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Maatr
...Sayed manages to skillfully steer his fantasy of vigilante justice all the way to the ludicrous climax.
Apr 2017
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Meeruthiya Gangsters
Quadri’s writing isn’t half as sharply funny or piercingly deadpan as it thinks it is, but that’s par for the course in a movie that celebrates the virtues of taking the easy way out.
Sep 2015
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Dishoom
Dishoom’s premise has promise – two mismatched police officers join hands to rescue India’s cricketing jewel from a kidnapping – but Desi Boyz director Rohit Dhawan simply cannot get the film to jumpstart despite all the elements being in place.
Jul 2016
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Jabariya Jodi
The humour is as forced as the romance, and the biggest question goes unanswered: what is the movie really trying to say?
Aug 2019
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Traffic
...the essence of the original – and the reason it worked with audiences – has been lost.
May 2016
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Satyameva Jayate
The movie never takes itself too seriously, even as it emerges as the obverse of Hindi movies that celebrate the super-cop who breaks the rules while in uniform.
Aug 2018
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Calendar Girls
Low on surprises, shoddily made and poorly acted, this latest expose indicates that its filmmaker is running on empty.
Sep 2015
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Buddha In A Traffic Jam
...severely lacks artistic merit, but it will forever be entrenched in memory as one of the zeitgeist films of the Modi era.
May 2016
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Tiger Zinda Hai
The explosive Khan-Kaif combination turns out to be a damp squib, undone by staggering ambition and matching incompetence.
Dec 2017
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Phamous
struggles to justify its existence. Sequences tumble into each other with barely any coherence or sense of rhythm; the talented cast flounders at the best of times.
Jun 2018
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P Se Pyaar F Se Faraar
The adults in the room, rather than the under-age lovers on the run, save the movie from predictability and inevitability.
Oct 2019
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Welcome to New York
Chakri Toleti’s comedy is shallow as the film industry it is meant to spoof.
Feb 2018
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Batti Gul Meter Chalu
...works neither as a social issue film nor a triangular romance.
Sep 2018
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Dear Dad
The movie wants to say something poignant and profound about the need for sons to accept their father’s decisions, but it doesn’t have the material to do so.
May 2016
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Jab Harry Met Sejal
If the baseline for Jab Harry Met Sejal is ‘what you seek is seeking you’, then it’s time for Imtiaz Ali to seek a new canvas, because the idea of characters travelling in order to find answers within themselves seems to be suffering from acute jetlag.
Aug 2017
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Race 3
The unpardonably long movie (160 minutes) has been directed by choreographer-turned-director Remo, who appears to have been too much in awe of his leading man to have actually given him any basic instructions on the sets. The dialogue strains to be funny, and provokes humour in the wrong places.
Jun 2018
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Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi
The frenetically paced plot makes even less sense the second time round, and the humour is more scattershot and even desperate in places.
Aug 2018
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102 Not Out
The movie, based on Saumya Joshi’s popular Gujarati play of the same name, sticks so closely to its stage origins that it feels as though we are actually watching a filmed play. In the final bits, the cheesy humour makes way for cloying sentimentality...
May 2018
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Azhar
...directed with consistent ineptitude by Tony D’Souza, Azhar pretends to be anything but a biopic.
May 2016
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Banjo
The movie takes too long to make its point, and says little that is unusual or unique along the way.
Sep 2016
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Gour Hari Dastaan
...is sluggishly paced, and fails to convey the monumentality of the protagonist's mission.
Aug 2015
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7 Hours To Go
The message is muddled and the pace glacial even at 90 minutes. Most of the acting is strictly functional...
Jun 2016
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Rock On 2
Ill-conceived and incompetently executed, Rock On 2 never manages to justify its existence.
Nov 2016
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Malaal
The movie has nothing new to say about the star-crossed romance, and is too timid to mirror the unabashed celebration of unreconstructed malehood that marked the source material.
Jul 2019
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Sarbjit
The loud and insistent melodrama takes away from the pathos of the central character’s story.
May 2016
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Shab
...seems to want to make a grand statement about ambition, migration, exploitation and sexuality, but its scope is limited by the stodgy dialogue, the mostly poor acting (Raveena Tandon has her moments) and incredible levels of contrivance.
Jul 2017
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Mirzya
Despite the limp leads, the conceit might have passed muster with a linear story set entirely in the present. Mirzya is doomed by its inability to free itself from the weight of the original legend.
Oct 2016
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Ghayal Once Again
Ghayal was one of the best-known entries in this genre, and the sequel labours under the shadow of the 1990 production.
Feb 2016