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Pranaam
The amateurish staging and tacky melodrama ensure that Pranaam ends up without anything resembling a high score, let alone grace marks.
Aug 2019
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Jai Mummy Di
The spineless and unimaginative leads are matched by the one-note matriarchs, who are never allowed to be anything more than face-pulling shrews.
Jan 2020
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Raaz Reboot
Why build a 127-minute narrative around false hopes, non-existent sexual frisson, non-scary horror scenes, songs that escape memory, and a plot that relies on the power of the mangal sutra to set things right?
Sep 2016
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The Tashkent Files
...is the kind of movie you get when you arrange an offline meeting of the online community that has rallied behind the Quora question, “Did Lal Bahadur Shastri die a natural death?”
Apr 2019
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Mantostaan
The acting is largely amateurish, the scenes are poorly paced and directed, and the production is far too tacky for the big screen.
May 2017
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X: Past is Present
...amateurish and poorly acted attempt at deconstructing romance, heartbreak and the merging of reality with fiction.
Nov 2015
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Mantra
...Kharkongor’s script simply doesn’t have the layers of complexity to match its ambitions. The mostly English dialogue is stilted, the pacing is sluggish, and many of the scenes are disconnected from each other.
Mar 2017
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Lupt
There is nothing here that is truly frightening, and not enough substance to justify the running time of 117 minutes, but at least the actors are committed to the material.
Nov 2018
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Bangistan
A comedy that is long on gags and short on satire, with a simplistic sermon straight out of dummies guide to secularism.
Aug 2015
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Dongri Ka Raja
Uncharismatic leads, unlimited clichés and irrelevant plot twists spell death for this Mumbai gangster movie.
Nov 2016
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Ek Paheli Leela
Leone’s risqué image will prove most handy in getting productions off the ground and ensuring footfalls in cinemas, but at least in this movie at least, she is clearly out of place.
Apr 2015
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Toilet
...pans out exactly like a public service announcement video produced by Swachh Bharat Abhiyan: it demands attention because of the seriousness of the subject, but makes little effort to engage its intended recipients.
Aug 2017
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Mastizaade
From peeling a banana to opening a bank account, from light sockets to soda bottles, Mastizaade pulls out all the stops and lets the ribald humour gush for 108 minutes.
Jan 2016
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Aug 2018
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Thackeray
Subtlety, or, for that matter, reason, are hardly to be expected from Thackeray, a 139-minute propaganda video for the Shiv Sena as it gears up for the Lok Sabha election later this year.
Jan 2019
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Alif
The theatrical acting and inept handling of scenes stretches on for 120 minutes, and the larger issues that the movie tries to tackle fall by the wayside.
Feb 2017
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Dec 2015
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Machine
...the machine jangles and clatters away for 148 minutes before hurtling towards an inevitable pile-up.
Mar 2017
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Vodka Diaries
The ones who have guessed the direction in which the plot is going will have all the time in the world to ponder over why the talented Menon agreed to be a part of such dross.
Jan 2018
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Blank
...has the plotting heft and production values of an episode on the popular television series CID.
May 2019
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Rough Book
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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My Birthday Song
...has just about enough meat for a short fictional film, but even that would have had to have better writing and less amateurish performances to leave traces.
Jan 2018
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Ujda Chaman
A movie that sets itself up as an anti-romcom, one in which outward appearances don’t matter, makes little effort to explore the inner lives of its characters, particularly its self-centred hero.
Nov 2019
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Yamla Pagla Deewana Phir Se
The forced wackiness is spread thinly over 148 minutes, and the poor production values and all-round laziness indicate that nobody in this production was trying too hard.
Aug 2018
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The Fakir Of Venice
The decade between its completion and its release shows in every frame. Mumbai and Venice are visibly less crowded than they now are and the actors are younger and more energetic, but the movie’s art world con made little sense then and even less sense in 2019.
Feb 2019
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Jhootha Kahin Ka
The whole commotion would have been resolved if the characters had sat across from each other and explained their positions, but then we wouldn’t have had a movie to plod through.
Jul 2019
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Wedding Pullav
This latest iteration of the big fat Punjabi wedding movie has nothing new to say or offer.
Oct 2015
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Rocky Handsome
...proves that it is possible to pay good money for an official remake of a South Korean hit rather than pilfer the plot, as Bollywood has done in the past, and still botch it up.
Mar 2016
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Coolie No.1
Varun Dhawan and dialogue writer Farhad Samji are no match for Govinda’s manic energy and Kader Khan’s rat-a-tat repartee. The most energetic moments in the tedious and needless retread emanate from Ganesh Acharya’s ants-in-the-pants choreography in the song sequences.
Dec 2020