishes.
Aug 2017
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A Gentleman
...this offering which packs in comedy, action and everything else, yet doesn't entirely fit into the 'masala' construct. Managing this is a feat in itself.
Aug 2017
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Sniff
That Gupte has the knack of weaving a mountain of a minuscule story is known and even here, while little happens, there's much mood and mayhem to keep you curious and interested through the proceedings.
Aug 2017
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Babumoshai Bandookbaaz
Director Kushan Nandy takes on an ambitious story and tells it in a manner that packs in sudden jolts. But he invests more in stunts and comparatively lesser in establishing motives. This makes the film full of scenes which would make a crisp trailer but when stitched together, seem like a clunky collective of gimmicks.
Aug 2017
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Bareilly Ki Barfi
Following her impressive directorial debut in Nil Battey Sannata, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari approaches this romcom with the heart of a Sai Paranjpye and the wit of a David Dhawan. But the money here lies in the writing and Dangal director Nitesh Tiwari conveys even the mundane in a manner to evoke delight.
Aug 2017
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Toilet
A propaganda or not, this one's watchable only for Akshay Kumar and his ability to hold it together.
Aug 2017
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Aug 2017
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Gurgaon
Films have often typecast the original inhabitants of Gurugram like Hollywood films paint Texans: trigger-happy, bigoted millionaires who're as easily amused as they are irked. But this story takes the creative liberty to stretch this perception to amount to exaggeration.
Aug 2017
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Indu Sarkar
Apart from his (Bhandarkar) myopic and shallow take on the blotch in Indian history when the world's largest democracy resembled a dictatorship, his propaganda treatment to the material is objectionable
Jul 2017
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Mubarakan
How many Arjun Kapoors are required to crack a comedy? Based on this film, clearly not enough.
Jul 2017
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Raag Desh
This one has a compelling story that allows one to look beyond semantics but half-heartedly fleshed out parallel tracks and jump cuts between the courtroom and the war zone, become much to bear.
Jul 2017
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Munna Michael
Despite a wafer-thin story, Khan leans on the tropes of masala films by leaning on silly humour, neck-wrenching action sequences and dance moves that defy gravity, to make the two hours twenty minutes you spend watching this film, not entirely unbearable.
Jul 2017
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Lipstick Under My Burkha
The film explores India's twisted relationship with intercourse. Patriarchy defines it as a male need delivered by a female who can barely voice whether the act evokes pain or pleasure. And it is this voice that the film deliberates while referring to 'sapne' and how Indian women can't dare to see them.
Jul 2017
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Jagga Jasoos
Catering to every childhood fantasy, Jagga Jasoos keeps you hopeful and rooting for its spectacled snoop, especially in situations where chances of the eponymous jasoos' survival seem bleak.
Jul 2017
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Shab
Onir recently argued that he doesn't fancy himself as an indie filmmaker but a commercial one. And that his 'treatment' lends his films to be deemed otherwise. But here, he stereotypes homosexuals, sex workers and everyone in between.
Jul 2017
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Guest Iin London
A comedy that rides on casual racism, indecorous political views and gaseous discharge, this one fails to amuse even a little.
Jul 2017
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Mom
Debutant director Ravi Udyawar brings his advertising sensibilities to cinema to ensure every scene is precise.
Jul 2017
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Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha
Director Sunil Darshan, also to be blamed for the story and screenplay, had noble intentions to relaunch his son in this film. But they don't translate into a story worth enduring or a a film worth suffering.
Jun 2017
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Tubelight
Director Kabir Khan admitted in an interview that the objective of this cinematic tribute was to make the inspiring story accessible to a larger audience. And while Salman fans across the world would make for a substantial target, inflicting them with this preachy tale of leaning on 'yakeen' to get through life could be a tad misleading.
Jun 2017
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Raabta
Furnishing a mythical ancient time can be riddled with pitfalls. Right from costumes to situations, everything sits on the fence between reality and ridicule. A little extra or less could topple this imagined world. And while Vijan seems determined in delivering his vision and most CG creations seem believable, this khichdi of past and present lacks tadka and depth.
Jun 2017
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Behen Hogi Teri
It's easy to forsake this film as regressive and the society portrayed here as dated and disconnected from reality. But then, when have screwball comedies in Hindi cinema subscribed to being politically accurate or sensitive?
Jun 2017
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Hanuman Da Damdaar
An animated retelling of a mythological epic would seem an appropriate vehicle to apprise millennials of the significant yet lesser-known tale. But for Bajrangbali's sake, the visuals are so sketchy, it trivialises the tale of bravado.
Jun 2017
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Dobaara
Agreed director Prawaal Raman has a faint body of work to defend or live up to. But this doesn't entitle him to reduce horror to hilarity.
Jun 2017
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Dear Maya
Director Sunaina Bhatnagar had a noble vision: to capture the drama and debiliation of negotiating the teenage years. And while she manages to a certain extent, her naive, one-dimmensional characters fail to engage and subsequently interest one in the proceedings which seem to drag on endlessly.
Jun 2017
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Half Girlfriend
When below average writing meets overenthusiastic hamming, it's like being simultaneously inflicted with a leg wound and a throbbing headache — you're reeling in pain from head to toe but can't tell which is more debilitating.
May 2017