Sreehari Nair
Rediff
Most Divergent Takes
- Qarib Qarib Singlle (2017)2.0 vs TRM 5.9-3.9
- Thithi (2016)10.0 vs TRM 6.7+3.3
- Omerta (2018)9.0 vs TRM 6.0+3.0
- Raazi (2018)4.0 vs TRM 6.9-2.9
- Bharat (2019)3.0 vs TRM 5.7-2.7
Article 15
2019 · Rediff · Jun 2019
Article 15 is not the work of a hack, or of someone merely scooping a plot out of newspaper headlines. It is a well-researched, clear-headed movie; but its findings have a purpose
Bharat
2019 · Rediff · Jun 2019
Bharat is nothing more than a reflection of the times we are living in: where we expect our heroes to be flawless, virtuous fellas -- it is our current national disease,
Tumbbad
2018 · Rediff · Oct 2018
What seemed missing in Tumbbad was that screwiness, that kinkiness, which shades so many of our best parables...
Manto
2018 · Rediff · Sep 2018
If Manto, the film, falls short of being a masterpiece, it's ironically because Nandita Das the filmmaker does not quite crack the Manto code herself: she doesn't quite see her subject with the same wholeness that Manto saw his people. ' 'This imperfection in the film, in a way, becomes the greatest tribute to Manto
Manmarziyaan
2018 · Rediff · Sep 2018
With Manmarziyaan, it is this kind of love story that Kashyap, I think, is out to challenge. His lovers are too messy for an external force to cause any real harm. They have no enemies to shoot, and so they take aim at each other.
Gali Guleiyan
2018 · Rediff · Sep 2018
This view of the supposed spiritual decay of our times, which is at the core of Gali Guleiyan, is thus more fashionable than perceptive...
Stree
2018 · Rediff · Aug 2018
Not only are the concerns expressed in Stree (patriarchy, consent, prejudice against women) mere excuses to touch our 'sentimental hotspots', the movie itself is a few tricks cobbled together...
Vishwaroopam 2
2018 · Rediff · Aug 2018
Vishwaroop 2 is a motion picture conceived almost entirely inside Kamal Haasan's bedroom without him even bothering to take a walk outside. This means that every single thing in Vishwaroop 2 is reduced to Haasan's reading of that thing, his feeling for that thing, his excitement for that thing, and also his limited understanding of that thing.
Mulk
2018 · Rediff · Aug 2018
'Mulk gets a lot of things right, including its vision of the country as a place where underneath the punctilious, forced-secular surface there are volatilities waiting to go off...
Bhavesh Joshi Superhero
2018 · Rediff · Jun 2018
If anything, Bhavesh Joshi proves right that maxim, unsaid but true: That Fixed Ideology, Self-righteousness and Superheroism run parallel to each other.
Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain
2018 · Rediff · May 2018
What we have here, I guess, is a director who understands how people fight, but has not a clue about how they make love.
Raazi
2018 · Rediff · May 2018
Oddly enough, everything Raazi cannot explain or put a finger on, it glosses over in the name of patriotism or watan-love; glorifying thereby the very sentiment it had set out to mock. This is the unique tragedy of the film: it becomes less of a counterpoint to pseudo-patriotism and more of a companion piece.
Omerta
2018 · Rediff · May 2018
A sense of injustice has been flaring in Mehta too since the time his face was blackened by Hindu fundamentalists. The face behind the black paint has since then, been his main subject. In Omerta, he tries to close in on those who smear the paint, and with that change in focus, he achieves something he hadn't achieved yet. Something indescribable; something that terrorists and artists both die trying for: Salvation.
Daas Dev
2018 · Rediff · Apr 2018
Sudhir Mishra is perhaps telling us that we are all politicians waiting for our chance at the podium and that it takes a real silly to see the absurdity of it all.
Mercury
2018 · Rediff · Apr 2018
There's something very pompous about the basic pitch of this movie that slowly chews away at its core..
3 Storeys
2018 · Rediff · Mar 2018
3 Storeys is a movie of endless surprises: There's one murder, one giant regret re-lived and regurgitated, and one devastating catastrophe that comes out of nowhere. But none of these high-points has any room for discharge. The dead man and the wailing lovers, all seem to be holding it back for the fear that the neighbours may hear them.
Pari
2018 · Rediff · Mar 2018
The best horror movies are ones that make you laugh as you scream -- laughing presumably at your own screaming -- but Pari doesn't operate on that level.
Pad Man
2018 · Rediff · Feb 2018
A movie like PadMan, progressive in its pitch but with nothing else to sustain it, settles the issue of our liberals taking their good taste too seriously. For this is not truly a liberal world if we keep searching for alternatives to regressive ideas in an R Balki film.
Mukkabaaz
2018 · Rediff · Jan 2018
My worry is that many who are not fond of Kashyap's usual complex sensibility would like this latest move: They'll applaud the fact that he's going for the tear glands with brass knuckles on. The tragedy of Mukkabaaz is not that it aims low; the tragedy is that it aims low and hits.
