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Pataakha
A crisper running length would have ensured a more explosive impact for Bhardwaj’s latest, and welcome, foray into black humour with a political subtext.
Sep 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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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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Love Sonia
Despite the disjointed narrative, which leaps from one idea to another, the unconvincing plot turns, and the unending agony that awaits Sonia at every turn, the movie doesn’t waver from its focus on the inherently exploitative nature of sex work.
Sep 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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Halkaa
Halkaa’s good intentions are never in doubt, nor are the efforts of the filmmaking team in illuminating a dark reality of Indian cities. But far greater subtlety, and a more realistic assessment of the problems faced by slum dwellers in building toilets, were needed to have made Pichku’s mission credible.
Sep 2018
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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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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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Aug 2018
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Aug 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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Gold
The sluggish pacing over 153 minutes contain few moments of surprise or discovery. In the end, the inevitable clamber for the exit gate is stalled in the final moments by the strains of the national anthem.
Aug 2018
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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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Vishwaroop II
The thespian in him is missing from a movie littered with ordinary performances. Only Rahul Bose’s hoarse-voiced Omar provides the campiness that could have salvaged the movie from its dire sense of self-importance.
Aug 2018
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Aug 2018
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Fanney Khan
The actors help the movie navigate the implausibility at the heart of the plot and its facile critique of a music industry in which talent is worthy of being recognised only if it is televised.
Aug 2018
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Karwaan
The 120-minute featherweight comedy is so content to embrace the big cliches associated with the road movie genre that it is almost possible to go along with the easygoing vibe and forget that there are larger questions at stake about the generation gap, lost dreams, and mortality itself.
Aug 2018
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Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3
The law of diminishing returns has finally caught up with one of the most unlikely film franchises in recent memory.
Jul 2018
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Dhadak
...is a watchable film that goes beyond the initial curiosity factor to stand on its own legs.
Jul 2018
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Soorma
...by downplaying the genre’s excesses – chest-thumping jingoism, macho aggression, excessive manipulation – and giving its hero enough room to find his place in the world, Soorma ensures that this triumphal journey of the human spirit is full of surprises.
Jul 2018
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Sanju
It promises complexity and psychological acuity. Until a point, it appears to be on track to creating a nuanced portrait of controversy’s favourite child – but then it plummets into unquestioning and misty-eyed reverence.
Jun 2018
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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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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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Bhavesh Joshi Superhero
For all its promises of looking at Mumbai’s seemingly intractable problems with a fresh eye, Bhavesh Joshi Superhero offers solutions that are far removed from reality. The film moves away from common sense as it descends into genre territory. It doesn’t help that its leading man fails to take audiences along.
Jun 2018
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Jun 2018
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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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Parmanu
...merrily mixes fact, fiction, Quora-type information, artificially generated suspense and domestic melodrama to roll out a nationalistic yarn about India’s transformation into a nuclear state.
May 2018
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Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain
...has enough sense to confront the lovelessness that characterises far too many middle-class marriages, but not the courage to get to the heart of the problem.
May 2018
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Khajoor Pe Atke
There isn’t enough of a plot to extend over 119 minutes. With a tighter script and trimmer running time, Chhaya might have actually been on to something special.
May 2018