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Begum Jaan
There is nothing even Vidya Balan can do to make things interesting here when that happens. And we never get to know enough about the characters to identify with their sense of loss and longing.
Apr 2017
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Helicopter Eela
The story certainly has its moments, but the schmaltzy grammar adopted by Sarkar fails this messy story about prodigy mothers and prodigal sons.
Oct 2018
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Setters
...is a Neeraj Pandey movie directed by someone else (Ashwini Chaudhary), one that features Shreyas Talpade and Aftab Shivdasani in place of Akshay Kumar and Manoj Bajpayee.
May 2019
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Marjaavaan
...an 80s masala template, dance bars and remixes, infuriating rhyme schemes, and a pyro-maniacal obsession.
Nov 2019
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Super 30
...is not quite the masala potboiler it wants to become. The emotional beats are grand but disingenuous, while the wit is hollow.
Jul 2019
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Raanjhanaa
...is entertaining enough at times, in the end, it feels - as a friend said - "like 7G Rainbow Colony and Kaadhal Kondein dubbed in Hindi".
Jun 2013
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Apr 2015
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Mirzya
Mehra is at odds handling a compelling romance that we know in our head but does not always translate in a similar way on screen.
Oct 2016
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Section 375
...as the politics of Section 375 gradually comes into view, it loses all claim on even-handedness. This is a film too smug about its own neutrality, using it as a front to sneak in a damaging conclusion.
Sep 2019
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Cocktail
It hurtles along the same old path most of its breed do. And somehow, a film that’s sidestepped melodrama for the first hour or so, turns maudlin.
Jul 2012
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Noor
A compelling micro story about a single character loses its essence by trying to be a macro story about Mumbai, journalism and other words thrown at you with sincerity reserved for banal platitudes.
Apr 2017
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Ek Villain
The other issue is Suri’s unwillingness to come out of Mahesh Bhatt’s shadow because his films derive most of their heft from the maker’s oeuvre.
Jun 2014
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Manikarnika
The film begins as a biopic, but derails quickly into a surreal showdown of unbridled carnage. The facts, if any, get chewed up in the mess.
Jan 2019
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Family Of Thakurganj
With little resources, filmmakers like Prakash Jha, Tigmanshu Dhulia and Anurag Kashyap made our northern badlands cinematic. It’s the impostors that come now who are balling up the place. They exploit dialect for laughs, landscape for scenery, and violence for plot twists. It’s all so criminally wrong.
Jul 2019
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For Real
...turns out to be an ordinary affair which has a good setting to it, sees some good execution for most of its part as well but doesn't quite end on a satisfactory note that would have made audience sit back and think.
Sep 2010
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Befikre
Unfortunately, it is Aditya’s stories that cannot shape shift to fit into post — Dil Chahta Hai, post-Imtiaz Ali, post-Shakun Batra grammar of Bollywood.
Dec 2016
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Mar 2019
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Dec 2020
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May 2017
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Chance Pe Dance
The film offers simply nothing in terms of a plot. Though it starts of well, the lack of depth in characters soon gets exposed and the boringness creeps in.
Jan 2010
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Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
The film is more tribute than tale, and its gorgeous locales, skilled cinematography and uplifting music cannot prop up its flimsy plot.
Jul 2013
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War
Despite the toughness of its leading men, the film tires them out with its convoluted writing — which, I am afraid, is the only villain in this skirmish. The rest are just in it for the money.
Oct 2019
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Jism - 2
If you went in prepared for a ham fest garnished with soft porn, you might actually enjoy this movie.
Aug 2012
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Pihu
The set-pieces are intriguingly imagined, but they mesh oddly, and entire sequences, like unmatched pieces of Lego, refuse to fit into each other.
Nov 2018
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May 2019
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Pati Patni Aur Woh
Its humour doesn’t stem from escalating confusion or clever lines, but plain sleaze. It takes the fantasy world of old Govinda movies and grafts it onto a real milieu — a scary combination by all means, as hinted at by Bhumi’s ‘single-screen/multiplex’ line.
Dec 2019
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Daas Dev
Sudhir Mishra’s latest film has a title that wants to scream at you its creativity — or lack thereof — but ends up with an indiscernible, squeaked out nonsense.
Apr 2018
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Malang
Remove the stylised layers, foot-tapping music, Greek God-like leads, and the crisp runtime, and most of Mohit Suri’s films are essentially explorations of toxic masculinity. Malang is no different. It ticks all the boxes in the Mohit Suri-checklist, but does little else.
Feb 2020
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D-Day
If you do like to watch the sort of films where Bollywood solves all India’s problems, you will like D-Day.
Jul 2013