Tu Hai Mera Sunday
2017 · Rediff · Dec 2017
Tu Hai Mera Sunday has delightful women characters, sketchy men, and individual threads that work better than the whole package...
Kadvi Hawa
2017 · Rediff · Nov 2017
Kadvi Hawa is intended to be a wake-up call, but look closely and it is also a chant.
Qarib Qarib Singlle
2017 · Rediff · Nov 2017
In movies like Qarib Qarib Singlle, we don't even get that sort of pleasure, only a deadness that never goes away. If you happen to like this film, I have to assume there's something seriously wrong with your idea of a journey.
Ittefaq
2017 · Rediff · Nov 2017
As far as its final twist goes, Ittefaq is a whocareswhodunit but what it does have, as compensation, is the shock and suggestiveness of pulp served hot.
Rukh
2017 · Rediff · Oct 2017
Rukh may be lit like a YouTube Short Film and may have its share of other technical problems, but there's something disturbingly original about director Atanu Mukherjee's vision
Newton
2017 · Rediff · Sep 2017
While filled with startling insights and questions, and buoyed by terrific performances throughout, Newton suffers from a lack of end-to-end clarity. It is a near-great film, but one that for some reason doesn't express itself fully...
A Gentleman
2017 · Rediff · Aug 2017
The noise of the crowd, the badly phrased banter of the unthinking mob, the music in the butcher's knife, the tiny dreams of little people, these asides were the true essence of Raj and DK's first two movies, and it seems like they've stopped stepping out and recording them.
Bareilly Ki Barfi
2017 · Rediff · Aug 2017
There were moments in the movie when a loud laugh escaped my throat. But it didn't seem to matter. Because they were all laughing and my laughter was getting drowned in the laughter of those around me.
Indu Sarkar
2017 · Rediff · Jul 2017
Indu Sarkar opens with the declaration of Emergency but its true beginning-point is a disclaimer proclaiming it as a work of fiction bearing nothing more than a chance resemblance to people, places, and events. I found that disclaimer to be less of a mandatory insert and more an apology for the film's artlessness.
Lipstick Under My Burkha
2017 · Rediff · Jul 2017
Lipstick Under My Burkha touches, fleetingly, upon this aspect of female bonding that is removed from the compulsions of protesting. When the film is not making points, it has some life. When it goes off into conscious revolting, it's just distributing pamphlets.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
2017 · Rediff · Jul 2017
Homecoming fuses the kinky-swiftness of the original superhero movies with the silly concerns of a 2017's teenager...
Sachin: A Billion Dreams
2017 · Rediff · May 2017
2 hours and 20 minutes later, I walked out of Sachin: A Billion Dreams learning not one additional thing about Tendulkar: Not one factoid, not one statistic. Maybe it's convenient filmmaking, or maybe just the essence of God.
Hindi Medium
2017 · Rediff · May 2017
Hindi Medium works because it manages to stretch itself beyond its scrubby elements, easy half-baked jokes, lessons about consumerism and our love for English, into a simple story about a boy who would do anything to see his girl smile...
Sarkar 3
2017 · Rediff · May 2017
Ram Gopal Varma is back with Part Three of that series, which presented to us the first clear evidence that the great man was slipping...
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion
2017 · Rediff · Apr 2017
Despite its gargantuan cast, there are not more than 10 people in Baahubali who actually talk; the others merely exist as echoes. These are people forever chanting their support, nodding their heads in accord, or following directions. If you think about it, this lop-sided view of heroism is in complete disagreement with the spirit of great movies. But in a world of sheer campy values, as this one, such problems became the very essence of the experience.
Laali Ki Shaadi Mein Laaddoo Deewana
2017 · Rediff · Apr 2017
If you want to be disappointed, there are better movies to be disappointed by. This is a half-star picture with one extra star for how ignorant it is about its own quality.
Poorna: Courage Has No Limit
2017 · Rediff · Mar 2017
This movie is a perfect example of a city-bred director scanning our heartlands, and instead of taking in all the complexity, all the denseness, stopping to ask himself, "What are the corrections I can highlight in these lives, and how do I stitch together a narrative around these corrections?"
Thithi
2016 · Rediff · Aug 2016
In his first full-length feature itself, Raam Reddy seems to have mastered something that's most difficult to master in cinema: a way of suggesting a dreamlike clarity in a brazen setting...
Tamasha
2015 · Rediff · Nov 2015
Very briefly, we see an honest film and some three-dimensional characters. The dread in Imtiaz Ali's Tamasha feels real. The silliness, however, comes across as too orchestrated.
X: Past Is Present
2015 · Rediff · Nov 2015
In its misappropriation of Freudian themes, the movie gives its protagonist a truckload of guilt, but nothing more to chew on. And all this, means that the grand statement made isn't anything more than a South Mumbai kid's version of the all-conquering, all-observing, all-knowing feminine power. There's a lot of worship for women that's comes through in X. But is there enough love?