Top critic
Baradwaj Rangan, The Hindu, Film Companion, Galattaplus
Reviewing since 2014 · Last review Nov 2026
Scoring fingerprint
2 scored reviews · 0–10
Baradwaj rarely scores films: 2 of 92 reviews carry a score.
From the archive
What we get is an interesting police procedural that isn't always consistent, but is always interesting. Pradhama Dhrishtya Kuttakar is a clever, well-acted procedural that works better as a drama than a thriller.
Full review ↗TRM 6.3
The resulting clashes over a man who willingly becomes a house-husband make up a low-key watchable, low-stakes entertainer that needed better writing and crazier humour. There is no angst. There is no "truth" in the characters or the situations. There is no great logic, either.
Full review ↗TRM 5.7
A not-bad romantic drama where the laughs land better than the love track
Full review ↗TRM 5.8
Subash K Raj's 'Blast' is a well-written action movie that makes good use of its USP of a family of fighters.
Full review ↗TRM 6.0
A little more depth and detailing would have really helped in making this movie more than just an ultra-generic watch.
Full review ↗TRM 5.9
Youth is a solid, entertaining coming-of-age story with emotions that land well. Ken plays this character perfectly, and as director, he has chosen Praveen's parents perfectly. The meat of the movie is in this parent-child relationship, and the last half-hour contains the movie's message.
Full review ↗TRM 5.6
Angikaaram is a courtroom drama with good intentions, but it needed better writing and filmmaking to make an impact.
Full review ↗TRM 5.8
Shiv Rawail's 'Alpha' is a by-the-numbers thriller, neither bad enough to hate nor good enough to get involved in. We stay at a distance, watching this story about a female spy played by Alia Bhatt.
Full review ↗TRM 4.6
Ben Rekhi's 'Last Man in Tower' is a wonderfully textured drama about holding on to the past versus moving ahead with the rest of the world. He is superb as Yogesh Mishra, aka Masterji, a retired teacher who lives in an old building.
Full review ↗TRM 6.1
Manoj Tapadia's 'Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata' is a moving, well-crafted tribute to the heroines of 26/11.
Full review ↗TRM 6.2
Anubhav Sinha's 'Assi' is a powerful melodrama that offers a three-dimensional take on rape. From making romantic fluff like Tum Bin and Aapko Pehle Bhi Kahin Dekha Hai, Anubhav Sinha has become the best social commentator of Indian cinema.
Full review ↗TRM 6.5
The first half just breezes by with a mix of comedy and action. The post-interval portions are where things become somewhat predictable, and the breeziness threatens to turn into boredom. But given the nature of big-hero films of late, this is an easy watch and its low ambitions are, frankly, a bit of a relief.
Full review ↗TRM 5.2
The film is an experimental formal exercise that can be interpreted in all kinds of ways, and there's lots to like at a conceptual level. It makes you think. But it also appears overstuffed with ideas, and at an emotional level, it stays remote.
Full review ↗TRM 4.8
I'll be honest. Premada Oorali did not land for me, but I was deeply touched by the dedication that opens the movie: 'To my father and mother who believed in me before the first frame was shot.'
Full review ↗TRM 6.0
Vaazha II is like its predecessor, an imperfect but irresistible blend of comedy and drama. The comedy works brilliantly. The drama is less…
Full review ↗TRM 6.7
But despite a lot of research, 'Parasakthi' never becomes the fiery slice of history it wants to be. In trying to paint a broad picture of a Tamilian protest that is one of the Dravidian movement's signature events, the film tries to do too much and ends up meaning very little.
Full review ↗TRM 5.3
The broad-strokes narrative has a rather clever first half that keeps us guessing, and then we get a conventional showdown.
Full review ↗TRM 5.5
Nimisha Sajayan is fantastic as a Bhopal-based cop named Babita Singh, aka Baby.
Full review ↗TRM 6.0
Kiran Das's 'Unmadham' is a solid thriller, a supernatural whodunit that keeps crossing the lines between the real and the surreal.
Full review ↗TRM 5.9
Mathimaran Pugazhendhi's 'Mandaadi' is a rock-solid drama set against a boat-racing background. Soori gives an affecting physical and emotional performance as Kaali, a man from Ramanathapuram who's an ace boat racer.
Full review ↗TRM 5.9
Scares and atmosphere and all, 'Diés Iraé' is a solid theatre watch, but the writing doesn't do justice to the themes.
Full review ↗TRM 7.0
Sailesh Kolanu's 'HIT: The Third Case', starring Nani, is a solid, clever installment in a solid, clever franchise.
Full review ↗TRM 5.8
The film is flat-out fantastic. I won't lie that it's PTA's masterpiece. That evaluation will depend on taste, and for me his masterpieces are The Master, Magnolia, and There Will Be Blood.
