Uday Bhatia
LiveMint·TimeOut·DNA India
Tanhaji
2020 · LiveMint · Jan 2020
'Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior' is cartoon history...
Dabangg 3
2019 · LiveMint · Dec 2019
'Dabangg 3' is Hindi action cinema at its daftest...
Panipat
2019 · DNA India · Dec 2019
'Panipat' gives a sense of history falling into place...
Laal Kaptaan
2019 · LiveMint · Oct 2019
Laal Kaptaan is the sort of film I wish there were more of – an exploration of the richness and weirdness of old India, one which doesn't try to smooth the edges or create a Disney-esque franchise. Recent films have used our nation's distant past as a reflecting pool of orthodoxy (Padmaavat) and proto-nationalism (Manikarnika). Singh, on the other hand, admits that we've always been a complicated, fractured country, and that entire lives can be defined by nothing more than a desire for revenge.
Joker
2019 · LiveMint · Oct 2019
Between the griminess of Lawrence Sher's photography and Hildur Guðnadóttir sawing violins, Joker is impressively queasy for a studio film. Phoenix's turn, too, is anti-beauty: greasy hair, twitchy manner, nails-on-blackboard laugh
War
2019 · LiveMint · Oct 2019
'War' is the best silly-smart Hindi action film in a while...
The Zoya Factor
2019 · LiveMint · Sep 2019
There's a smarter, sharper film somewhere inside this one, with insightful things to say about fandom and celebrity and superstition. As it stands, however, The Zoya Factor offers little cheer to those invested in the return of the Hindi romantic comedy or the halfway-decent post-Lagaan cricket film.
Dream Girl
2019 · DNA India · Sep 2019
As Hindi film micro-genres go, Ayushmann Khurrana Chips Away At Masculine Tropes is a stellar one. It may have become a formula of sorts – there's one about hair loss coming up, and another built around a gay character – but the films have by and large been smart, funny and unusually perceptive about middle-class insecurities. Unfortunately, this makes matters worse for Dream Girl, a film that's slight to begin with, and which looks even slighter in comparison to Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan and Badhaai Ho.
Saaho
2019 · LiveMint · Sep 2019
Saaho seems to be aiming for Mission: Impossible. But there's no wit to the proceedings, just an endless series of twists that make no sense, accompanied by the dull pounding that is Prabhas onscreen.
Mission Mangal
2019 · LiveMint · Aug 2019
Mission Mangal consistently champions scientists and science. Yet, by linking the team's breakthroughs to puris and pillowcases and stray comments by family members, and by explaining everything in layman's terms, it diminishes the complexity of their achievements.
Photograph
2019 · LiveMint · Apr 2019
'Photograph' is sensitively rendered but staid...
Kalank
2019 · LiveMint · Apr 2019
Kalank's all-out commitment to a consistently feverish emotional pitch makes it an anomaly. No one, save Sanjay Leela Bhansali, does this sort of gale-force melodrama anymore. In a Bollywood that's trying to look more self-aware, emotion can be a lead weight. I'd be curious to see what audiences make of the film over the next week or two; the one I saw it with seemed to tire by the end of all the eloquence.
Gully Boy
2019 · LiveMint · Feb 2019
'Gully Boy' amplifies a voice from the streets...
Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi
2019 · LiveMint · Jan 2019
Manikarnika is the sum of what it's saying – it doesn't have visual stratagems strong enough to distract the viewer. It lacks the intricate design of Bajirao Mastani and Padmaavat and the muscular drive of Baahubali, only coming to life when it borrows the bloody graphic-novel look of Zack Snyder films (such as the sequence where the queen slashes her way through a dozen enemy soldiers).
Simmba
2018 · LiveMint · Dec 2018
Singham turns up, which should surprise no one. To hear Devgn grunt his lines is to become grateful all over again for Singh's fleet presence, even if it's weighed down by the cartoon violence and endless posturing that make Shetty such a popular, if critically reviled, director. As a late scene makes clear, the Shetty-verse isn't done growing. But more than expanded universes, what commercial Hindi cinema needs right now is broadened world views.
Hichki
2018 · LiveMint · Mar 2018
The actors playing the students are wonderful, turning even the rank sentimentality of the later scenes into something watchable. Had the film been less interested in the un-illuminating struggle between Naina and her critical father, we might have been able to get to know the 14 better. But this is ultimately a film about Naina—her students, her solutions, her journey, her hichkis.
Padmaavat
2018 · LiveMint · Jan 2018
The only lessons worth taking from Padmaavat are sartorial, but this thin epic is likely to be parsed for meaning by millions in the coming weeks. When none emerges, we'll likely do what we've always done—fall back on tradition.
