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Student Of The Year
...if you like your entertainment to be served up with glitzy but pulpy garnishing, pirouette your way to the nearest screen by all means.
Oct 2012
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Bombay Velvet
...an ambitious film that clearly aspires to be infinitely more than the sum of its superficial parts.
May 2015
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Kurbaan
Clearly Rensil is a talent to watch. He isn’t afraid to take risks but his ambition and good intentions aren’t matched by the sophistication that this project required.
Nov 2009
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Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Dobaara
...falls well short of being quite as engaging as the film that it is a sequel to.
Aug 2013
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Begum Jaan
She (Vidya Balan) is phenomenally riveting no doubt, but the film that rests awkwardly on her shoulders is passable at best.
Apr 2017
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Tiger Zinda Hai
At an exhausting two hours and forty minutes, I really don't care if Tiger is alive or a vegetable - whether he's Zinda or Tinda, really - but this film needed to be much tighter.
Dec 2017
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Malaal
...would have left as with no regrets whatever if only it had the courage to go all out to stress upon the power of love to surmount divisive forces at play in Mumbai and elsewhere. It abandons that topical concern and settles for a construct that drifts towards a tame, sanitized finish.
Jul 2019
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Veer
If like me, you can find delight in the sheer delirium of a bad Bollywood film, then see Veer, otherwise do catch it on DVD. In a few years, this sensibility and swagger will be extinct.
Jan 2010
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Kaabil
Hrithik Roshan delivers a convincing enough performance as a man who cannot see. Kaabil is paisa vasool fare, if not more.
Jan 2017
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Ramayana
...an ambitious step toward better homegrown cinema for children. I just wish it had more crackle.
Oct 2010
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Dum Maaro Dum
This is one film that should soar but sadly it never quite takes flight. The problem is the writing.
Apr 2011
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Happy Ending
In the rather patchy but inoffensive Happy Ending, the narrative style is bright and breezy enough to help them paper over the flaws in the screenplay.
Nov 2014
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Pati Patni Aur Woh
This iteration of Pati Patni Aur Woh manages to convey two truths: one, Bollywood's fictional heroines have evolved much faster than their male counterparts and two, film comedies that Mumbai churns out these days are no patch on the ones that the industry produced in earlier decades.
Dec 2019
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Ferrari Ki Sawaari
This competently crafted and well-intentioned cricket-themed film steers clear of many of commercial Hindi cinema’s narrative conventions - it sure gets full marks on that count - but succumbs to some of its most retreaded cliches.
Jun 2012
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Wazir
The surface vim and vigour on show in Wazir is considerable, but Bollywood’s first big release of 2016 is disappointingly low on substance.
Jan 2016
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Rock On 2
It rocks only sporadically, and it almost never sways the audience enough for the latter to crave for another helping.
Nov 2016
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Shikara
...is evasive on many crucial counts, but, judged on purely cinematic parameters, its strengths are noteworthy.
Feb 2020
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Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi
Though a bit on the sluggish side, Shirin Farhad Ki To Nikal Padi is warm-hearted and generally watchable without being exhilarating.
Aug 2012
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Shootout At Wadala
The film is generally entertaining without attaining the sort of innate quality that could attract favourable comparisons with Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya and Company or Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Parinda.
May 2013
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Bollywood Diaries
If only the disparate elements were better dovetailed into the larger picture it seeks to paint, Bollywood Diaries might have had more to write home about.
Feb 2016
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Happy Bhag Jayegi
...isn't the kind of film that will have audiences rolling in the aisles. But it might occasionally induce faint smiles on some faces.
Aug 2016
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Laal Kaptaan
...an overlong film that takes a circuitous route to its climax and spends an awfully long time to get there...
Oct 2019
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Rakht Charitra – I
...how much you relish Rakta Charitra is directly connected to your threshold for gore.
Oct 2010
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Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
It is a pity that Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, despite being about the life and career of one of India’s greatest sporting achievers, never makes for the kind of compelling viewing that it would have been had it relied solely on the drama inherent in the hero’s singular struggle against all odds instead of overlaying it with extraneous narrative trappings.
Jul 2013
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City Of Gold
...had the potential to be a far better film than it is...But the director is unable to find the right narrative tone for this difficult material.
Apr 2010
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Satyagraha
...for all its well-meaning bluster, neither stings nor scalds. It fails to hit the core of the truth that it seeks.
Aug 2013
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Force 2
It's the sheer predictability of this narrative form that drags Force 2 down a few notches. Be that as it may, it is an entertainer that passes muster.
Nov 2016
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Why Cheat India
What it does, and does reasonably well, is address a subject that is real in a manner that, despite its adherence to many of the broad rules of popular Hindi cinema, does not stray too far from the tangible.
Jan 2019