Full review ↗TRM 8.1
Marty Supreme is a ridiculously good movie, and by this I mean that it is a ridiculous movie that happens to be very, very good.
Full review ↗TRM 8.6
The buildup to the climax is simply extraordinary. This is one of the best passages of cinema I have seen in recent times. Mari Selvaraj's Vaazhai is a work of terrifying cinematic beauty.
Full review ↗TRM 7.1
The pace slackens towards the end, but other than overlength, there's little to complain about. It's a near-perfect comic book movie handling heavy issues with a feather-light touch.
Full review ↗TRM 6.0
Manikandan's superb 'Kadaisi Vivasayi' is a profound meditation on not just farming but our very existence.
Full review ↗TRM 6.8
Home has its moments but not enough to justify its contrivances and bloated running time. While Indrans delivers an excellent performance with exquisitely controlled micro-emotions that invite both underestimation and sympathy, the film ultimately feels like a big missed opportunity.
Full review ↗TRM 6.5
TJ Gnanavel's 'Jai Bhim' is yet another drama that assumes good intentions plus a tragic real-life story is automatically good cinema
Full review ↗TRM 6.8
Nelson Dilipkumar's entertaining 'Doctor' is a true original, though it could have used a little more energy.
Full review ↗TRM 6.0
This isn't the angry film I thought it would be. It is, surprisingly, filled with laughter and hope, and a solid companion piece to 'Uyare'. Meghna Gulzar treats this issue-heavy subject with impressive lightness, refusing to lecture while maintaining the magnitude of trauma through carefully structured storytelling.
Full review ↗TRM 6.5
Despite the second half, I must say I am interested in whatever Velraj does next. It isn't every day that you get an A-B-C-centre movie with so many little things you take away.
Full review ↗TRM 5.3
Emraan Hashmi embraces his angst in an interesting outing from the Mahesh Bhatt school of filmmaking.
Full review ↗TRM 5.9
The film's biggest challenge is really how to make us stay invested in a story we have heard over and over, especially when you have to tell this story in a fast-forward mode that offers very little room for character development. The result is solid, but you wish it had been more. You wish it had been spectacular.
Full review ↗TRM 7.0
The only aim of 'Jailer 2' is to celebrate Rajinikanth's unbeatable charisma, which is acknowledged in a meta line where he says that people have been trying to finish him off for 50 years. He is in solid form. Orbiting around this sun are a galaxy of stars and brand-name actors and technicians.
Full review ↗TRM 6.0
R Kaarthikeyan's Anbil Avan is an ultra-generic love story that transforms into a blood-soaked home-invasion thriller. While Ashok Selvan is good, the couple deserved better love scenes, though their chemistry is put to better use when they are fighting to save their dream.
Full review ↗TRM 5.7
We seem to be in for some kind of heist movie, but there's no suspense, no thrills, no sense of real danger. The film isn't unwatchable, but all we have is a sense of what could have been.
Full review ↗TRM 4.2
The film says that even the most masculine of men are afraid of something. Balaji Tharaneetharan's new movie is a wholesome, heartwarming exploration of masculinity with a wonderfully quiet screenplay that unfolds with the inevitability of a river.
Full review ↗TRM 7.0
Dorothy is an ambitious and unconventional film that uses a rooted rural setting to showcase, challenge masculinity, gender, caste, friendship. The biggest strength of Dorothy is the boldness of its subject, bringing themes of masculinity, caste and gender together through a particularly rooted rural world.
Full review ↗TRM 7.0+0.5
This is an often-told Saviour story, and it has very interesting plot points. But it never really comes together as a whole. The film feels like it was overwritten and overshot and the whole thing had to be edited down to a watchable length.
Full review ↗TRM 4.5
The film is interestingly structured and it has its moments, but the loud and ultra-broad messaging prevents it from becoming what it could have been.
Full review ↗TRM 5.9
PS Mithran's 'Sardar 2' is an overlong spy thriller that needed more surprises, more thrills.
Full review ↗TRM 4.4
Vignesh Srikanth's 'Once More' is a pleasant romance that opts for small moments over big drama.
Full review ↗TRM 5.5
Nitin Kakkar's 'Awarapan 2' is a routine gangster action-drama aided by its leading man and its beautiful visuals.
Full review ↗TRM 5.9
Geetu Mohandas's 'Toxic' is eccentric, ambitious, not fully successful, but not without interest either.
Full review ↗TRM 4.3
With the unusual developments between the characters played by Salman Khan and Rashmika Mandanna, the film should have been an emotional powerhouse. But it is content to remain an ultra-generic Bhai outing. The thing about a wonderfully outlandish premise is that you need madly passionate writing and madly committed filmmaking to match. Sikandar is so generic that you feel they could have made the same film even without this premise.
