Top Rated Films
Manisha Lakhe's Film Reviews
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Sushant Dubey and Aparna Dubey check into a Mauritian resort late night with their very unwell daughter Titli. By the morning, the child is missing. Everything literally begins to unravel as you watch cringeworthy hamming from greats like Tabu and Manoj Bajpayee. To add to the mess Annu Kapoor shows up as a cop overacting as always. It’s been touted as a ‘murder-mystery’, because they murdered cinema and it will be a mystery why these good actors chose to ‘act’ in this film.
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A toilet paper salesman attempts to infuse some life into his marriage and comes home early to find his wife in bed with another man. Instead of confronting them, he chooses to blackmail them. This sets off a series of what ifs and what then scenes that seem super chaotic and funny, but nothing makes you really care. If Irrfan Khan weren’t as talented as he is, this film would have fallen apart within fifteen minutes.
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Hollywood gave us Rambo and his ilk in the late 80s. Bollywood seems to be still stuck there. Baaghi 2 is pure homage to these bad action flicks. It’s full of corny manufactured situations and characters, and dialog that make you choke on the cheese nachos. So bad, it’s good.
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An honest Income Tax officer leads a team in a raid to find hidden assets of a local heavy, a political leader, at his bungalow called ‘White House’. The dialog is tight, the good guys are as smart as the bad guys are clever, the danger seems real and it’s money well spent when you watch this film. If only the thrill of watching money tumbling out of walls was not marred by silly songs and a whiny wife.
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If you manage to stay awake during the first half, which is wasted entirely in establishing the ‘quirky-ness’ of the characters, then you’ll wonder if the second half is from another script altogether. But not even Taapsee Pannu’s little chirpy gal turned corporate act nor Saqib Saleem’s daft selfish lad in love act can save this film. When the two fall into the Thames (or is it the sea?), you wish they will never be rescued…
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3 Storeys are three stories about people who live in a Mumbai Chawl (old fashioned project housing). It’s almost refreshing and yet not really. Someone from the ensemble cast overdoes it. It’s almost good, and then it isn’t because you’ve read the story somewhere. It’s an idea that’s not new and yet, a decent effort. Would have been smarter move to put it straight to Netflix or Amazon.
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The fourth in the ‘Hate’ franchise, this film like its other tales has lingerie, shaved manly chests, moans and suggestive hip thrusts, whiny song or two, high heels, pancake makeup, bearded men who snarl at each other, murders too and foreign locations… The acting is so poor your nerves will be jangled. Supposedly erotic, the on screen kisses will put you off kissing for ever.
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The hallmark of a good scary movie is that the scares come at you from all sides, fast and furious and do not allow you to breathe. This movie is slow to create the scary world, and even though you enjoy it, it takes too long to actually make you gasp for air. But what an awesome beginning for Anushka Sharma and Parambrata Chatterjee.
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The movie itself is terribly made. It uses footage from the IIFA awards, showing how stars arrive and are seated and are cheering for something that’s happening on stage. It’s so terribly inserted, even lay people in the audience can see clearly that it is not shot for the film. And if IIFA paid money to promote their brand, the audience will prove that content, not footage is king. Am sure Karan Johar’s cell phone has smarter and more interesting video footage than this awful, awful film.
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The story of a beautiful, faithful queen and a lustful invader who will stop at nothing is told in three very long hours. The costume drama is beautiful and Rajasthan is a great setting for this tale of Rajput valor. But the talk of pride and glory is so endless, it makes you want to run into your sword out of sheer boredom. But Ranveer Singh makes a brilliant hammy villain, and Deepika is luminous.