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“Tamanchey”… This crime story needed more chemistry
Spoilers ahead… Some actors you don’t have any opinion about. It isn’t about whether they’re good or bad – it’s just that they don’t have much of a presence. They blend right into the scenery. Nikhil...
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“Haider”… Very well made, if a tad too footnote-heavy – but why ‘Hamlet’?
Spoilers ahead… It’s possible to imagine an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet without the balcony scene – not ideal, but conceivable. Julius Caeasar, too, you could probably rewrite without Mark Antony’s...
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“Bang Bang!”… Products, products everywhere
Spoilers ahead… I’d heard that Knight and Day was really bad, and then, long after its release, I caught it on TV and found that it was quite fun. Sidhdharth Anand’s Hindi remake, titled Bang Bang!,...
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“Finding Fanny”… Lots of quirk, but little else
Spoilers ahead… I am relieved to report that Finding Fanny isn’t about the search for a pair of buttocks – not that much searching is needed in the case of Rosie (Dimple Kapadia), whose...
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“Mary Kom”… Not so much a biopic as a sturdy melodrama
Spoilers ahead… Mary Kom opens with a note that says this is “based on” the boxer’s story, so we know we’re in not for the truth but for a version of the truth, shaped by the expediencies of drama. And...
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“Raja Natwarlal”… Con nuggets
Spoilers ahead… Until I watched Raja Natwarlal, I never realised I had any affection for Deepak Tijori. I didn’t know he was in the film, and I caught myself smiling when he appeared in the very first...
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“Mardaani”… Heroine-panti
Spoilers ahead… In the opening stretch of Mardaani, the camera peers at traffic from the back seat of a car, fuzzy taillights in the distance – it’s all very verité. In the front are two men we quickly...
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“Singham Returns”… The cop runneth over
Spoilers ahead… How do you know you are in a South-style masala movie? One clue is the sound – and not just the general background score that makes it appear that a space shuttle is being launched...
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“Kick”… The Khan’s film festival
Spoilers ahead… If the movies have taught us anything, it’s this: When you want the heroine to be seen as serious, she will be seen wearing glasses. (Refer also Padukone, Deepika in Yeh Jawaani Hai...
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“Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania”… Old wooin’, new bottle
Spoilers ahead… Is this retro season? If last week’s Lekar Hum Deewana Dil dragged the old elopement dramas into the modern day, Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya updates a certain kind of romantic melodrama...
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“Lekar Hum Deewana Dil”… Shit happens
Spoilers ahead… In theory, Lekar Hum Deewana Dil, directed by Arif Ali (brother of Imtiaz), is pretty interesting – it turns the elopement trope of our cinema on its head. In the older movies, when the...
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“Bobby Jasoos”… Hyd and seek
Spoilers ahead… Bobby Jasoos, a low-key charmer set in Hyderabad, makes you wonder why more filmmakers don’t step out of their Mumbai-Delhi-London cocoons and locate their tales in the various nooks of...
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“Ek Villain”… A few bad men
Spoilers ahead… If the movies have taught us anything, it’s this: Whenever a blood-spattered gangster falls in love, he will get in touch with his inner twelve-year-old girl. Thus, in Mohit Suri’s Ek...
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“Humshakals”… What a drag
Spoilers ahead… Humshakals opens with a scene where Ashok (Saif Ali Khan) is doing stand-up comedy. At least, he seems to think he’s doing stand-up comedy – he’s really just unleashing PJs that were...
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“Fugly”… Dross capital
Spoilers ahead… F*ugly gets at least a part of its name right. The film is filled with “ugly” behaviour. There are ugly cops, politicians, mediapeople – even the regular folks are ugly. A schoolgirl...
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“Filmistaan”… Access Bollywood
Spoilers ahead… Nitin Kakkar’s Filmistaan gets going when an affable Indian named Sunny (the fantastic Sharib Hashmi, who looks like Satish Kaushik in his college days) is captured by militants and...
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“Holiday”… A vacation for the brain
Spoilers ahead… Watching Holiday, AR Murugadoss’s remake of his Tamil hit Thuppakki, we are able to see better what made the earlier film work. One, the fact that the other big-budget, hero-worshipping...
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“CityLights”… Metro vanilla
Spoilers ahead… Something about metros makes filmmakers reach for metaphors about birds. Most recently we had Nadaan parindey, the song in Rockstar that had the protagonist calling out to pigeons that...
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“Heropanti”… Paper tiger
Spoilers ahead… It’s a wedding. It’s Jatland. That’s not really a word but it isn’t hard to guess what it means. Like Finland is occupied by Finns, Jatland is the domain of Jats, who, we’re told, don’t...
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“Kochadaiiyaan”… The return of the king
Spoilers ahead… I suppose we should begin with this question: How is the animation, performance-capture and otherwise? Imagine that we had the kind of merchandising culture that Hollywood has...
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