Full review ↗TRM 4.2
Chhaava is not exactly a misfire, but it doesn't rise above being watchable. With a top-notch hero and a top-notch villain, the film should have been a knockout, but it stays at an arm's length, ending up as a violent showcase for two fine actors that doesn't come together satisfactorily.
Full review ↗TRM 6.4
The screenplay keeps turning to jokes as a crutch, and this affects the story being told. What it doesn't have is tonal consistency. The premise is more suited to drama, but the director wants to entertain us throughout with one-liners and situational humour.
Full review ↗TRM 6.0
Bro Daddy is a sweet, silly, very likeable movie with lots of laughs and I enjoyed all of that. But there's something more here—the script is solid and the director really knows cinema, letting the film breathe while weaving things organically into the narrative. Bro Daddy works because of the script, the way it's been handled, and because the cast works wonderfully.
Full review ↗TRM 6.4
As always, Ayushmann Khurrana finds interesting ways to spice up his scenes. It would have been easy to make this a ba-dum-dish punch line. But he infuses into it a dash of comic desperation. You laugh at (and with) him.
Full review ↗TRM 6.2
A smashingly effective story of a determined educator and his underprivileged wards
Full review ↗TRM 5.7
A Softer Than Expected, But Hugely Entertaining And Beautifully Made Street-Rapper Story
Full review ↗TRM 7.3
Thackeray is a warts-and-none propaganda film about a man who peddled hate and keenly fostered a sense of otherness (first South Indians, then Muslims). The trailer may be offensive, but it's honest
Full review ↗TRM 4.8
TRM 4.0
The second Rajini-Ranjith outing is better than 'Kabali', but still an odd fit for both...
Full review ↗TRM 5.9−0.9
There are many wonderful moments in October, but the epiphany never quite arrives. Some will say that's okay, that just the experience is enough. I guess I wanted more from what I found a fascinating experiment rather than a fulfilling film.
Full review ↗TRM 6.9
Kabali doesn't pander to his fans. No comedy. No punch lines. And yet, it must be said that Rajinikanth does more for the movie than the movie does for him.
Full review ↗TRM 5.5
The overt attempts of feminist touches come across as manufactured. The reconciliation in the end too isn't good enough. At least Alice in Wonderland had Tim Burton's visual artistry. This one isn't remotely interesting in that regard, even if watched with a magnifying glass.
Full review ↗TRM 5.0
TRM 7.4
Manithan generally hovers in the hmmm-not-all-that-bad-zone because it's such a crowd-pleasing script.
Full review ↗TRM 5.5
Kanithan, thus, is probably the closest Tamil cinema is going to get to Spotlight – that is, if the journalist was played by Rambo. You cannot have a mainstream movie, especially one whose lead actor is making a big bid for stardom, without action sequences – but these are excitingly staged, especially one in which Gowtham takes on an acrobatic villain who seems an expert in what looks like indoor parkour. But it isn't just thrills. We realise how serious the film is from the body count of the good guys.
Full review ↗TRM 4.8
Characters come and go – a journalist who doesn't believe in research, a cop who doubts Arvind, a suspect who worked as a driver for one of the victims. A heavily made-up Aishwarya Rajesh reminds us, grimly, that one Kaaka Muttai does not a Kollywood career make. Even the serial killer's motive is underwhelming. And he won't shut up either.
Full review ↗TRM 5.4
TRM 7.2
Urumeen doesn't have much by way of laughs. It doesn't need any. The way-over-the-top direction is its own comedy track.
Full review ↗TRM 5.4
TRM 6.2
Put differently, Chimbu Deven has forgotten to make a movie for adults. His inventions surprise us, delight us for a second or two – and then we're back to the turgid story.
Full review ↗TRM 4.1
Thani Oruvan isn't all that it could have been. If you've wondered why we don't make thrillers like the Bond films and the Mission: Impossible films, the reason is right here. In those films, a few minutes are devoted to detailing who the target is, what the mission is, and then we're up and running. But Tamil films keep trying to transcend the basic thriller. They want to deliver enriching messages. The too-good-to-be-true hero wants to preach — he spouts four lines when he only needs one. All this becomes a lot of extra baggage. The film slows down from time to time.
Full review ↗TRM 6.6
The film is basically a road movie. It's also a drama about fathers and sons. The title — mercifully unexplained — may refer to candy but the film is a quiet ode to the bittersweet life.
Full review ↗TRM 5.7
TRM 5.0
In the midst of filmmakers who think they're giving us spectacle by going to virgin foreign locations and shooting mountains and flowers, Rajamouli gives us more… and more. This isn't just about grandeur in visuals. It's about grandeur in ideas.
