Shorgul ’s release was postponed because of political pressure. To its credit, the film bluntly takes on real-life references with slightly modified names. Shergill’s Ranjit Om is of the Bharatiya Janatantra Party (modelled on Sangeet Som of BJP) whose speeches evoke history to fuel hatred toward Muslims.

The film’s biggest failure is to not make us care for any of the characters: all victims of terrible crimes. It uses stunts from movies like Usual Suspects and Now You See Me for effect — faking deceitful identities to fool the system and leaving clues all around the city to prove how clever the protagonist is. There is an attempt of a Psycho touch in the serial killer’s relationship with her Tai. Then there are lines like, “He is neither black nor white. He is grey.” I was guilty of missing the first ten minutes of the film, but I’m kinda glad I had to watch less of it.

Rough Book maybe a well-intentioned film that tries to talk about education’s descent into business in the country. But it is impossible to take it seriously.

Characters from part 1 are brought back with lame justifications clearly because they are star names. It doesn’t help that the film, like the first one, treats people as a dummy crowd that seem to be cheering at anything that comes their way. If that’s what the makers thought of us, then they are way off the mark

Finding Dory fills us to the brim till the end. In a joyous climactic escape sequence an in-transit van, carrying fish tanks, crashes into the ocean in slo-mo as Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World’ plays out. We leave the theatres humming the same line in our heads.

I’m all for video games being turned into movies, but Warcraft lacks the depth and richness of literature.

The Nice Guys is a ‘nice’-ish film that doesn’t try too hard. And that is a relief.

The most disappointing thing about Pele: Birth of a Legend is its failure to bring alive a fascinating story that has layers of historic, cultural and sporting significance. The film’s tagline not only refers to the arrival of one of the greatest footballers in the history of the game but also the introduction of an ancient, ridiculed-by-the-Western-world, indigenous form of martial arts-meets-dance athleticism practised by African slaves in Latin America in a game dominated by whites.

Civil War shows how effective action sequences can be when done well. Right from the opening sequence, there is a crunchy physicality to the action. It’s easy to get carried away, when you have superheroes with distinct set of powers that bamboozle audience with CGI vagueness.

It’s one thing to have protagonists with low IQ and make something funny, humane or entertaining out of it. It is another to show stupid people doing stupid things. Mother’s Day, which belongs to the latter section of films, shouldn’t have existed, just like the stupid, commercially manufactured annual event it derives its name from.