Do you have nothing better to do than watch a story about a small town burning and killing and raping people over religion? Can you be so bored that you could watch cliches in character and dialog? Then this movie might satisfy you and give you the despair you are craving for.

A physics teacher shows up to teach ‘section D’ at a posh junior college and helps them ‘clear their fundas’. Beautifully shot, the writing makes for a frustrating viewing. It makes a weak and very obvious point about the education system but fails in delivering the message.

Anurag Kashyap delivers a gritty, grimy, gut-wrenching story of opposites in order to tell you that they’re not really so. Takes a while to come to the point, but you understand why it is so difficult to edit out stuff that is so deliciously dark. The opposites played by Vicky Kaushal and Nawazuddin Siddiqui are so equally ugly, you know the director has made his point when you cannot swallow popcorn.

You will hear reviews like ‘heart-warming’, ‘cute’, ‘innocent’, ‘natural’, ‘endearing’, ‘brave journey’, ‘restores faith in humanity’ and wonder why no one is saying, ‘exotic India’, ‘made for the festival circuit’, ‘annoying kids’, ‘silly characters’, ‘far-fetched’… And depending on which side of logic you are, you will either love it because ‘the kids are so cute’ or step out for coffee ever so often, come back and discover that the journey has gone nowhere.

A cop turned priest is connected to an old man obsessed with his grand-daughter’s unsolved kidnap and murder as well as a new case of kidnapping which is practically mirrors the old man’s case. This could have been a good who-dun-it. The movie is well shot, and the actors are more than competent, but it remains average because the script insists on pointing fingers until you want to break its fingers and say, ‘Stop!’

This is a remake of a Korean film Always/ Only You. Also remade a year ago in Kannada as Boxer. And it successfully hammers the last nail in the coffin of groan-inducing schmaltzy romances. She’s blind and he’s burnt out and they fall in love. She talks so much, it’s a miracle they don’t announce half-way through the movie that he’s gruff and quiet because he’s deaf.

When a delightful Hollywood black comedy like The Nice Guys is playing in the theatre next to this movie, you wish you could get up and sneak into the other movie. But you are so deadened by the unfunny situational comedy unfolding in front that you just wait it out, let the movie die its slow painful death.

The movie spans only the period of April 2004 until October 18, 2004, but it feels like you have lived the life of Veerappan, in the jungles, surrounded by mosquitoes (and bad dialog and silly characters)… Even though the man who plays Veerappan looks spot on like the dacoit, Ram Gopal Varma misses this one by a mile.

What do you do when you are suffering from Agoraphobia? You are too anxious to step out of your comfort zone and too panicky to remain inside the house. When the lead character is Radhika Apte, then the audience feels her fears (what large eyes she has!), her panic attacks, and begin to feel what everyone around her feels…

What happens when two strangers who meet because their loved ones are in the hospital and they’re waiting for news of their health? The need for human understanding, how you connect with the hospital staff, the madness of reading up on the disease… It’s all there. Human and real and funny and serious.