There are some mesmeric bits in here, which belong to Siddiqui. But those are not enough. Without those crucial elements, the film is rendered atmospheric yet hollow, and we are turned into cringing voyeurs, into reluctant participants, without redemption.

Two winsome kids in ‘exotic Rajasthan’ make for a pleasant watch. It’s hard not to be moved by the two kids — Krish Chhabria and Hetal Gadda — and their heart-warming story, directed by Nagesh Kukunoor.

I missed the lightheartedness of the original. This one is touchy-feely-weepy, underlining the movie’s big theme — home is where the heart is. What happened to throwing your head back and laughing?

TE3N is a case of sadly missed opportunities. Because there are rousing actors in here, and there’s a real city to play it all out in. Kolkata is a perfect location for a film like this with its atmospheric patches and the iconic Howrah-Hoogly vistas, reminding you of producer Sujoy Ghosh’s far more engaging ‘Kahaani’, but how a man clad in a dark hoody ( in sultry Kolkata) manages to move around those streets so freely remains an unsolvable mystery.

The only point of interest in this Randeep Hooda, Kajal Aggarwal starrer is that it is set in Kuala Lumpur, a city Bollywood doesn’t much get around to.

The dizzying camera angles which have marred so many of RGV’s recent outings may have mercifully gone missing but the ear-shattering background music is right there.

Both Naseeruddin and Kalki Koechlin are good fits for their parts in a film which segues easily between English, Hindi and a smattering of Malayalam.

I did tear up a couple of times, but only for Sarbjit. Randeep Hooda is mostly shown inside his dark, fetid cell, his hair filthy, his hands gnarled. He nails the look and the accent, never letting either overpower him, and is the only reason to sit through this sagging saga.

This could have been a great cautionary tale about a great sport at a time when it was just becoming the arena it has grown into—full of big money and glamour, bigger endorsements and never-ending temptations : it is, instead, an inept ‘tamasha’, not very different from the stuff Bollywood churns out, the cricket just the superstructure for tired song-and-dance and melodrama, in living rooms and court-rooms. Nope, this ‘Azhar’ doesn’t hit it out of the stadium.

There are a few moments between father and son which feel as if something real is going on – resentment and anger have a way of boiling up to the surface in strange ways between parents and children. But the rest of it is clunky and contrived, and the sudden switch between moods—from dad being foe to friend—feels too hurried.