With a tighter screenplay, sharper dialogue and more accomplished leads, Baar Baar Dekho could have been that hybrid between Hollywood and Bollywood genres, but it is neither here nor there, neither of the present nor of the future. Mehra has a fashion catalogue writer’s eye for beauty, but this movie needed a Mills & Boon writer’s heart to make its fantastical premise work.

The 111-minute movie has been beautifully shot by Sylvester Fonseca, set in vividly captured locations, and perfectly performed by its ensemble cast, but the screw-loose narrative needed some tightening to have been truly effective. Oberoi sometimes takes too long to set up and spell out obvious moments and scenes.

Sonakshi Sinha does a decent job in the emotional scenes, but the movie needed somebody faster and stronger to kick higher.

Barry Sonnenfeld’s Nine Lives is catnip for followers of such twenty-first century personages as Maru and Lil Bub, and perhaps only the most ardent feline fans will find Tom Brand’s adventures, funny, insightful, or even halfway engaging.

Coming at the end of 151 minutes, some of them well spent and some of them wasted, this bumper sticker sentiment mirrors the film’s endeavours. A Flying Jatt is clearly designed as a franchise in the making, and a sequel to Aman’s adventures on the ground and in the sky is probably already being scribbled on the back of a napkin.

Bemkambetov’s Ben-Hur is an adequate spectacle for viewers unaware of the existence of Wyler’s version, and the director’s impersonal approach to the charged material works fine until the moment of Ben-Hur’s encounter with Jesus Christ. The hurried ending seems tacked on to the real climax in the dust-laden arena, where men and horses shed blood for their beliefs.

Mutual tensions, politics and conflict are shoved out of view for a rom-com utopia in which, if only for 126 minutes, Indians and Pakistanis are on the same side. All they want is a barreful of laughs, and at least on that score, the movie doesn’t let them down.

…heavy on the sort of cultural tropes that buoy the average NRI comedy: weddings, differing values, mock horror over Caucasian men preying on innocent Indian women and the long-simmering sexual union (cut down in the Indian version). But the dialogue is easy on the ear and the cultural anxieties are just a stock-in-trade.

Rustom’s recreation of an iconic trial echoes the narrative style of the lesser films of the period in which the actual crime occurred – it throws out the facts in favour of a simplistic and crowd-pleasing solution, glosses over its hero’s criminal behaviour, and paints its characters in black and white. What the movie does get right is the luridly tabloid quality of the case.

…is a costume party with food for thought. Mohenjo Daro is far from perfect, but it’s also far more than the sum of its memes.