Saif Ali Khan, Katrina Kaif’s Phantom is disappointing, there is no crackle, only fizz…

Nawazuddin Siddiqui strains every sinew, and remains consistently watchable despite the shifts in tone. But even he cannot make the film soar.

Whoever named this film must have a great sense of black humour, because the only thing ‘well’ about the film is its title…

A man’s struggle for identity can be an absorbing story. Uplifting even, if it is connected with a country’s freedom struggle. Gour Hari’s ‘dastaan’, based on the quest of a real-life character, has all the elements that could have made it all this and more, but it comes off flat and dull.

Akshay Kumar, Sidharth Malhotra’s film uses a form of kinetic martial arts to foreground its story of two warring siblings, but it stays, at heart, a Karan Johar film.

The film finds its laughs in the odd moment, but comes off, over all, flat and tepid.

The film, which stays mostly faithful to the original but has a few inserts, could have been better if it had been tighter.
Second half is where the movie and Ajay Devgn– both take time to get into their groove– come into their own.

‘Masaan’ is imbued with a sense of place and time, poetry and lyricism, and it captures the essence of Banaras, constant-yet-changeable, with felicity and feeling. It also announces the arrival of new talents in its writer and director: Grover’s story is eminently worth telling, and Ghaywan tells it beautifully.

This film presses many red-hot buttons, even if the treatment is strictly in-the-clouds ‘filmi’. And gives us Shirtless Salman as a dove of peace, speaking for all religions and ‘mulqs’. Believe it, or faint.

SS Rajamouli’s film holds out many promises: of adventure and romance, love and betrayal, valour and weakness. And delivers magnificently on each of them.