Full review ↗TRM 7.2
Future film scholars are going to tie themselves up in knots about who is better, which approach is better, but for now, let's just say Kamal Haasan is terrific. And it's terrific to see him play a 'normal' part, something that doesn't ask you to view it through special Subtext Revealing Glasses. As fun as that is, sometimes, more of this, please.
Full review ↗TRM 7.5
No one seems to know what to do with this material. The director keeps adding masala elements like action scenes and songs. You'd think these would be comic action scenes, comic songs. But only occasionally. The rest of the time, it's all played depressingly straight. Even Vadivelu is stranded — the gags he's in are shockingly weak. He gets a scene where he romances Sadha (she's the moll, I think) to the strains of Mere sapnon ki rani. He lip-syncs the whole song, as if the mere idea of Vadivelu in a Rajesh Khanna scenario is automatically funny. It is — for about ten seconds. But like the rest of the film, this bit too goes on forever.
Full review ↗TRM 5.2
It is so entertaining that it's easy to forget how sad the undercurrents are. CM and PM no longer go to school because there's no money.
Full review ↗TRM 7.7
As for fun-loving family audiences, what do I pick? The scenes of drinking at a TASMAC bar? The beeped-out F-word? The stretch where a mother and her little girl are burnt alive? The film's U-certificate may be its spookiest accomplishment.
Full review ↗TRM 4.8
Kamal Haasan's writing is so dense and allusive and overstuffed and layered and indulgent that it's always a question whether even the best actors and directors in the world can come up with the kind of wit and timing needed to fully make the transition from page to screen — in other words, the best Kamal Haasan movies are probably locked up inside his head, where they reside in the most perfect possible manner.
Full review ↗TRM 6.4
his is the whole why of the movie, it's what we've been building towards. But these conversations are drowned out by the rah-rah background music, which is readying us for the final fight, where Vinod will rip his shirt off and reveal a six-pack. At least when it comes to ogling at physical assets, there's no gender discrimination in Tamil cinema.
Full review ↗TRM 5.0
It's as if the director got cold feet about portraying producers as uncouth hoarders of black money who deserve to be looted — and we wind up with a dedication to… producers. Survival, I suppose. Who wants to antagonize the people who run the business? This cop-out is its own little meta-commentary.
Full review ↗TRM 5.5
As overlong, utterly generic, badly written, indifferently made action-comedy star vehicles propelled by Anirudh's growling guitar riffs go, Kaaki Sattai is as disposable as they come. The laughs aren't great. The romance is perfunctory — you could use the word also for the drama and the attempts at punch lines. The big action sequences look odd because they are choreographed with a mega-star in mind and on screen, we see Sivakarthikeyan.
Full review ↗TRM 4.9
TRM 5.6
Meaghamann could have used a more charismatic hero, but it helps that Siva is a grade-A brooder, not given to effusive displays of emotion. Anupama Kumar compensates somewhat as a cop given to declarations like "The game is getting deadlier." Indeed, the director actually makes us believe that Siva is in danger. Given the general invincibility of the hero in our cinema, this is no mean accomplishment — a stretch involving enemies closing in on Siva is particularly well done.
Full review ↗TRM 5.4
...it's harder to forgive the near-complete lack of entertainment, save for a late-in-the-day action sequence where Rajinikanth jumps on a motorbike and does what we pay to see Rajinikanth do. The theatre erupted at this point – out of sheer relief, it seemed to me, at finally having something worth cheering about.
Full review ↗TRM 5.8
TRM 4.8
There is no denying Vasanthabalan's desire to make "good cinema," but like his other films, Kaaviya Thalaivan makes us give him an A for effort, even as we rummage down the alphabet when it comes to aspects of the execution.
Full review ↗TRM 6.5
Watching something like this is punishment enough without making it seem like a two-and-a-half hour underwear commercial.
Full review ↗TRM 4.9
TRM 5.3
Could have used more tension, but well-written and keeps us guessing...
Full review ↗TRM 5.0
TRM 6.3
TRM 6.0
Films like Jigarthanda, targeted at Twittery youth, fight a mighty fight to bridge that divide, striving to make commercially viable entertainment with truckloads of auteurist artistry. If nothing else, you have to respect the man on the unicycle.
Full review ↗TRM 6.4
Part of the problem is surely the generic revenge-oriented plot, which plays out between two warring kingdoms. This may still have worked in live action, but in this animated form (and with hardly any expressions on the characters' faces), the excitement is muted. Scenes that should have been shaped with the peaks and valleys of high drama end up flat as a plain.
Full review ↗TRM 4.8
TRM 5.6
