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Dear Zindagi
Since Dear Zindagi doesn’t tinker with this basic quality of the Bollywood romance, it’s all good.
Nov 2016
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Gali Guleiyan
...Bajpayee’s career-best performance prevents interest from flagging. The actor never loses Khuddus’s humanity, and portrays his plight with unerring rigour and poignancy.
Sep 2018
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Irada
...advocates solutions that ordinary viewers will be hard-pressed to replicate, but its concerns are timely, its character sketches memorable, and its empathy unmistakable.
Feb 2017
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Mukti Bhawan
The astute casting and spare writing give the actors enough space to disappear into their roles.
Apr 2017
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Qaidi Band
...is a very earnest and occasionally preachy heart-in-the-right place movie.
Aug 2017
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Nail Polish
The biggest twist in Nail Polish actually emanates from the restrained storytelling and overall lack of hysteria. Bhargava Krishna lulls us into thinking that we are watching one kind of movie while actually delivering something else – a switcheroo that goes beyond anything seen in the movie.
Jan 2021
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Hichki
Fortunately the story is strongly underlined by the instances of the resourcefulness of the students and the idea that education should not be a one-size-fits-all concept.
Mar 2018
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Pad Man
...the movie contains no astonishment or surprise. But in proceeding exactly as depicted by the trailer, Pad Man proves that sometimes, the message is far more important than the way in which it has been communicated.
Feb 2018
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Neerja
Madhvani fulfils the brief of delivering a stirring and sensitive account of bravery at the risk of making the narrative predictable to a fault.
Feb 2016
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Behen Hogi Teri
The lack of development of Binny’s character, which is aided by Shruti Haasan’s limited acting range, is the one black hole in an otherwise well-rounded romantic comedy humming with wit and astute observations of its cheerfully stereotyped characters.
Jun 2017
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Bioscopewala
Walnuts and almonds have been swapped for a cranked-up bioscope in this latest film adaptation, which takes the original story in new, and sometimes interesting, directions.
May 2018
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Manmarziyaan
...Anurag Kashyap’s most emotionally resonant movie yet, injects considerable vim and wit into the most conservative and predictable of sub-genres: the love triangle.
Sep 2018
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Chhapaak
...is needlessly uneven and sluggish at times, but it’s most powerful when it keeps things simple and stays on course.
Jan 2020
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Apr 2016
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Bajrangi Bhaijaan
Salman Khan will regard Bajrangi Bhaijaan as a career redefining moment, but his limited acting skills show up in every scene.
Jul 2015
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Aiyaary
...tackles a bold subject, one that is worth exploring alongside the frequent tales of battlefield valour. There is palpable and relatable outrage at the rot within the system, but the response is inchoate and not particularly clever.
Feb 2018
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Jan 2021
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Hunterrr
...is a comedy about sex rather than a sex comedy, presented with plenty of verve and wit, but also the indulgence of a first-time director.
Mar 2015
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Bombay Velvet
The plot is needlessly complicated at the expense of emotion, and assembles a set of well-dressed people who seem to want to go someplace but are not quite sure where.
May 2015
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Thappad
The bloated runtime of 141 minutes packs in many necessary truths, especially about the pernicious nature of patriarchy and the manner in which women enable discrimination. The overall message, of heeding the conscience even if it pricked just once, survives the needless wandering.
Feb 2020
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Airlift
This amazing story needs a second movie, perhaps titled The Real Airlift, which is not in thrall to a single and singular man but acknowledges the hundreds who enabled lakhs of Indians to return home safe. Airlift soars on its own merits, but it is ultimately a flight of fantasy.
Jan 2016
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Ae Dil Hai Mushkil
Johar’s latest movie is somewhere in between. He is trying to move away from the large-canvas romances on which he has built his career, but his foundation remains the popular Hindi film idiom, especially Yash Chopra’s cinema.
Oct 2016
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Zubaan
Many of the tropes of the coming of age saga are intact in the story by Mozez Singh, Thani and Sumit Roy, but the screenplay needed greater work and rounding out.
Mar 2016
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Manto
Despite the best efforts of Nawazuddin Siddiqui to humanise his character, Manto’s inner workings remain elusive, emerging only in bits and pieces.
Sep 2018
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Tanu Weds Manu Returns
Rai, who also made Raanjhanaa in 2013, confirms his ability to conjure up a convincing small-town milieu characterised by clamour and kitsch, but his tendency to cram his frames with lots of people crisscrossing the screen, overlapping dialogue and insistent background music results in a sensory overdose.
May 2015
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Prem Ratan Dhan Payo
...neither hitting the highs expected from such an expensive and high-profile project nor the lows that plague mid-career filmmakers. Like its intended audience, the movie sticks firmly in the middle.
Nov 2015
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Gurgaon
The movie works best in fits and starts, especially when it lets itself by guided by its richly layered atmospherics.
Aug 2017
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Laal Kaptaan
Threats are delivered but never carried out, and ambition is spelt out but not realised. Yet, Laal Kaptaan scores on other fronts. The lack of sentimentality suits the material, and Navdeep Singh effectively conveys the sense of a battle without honour or humanity.
Oct 2019