War packs in a bit of everything. Chase sequences on supercars over snow-covered terrains, and also on sportbikes — zipping through cobblestone streets across Europe. Then, there are vehicles being tossed from the sky and off cliffs to make Rohit Shetty proud. And even the unarmed combat sequences include a jab, stab, and lockdown to tick all the boxes. But when the film’s chief villain and India’s most wanted happens to be called Ilyasi, the joke seems to be on us.

This film had tremendous potential just for the one-line brief that may have excited investors to back it. While it packs in some sharp one-liners and furnishes bizarre situations, it doesn’t go beyond that. It’s almost as if the makers were so excited with the very premise that they didn’t bother to figure out where they wanted to take this story.

Releasing on the day ISRO completes a half-century, Mission Mangal seems a timely tribute to the unsung heroes who don’t wear a cape. But for a film that documents a singularly inspiring story, the writing doesn’t manage to conjure the thrill surrounding this epic achievement.

This Sidharth Malhotra, Parineeti Chopra film is a scrambled mess…

Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao’s film struggles to keep the audience consistently interested…

This Shahid Kapoor, Kiara Advani adaptation of Arjun Reddy could have been 40 minutes shorter

If the first half could’ve been knocked off and this was dedicatedly a film about home invasion, it would’ve surely been a more focussed, if not a more thrilling watch. But then, that would have been an entirely different film.

Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif-starrer is a melodramatic mess that overtly idolises its one-dimensional lead

Indian biopics rarely manage a holistic portrait. Usually hagiographic, these reel-life renditions have hardly been held back by reality. Historians say biopics deliver immortality, as they serve as a record of our times, and need to be factually accurate.

Helming the second in the franchise that catapulted the careers of Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan, would surely come with great responsibility. But Malhotra plays it on the back-foot, hoping to crack it with a formulaic plot and clichéd characters that barely go beyond the call of duty. Perhaps, it’s time for the makers to return to film school?