Darkest Hour
2018 · LiveMint · Jan 2018
Oldman's Churchill is a terrific imitation, and will probably get him his first Oscar, though I'll probably remember him as the sphinx in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or the punk in Sid and Nancy. As for Wright, I'd take the unbroken five-minute tracking shot along the beach at Dunkirk in his Atonement over the rousing flatteries of Darkest Hour.
Mukkabaaz
2018 · LiveMint · Jan 2018
Mukkabaaz is a bracing start to the movie year—overstuffed, enjoyable and urgent. It doesn't have big stars, but feels like a commercial movie in a way that Bombay Velvet didn't.
A Death in the Gunj
2017 · DNA India · Dec 2017
There are many large and compelling reasons to watch A Death in the Gunj. Here's a small one: It's a beautiful goodbye to Om Puri, who died this January. There he is, saying "Nothing gets better at this age" in that instantly familiar rasp.
Tiger Zinda Hai
2017 · LiveMint · Dec 2017
Tiger Zinda Hai plays like a cut-rate version of Airlift. Though it lacks the relative realism and superior craftsmanship of the 2016 Akshay Kumar-starrer (also about the evacuation of Indians in the Middle East), Zafar's film has the same hyper-patriotic bent.
Qarib Qarib Singlle
2017 · LiveMint · Nov 2017
Unlike Bareilly Ki Barfi and Shubh Mangal Savdhan, two of the brighter comedies this year, Qarib doesn't pack its final moments with incident. Instead, after taking the trouble of going to the mountains and finding someone for Jaya to meet, it just ends, pretty much the way you'd expect it to, as if the writers had run out of plot. As the credits rolled I realised this is probably the last we'll see of Jaya and Yogi. Pity. It's not just flawless films that have fascinating characters.
Thor: Ragnarok
2017 · LiveMint · Nov 2017
Thor: Ragnarok is full of individuals stranded in foreign lands —Thor, Loki and Banner on Sakaar, Hela in a prison somewhere, and, eventually, an entire population without a home. You don't expect a nod to the global refugee crisis in a film this entertaining, but there it is.
Newton
2017 · LiveMint · Sep 2017
Amit Masurkar's film—arguably the best Hindi feature of 2017—shines a light on cracks in the system...can say with confidence that Newton thrilled me like no other Hindi film this year.
Daddy
2017 · LiveMint · Sep 2017
Through Daddy's 130 minutes, Gawli remains elusive, his story obscured by multiple timelines and narrators, and his own reticence. Daddy reminded me of Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo, another film about a sphinx-like public figure situated at the intersection of politics and crime.
Shubh Mangal Saavdhan
2017 · LiveMint · Sep 2017
With so much going for it, it's disappointing when Shubh Mangal Saavdhan doesn't come close to sticking the landing. The film's final 20 minutes includes an elaborate, less-than-sensible gag, a spot of screenwriting panic, an on-the-nose sermon, and a deus ex machina when none was required. But this doesn't erase what's come before: a funny, hopeful film, with enough dry wit and generosity of spirit to allow it to circumvent the farcical pitfalls of its subject matter.
Baadshaho
2017 · LiveMint · Sep 2017
Baadshaho may not be a smart film, but it's a reasonably savvy daft one, inventive enough to revisit a key event from multiple perspectives and silly enough to have Mishra pick a safe in horse blinkers. You don't go in expecting much of a film that promises Sunny Leone bathing in a barrel. You don't receive much either, but you're grateful for the scraps.
Bareilly Ki Barfi
2017 · LiveMint · Aug 2017
Without giving away much more, I'll say that ambitious plot machinations late in the film mean that neither Pritam's nor Bitti's behavior makes much sense—until it finally does and it's too late. Perhaps some viewers will appreciate this trickery. To me it felt like a sacrificing of character at the altar of cleverness.
Jab Harry Met Sejal
2017 · LiveMint · Aug 2017
Imtiaz seems to have settled into a comfort zone of his own. The cult of Ali the Incurable Romantic will only grow with films like these. But Ali the Director might need to branch out soon.
Indu Sarkar
2017 · LiveMint · Jul 2017
If the current political climate is to give rise to more films about the Emergency – and we could do with several, just as we could films about other tumultuous periods in our history – one would hope they're better art.
Jagga Jasoos
2017 · LiveMint · Jul 2017
Anurag Basu's blithe entertainer is a blend of 'Barfi!', 'Tintin', 'Rushmore' and Spielbergian adventure films...
