A romantic, cloying story to avoid at all costs…

Sunny Deol cries, screams, fights, jumps off trains, runs, falls and occasionally also attempts to act. The last one is especially hard but he is unfazed.

Mastizaade has no masti whatsoever. This is intolerable cruelty, a vicious attack on the senses.

One can’t help but think is Dilwale really worth the ticket and popcorn and fizz. The verdict: It isn’t.

Writer-director Raman spells everything out to build an aura around a character that is inspired by the infamous criminal Charles Sobhraj. But words alone are never enough to convince you that this is a man capable of seduction, deception and murder. You need to see it to believe it. That’s where Main Aur Charles fails – You are never quite sold on Charles.

It’s an annoying series of rants rather than an entertaining film
The heroes are frustrated, bullied and unhappy fools in love. The heroines are unsympathetic, unreasonable, temperamental, deceptive and intrusive. It takes over two hours for the men to figure out the mess they are in.

Based on Korean drama Seven Days, Jazbaa shows the Indian judicial system working at the speed of light and also a leading lady going over the top. Jazbaa is a ham-fisted drama which is loud and never hits the right notes.

It’s hard to not see the influence of Anurag Kashyap, who enjoys credits not only as a presenter but even as an editor. Kashyap’s style here sees a few slo-mos and a pivotal gun fight sequence unfolding in fast motion. But these techniques don’t make for a gripping watch. Instead it is Qadri, who wrote and acted in Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur, who occasionally shows promise and lifts the film with a few amusing scenarios in which the lads pull each other’s legs.

Producer Salman Khan, who is also the singer of the only tolerable track in the film, continues his rather poor innings as a supporter and encourager of new talent in Bollywood. Pancholi and Shetty will hope that they get a second shot at glory. Hero is a debut film that makes Saawariya and Student of the Year seem good movies. That says a lot about the film itself.

Phantom is a hotchpotch of many Hollywood films such as Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Mission Impossible series, Captain Phillips and towards the end even Titanic. The end result is a thriller sans thrills.