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Mumbai Saga
Packed with Sanjay Gupta’s trademark flourishes – aphoristic dialogue, massive close-ups, shots of men walking chest out and in slow motion towards the camera, scenes lensed through a jaundice-yellow filter – Mumbai Saga works hard to live up to its title.
Mar 2021
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Rustom
Rustom’s recreation of an iconic trial echoes the narrative style of the lesser films of the period in which the actual crime occurred – it throws out the facts in favour of a simplistic and crowd-pleasing solution, glosses over its hero’s criminal behaviour, and paints its characters in black and white.
Aug 2016
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Batla House
...claims to explore the role played by doubt in a police investigation, but it is loaded with biases.
Aug 2019
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Tamasha
...doesn’t have enough depth or profundity to say anything that Ali hasn’t said before.
Nov 2015
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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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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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Made In China
The movie tries to marry the world of the inept trader with nothing to sell and the enlightened doctor with something important to say, but no amount of magic potion can make this union work.
Oct 2019
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Meri Pyaari Bindu
...is the kind of romcom that feeds leading questions to potential detractors. Such as, can anything new be said about a love story? Why is Bindu the way she is? And when will this end?
May 2017
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Simran
The monomania that characterises Simran – the furtherance of the assertion that Kangana Ranaut can carry off just about anything – dooms the movie to repetition and facetiousness. Ranaut gives the role her all, but her relentless optimism and self-belief in the face of trying circumstances are barely convincing.
Sep 2017
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Mardaani 2
While the briskness lends some urgency to what turns out to be routine serial killer fare, it barely allows for character sketching.
Dec 2019
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Mom
...comes close to the spirit of the South Korean films by which it has been influenced, even though it is not always able to replicate the fleetness and clarity with which such movies tackle fundamentally sordid material.
Jul 2017
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Raazi
...the movie is unable to liberate itself of the outlandishness and questionable themes of the novel on which it is based.
May 2018
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Dec 2020
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Roy
...is ponderous, slow-burning to the point of being slow-moving, and too self-absorbed to notice that it isn’t going anywhere. But it always looks tip-top.
Feb 2015
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Half Girlfriend
Bhagat’s novel suffered from the writer’s inability to imagine Riya as anything more than a half person. The film too abounds with many such half persons...
May 2017
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Jazbaa
The movie loses momentum after the interval and the contradictions pile up as in a train wreck, but there is always a scorchingly lit corner in a never before-seen shade of yellow or green to gaze upon.
Oct 2015
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Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana
...sets up its plot with confidence and coherence before going off the rails in spectacular and painful fashion.
Nov 2017
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Happy Hardy And Heer
Director Raka does his best within the circumstances, cutting to a song whenever possible. It’s a wise choice, since the only sources of energy is Reshammiya’s pulsating soundtrack, which has the potential to survive the movie’s life cycle.
Feb 2020
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Hamari Adhuri Kahani
Suri’s ability to pass off superficial observations on life and its attendant miseries has paid off in the past in Aashiqui 2 and Ek Villain, but the emotional landscape of Hamari Adhuri Kahani’ completely defeats him.
Jun 2015
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Aug 2017
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Student Of The Year 2
The sequel that nobody wanted is neither an improvement over the original nor a downgrade of it. The bar is low to begin with, and when the butter-limbed Tiger Shroff is around, it’s easily surmounted.
May 2019
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Aug 2015
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Nov 2016
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ABCD - Any Body Can Dance - 2
...boasts of a couple of popular young stars, 3D and higher production values, but it is mostly a hollow spectacle. The characters are underdeveloped, the 146-minute narrative drags, and all the energy is reserved for the elaborately staged and eye-popping dance sequences...
Jun 2015
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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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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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Marjaavaan
Writer-director Milap Zaveri pulls in every 1980s Bollywood movie trope to present a film designed to elicit whistles from the frontbenchers.
Nov 2019
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Dear Maya
There is too much plot exposition, too many sequences are allowed to ramble on, and some of the dialogue verbalises feelings that are glaringly apparent. The movie is ultimately about hope, and Bhatnagar supplies too much of it.
Jun 2017
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Bhoomi
...is your regular rape-revenge drama, but only much louder, with better camerawork and production design.
Sep 2017