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22 Yards
...does benefit from nicely etched characters and a feel for cricketing denizens who are sometimes forgotten as the game gets too big for its own good. A T-20 trot becomes a one-day trudge, but the relief at a movie about cricket that doesn’t involve nationalism cannot be understated.
Mar 2019
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Badla
Taapsee Pannu is unable to summon up the blank canvas onto which all manner of possibilities can be projected, while Amitabh Bachchan hops on the gravitas train for the nth time.
Mar 2019
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Sonchiriya
The film itself is a tangle of ideas, and works better as an existential mood piece than the heavy-duty action drama it often resembles.
Mar 2019
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Luka Chuppi
...isn’t quite radical, let alone consistently funny, but the long walk to the altar is far less conservative than it could have been.
Mar 2019
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Total Dhamaal
When you throw so much at the screen, something is bound to stick. The screenplay, by Paritosh Painter, Ved Prakash and Bunty Rathore, has enough visual gags and punchlines to distract from the severely tacky visual effects and overwhelming familiarity of such movies.
Feb 2019
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Gully Boy
Dreams and reality fuse seamlessly in Gully Boy, Zoya Akhtar’s most heartfelt and accomplished movie yet. Akhtar’s fourth feature is headlined by an outstanding Ranveer Singh, packed with well-picked actors and neatly-etched characters, and filmed with infectious passion.
Feb 2019
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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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Feb 2019
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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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Manikarnika
The Manikarnika production isn’t lavish enough to suggest a grand sweep of history, and the focus on its heroine is too narrow to accommodate a larger conversation about the efficacy of Lakshmibai’s actions. There is plenty of leaping and feinting, but not enough reflecting.
Jan 2019
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Why Cheat India
Despite being disjointed and overstretched, the 120-minute movie manages to double up both as an expose of the problems that plague the examination system and a commentary on the failure of a generation to secure the future of the next one.
Jan 2019
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Bombairiya
...the humour not sharp or bizarre enough, and the narrative too disjointed to hang together.
Jan 2019
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The Accidental Prime Minister
...never evolves into anything more than a broadside against the Gandhi clan.
Jan 2019
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Simmba
Ranveer Singh’s energy and flamboyance ensure that Simmba appears more engaging than it often is, and Ajay Devgn’s well-timed cameo rescues the film from being a write-off.
Dec 2018
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Zero
Khan’s fanbase will possibly be even more perplexed with Zero. By trying to play the man next door rather than a larger-than-life personality, Khan has all too literally let himself be cut to size. The romantic declarations are less effective, the conviction with which Khan has carried off more modest romances is missing, and the package is smaller than before.
Dec 2018
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Kedarnath
Despite the brisk storytelling and nicely braided scenes that give a vivid sense of the locations, Kedarnath never achieves the emotional peak that is a requirement of the disaster movie.
Dec 2018
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2.0
In 2.0, Shankar’s ability to marry visual effects with populist melodrama serves him well in some of the sequences, even though the larger message is confused and the screenplay is too sluggish for an action spectacle.
Nov 2018
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Pihu
...Vinod Kapri has delivered a bona fide suspense thriller that doubles up as a parenting lesson. Effective, yes, but also unsettling? Always.
Nov 2018
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Mohalla Assi
What is supposed to be a satire about the exploitation of religious sentiment becomes a plodding dirge about a disappearing way of life.
Nov 2018
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Thugs Of Hindostan
...scuttled by its ineptitude and palpable disinterest in approaching the freedom struggle with fresh eyes.
Nov 2018
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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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Namaste England
There is barely a moment of relief from the tedium of watching the leads go through the motions and tuning into the poorly written dialogue and endlessly uninvolving moments.
Oct 2018
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Helicopter Eela
The start-stop narrative, which feels jerky and disjointed, contains the ghost of a screwball comedy.
Oct 2018
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FryDay
How about crafting a role for Govinda that properly capitalises on his comic talents and persuades him to shed off the anything-goes quality and tackiness of his recent films? Fryday isn’t quite a comeback for Govinda, but it will have to do for his extant fanbase.
Oct 2018
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Tumbbad
...is the personal exploration of one man’s demons and the inevitability of him living with them forever no matter what he achieves. Rigorously detailed as a period film, Tumbbad has resonance with class structures that exist today.
Oct 2018
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LoveYatri
...the movie exists only to give Aayush Sharma his dream debut. Salman Khan devotees might be persuaded to accept the latest boon from their screen god, but for the unfaithful – and the unforgiving – Loveyatri is a trudge from start to finish.
Oct 2018
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Andhadhun
Raghavan’s talent for imagining ordinary people as proficient criminals in the right conditions and his use of locations and sharply etched characters to advance his plot is put to great use in Andhadhun.
Oct 2018
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Sui Dhaaga
What eventually endures isn’t the inevitable heart-warming finale but the honesty of the writing and the performances and the subversions, minor and major.
Sep 2018