‘?’ (Question Mark) gets shackled by too much explanation about ‘spirits’ and ‘paranormal activity’, and it could have done with more crispness, and a little less amateurishness. But as an attempt which stays true to its purpose, of providing uneasy chills, ‘?’ (Question Mark) pretty much does its job.

‘Ekk Deewana Tha’ brings back that hoary tradition of love-at-first-sight in a film that exasperates you more than making you sigh : I’m happy to note that it can still be done, this business of losing your heart to a beautiful stranger at one glance, but not in this stuttering, near-obvious way.

When a film calls itself Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, it wants you to have no doubts, not even for a second, that this is what you are in for : one boy, one girl, and a rom com. In this instance, uptight boy and giddy girl meet cute in Vegas. You know that in the first half they will be in situations where his uptightness and her giddiness will get full play. In the second, they will try reaching an accommodation, leaving the last few minutes for a suitable ending.

Madcap characters in SoBo (South Bombay), Doing Whacky Things, Speaking Hinglish. The formula has been around, but it’s always up for some re-jigging. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Rafeeq Ellias’s debut feature gives us an heiress with her doggie, her non-performing asset of a husband with his murderous mommy, his singing sexpert with his quartet. Also, a tarot-card reader with her Elvis-lovin’ lover, a theatre-director who doubles up as a dispenser of ‘suparis’, a muscle-bound jock with a thing for the environment, and a Russian-Israeli hood who goes about saying Mamma Mia.

Straight-forward, middle-class fellow up against the big, bad system. `Gali Gali Mein Chor Hai’ pours old wine into a cracked bottle, telling us everything we’ve always known even if we were afraid to ask. Corruption is all pervasive. Public servants—cops, lawyers, netas– do what they know best : extort, harass, intimidate. `Ek thaali, sab chatte batte’. Sigh.

Most importantly, at the end, there’s enough of a payoff. ‘Agneepath’ is old style revenge drama which does well on the whole, despite its plot holes and a slackened second half, with executing genre conventions. Old fashioned popcorn with ‘namak’ and ‘mirch’, not caramel, nor any other au courant variation: you like, your film.

The one thing Abbas-Mustan films practically guarantee, despite the degree of theft or ‘inspiration’ from Hollywood flicks, is pacy entertainment. The plot of `Players’ is not stolen, but honorably bought, and has a terrific pedigree : the original ‘Italian Job’ had the groovy Michael Caine as super-thief Charlie, and lots of lovely lolly; the remake nearly 40 years later had the beefy Mark Wahlberg reprising Charlie the Chor’s role, and the very dishy Charlize Theron as the bad-good girl. Both films gave us the kind of enjoyment the best heist movies do : slick thieves with slicker moves, blonde bombshells, zippy car-chases and worthy villains.

‘Don 2’ needed an energized, crackling plot. What it has, in almost too much abundance, is SRK dripping dimpled coolth. But cool can only take you so far.

The leads look as if they have just strolled off modeling assignments, and speak out their lines, putting their best profiles forward.

‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ proves that old adage : newness has a habit of wearing off.