Mom
2017 · LiveMint · Jul 2017
Mom is a strange brew: audience-appeasing thriller, relationship drama and social commentary all rolled into one. To Udyawar's credit, he manages to make it look cohesive, even as he struggles to contend with the moral quagmire of revenge and opts instead for the escape of pulp.
Tubelight
2017 · LiveMint · Jun 2017
Salman and Kabir Khan attempt another 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan', but 'Tubelight' cannot rise above its desperate need to be liked...
Baywatch
2017 · LiveMint · Jun 2017
David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson have brief cameos—I can picture them getting together on set and laughing about how this movie makes the series look like King Lear. A blooper reel runs alongside the end credits. I think it's cute that the film thinks there's a noticeable difference between Johnson or Efron flubbing and nailing a scene.
Sachin: A Billion Dreams
2017 · LiveMint · May 2017
Objectively speaking, Sachin: A Billion Dreams is safe, sentimental and saccharine. I was nevertheless thrilled by it. The heart wants what it wants.
Half Girlfriend
2017 · LiveMint · May 2017
Prominent as the Suri trademarks are, Half Girlfriend is very much a Chetan Bhagat film. All the markers of the man—the anti-intellectualism, the perfumed reek of good intentions, the ability to grind down complex issues into bite-size chunks of positivity—are all present. "Madhav Jha is not a name. Madhav Jha is an attitude," we're told at one point. It's surprising this line isn't in the book: it has the sort of management-institute facileness that suits the author's style perfectly.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2017 · LiveMint · May 2017
It might be overstuffed, it may meander and stall at times, but Guardians 2 should delight returning audiences, Michael Rooker fans, and anyone savvy enough to appreciate Cheap Trick, Sam Cooke and Jay and the Americans.
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion
2017 · LiveMint · Apr 2017
'Baahubali 2' offers pounding action, soap opera storytelling and some worrying ideas about valour
Noor
2017 · LiveMint · Apr 2017
A likeable comedy becomes an unconvincing protest film...
Begum Jaan
2017 · LiveMint · Apr 2017
This film has nothing new to tell us about this tumultuous time in our history: the British were apparently very bad, so were politicians on both sides, so were royal families. This is the kind of broadly simplistic film in which a little girl can ask, "Is it the same thing to kill a Hindu and a Muslim?"
Mukti Bhawan
2017 · LiveMint · Apr 2017
Shubhashish Bhutiani's film undercuts its heavy subject with humour and grace...
Trapped
2017 · LiveMint · Mar 2017
Trapped is a 180-degree turn from the fevered romanticism of Lootera, but Motwane's control over narrative doesn't seem at all affected by the change of genre. In Rao, he has exactly the right actor for this kind of film: relatable enough to pass for an urban everyman, and talented enough to keep one's attention for 105 minutes.
Raees
2017 · LiveMint · Jan 2017
Khan isn't as bold here as he was in Fan, but this isn't a greatest-hits package either, like his turn in Dear Zindagi. Perhaps realising that audiences would expect him to do Tony Montana, he gives them his version of Warren Beatty as Bugsy Siegel: ingenious, unflappable. Yet, because Khan holds so much in reserve, Raees remains a cipher. To borrow an old theatrical aphorism, he plays the king as if afraid someone else might play the ace.
The Founder
2017 · LiveMint · Jan 2017
John Lee Hancock's film is tougher on its subject than I expected it to be; Kroc is shown neglecting his wife, dumping her once he's successful, manoeuvring the franchise out of the hands of the hapless Mac and Dick. Yet, even this hard-nosed opportunism is presented as a kind of ode to capitalism and straight-talking American gumption. When Kroc first lays eyes on the golden arches, he gazes up at them in awe. We get the McVision, without the McIrony.
Dangal
2016 · LiveMint · Dec 2016
Most Bollywood sports films slow down the action, cut it up, use close-ups to hide the actor as much as possible. Dangal, however, observes large portions of its bouts at a distance, enough for the viewer to realise that they aren't faking the entire thing. The choreography is tremendous (cinematography by Sethu Sriram), arms hitting bodies and bodies hitting mats with satisfying thwacks and thuds.
Rogue One
2016 · LiveMint · Dec 2016
The first Star Wars spinoff is an underwritten, unexciting plod through space...
Befikre
2016 · LiveMint · Dec 2016
They're well-matched, these two actors, and it's unfortunate that the material they've been handed is so slight.
Kahaani 2
2016 · LiveMint · Dec 2016
Compared to the vivid Kahaani, this film has a blanched look, perhaps in keeping with its dark subject matter. It's a frenetic 130 minutes, but I never really felt for Vidya Sinha the way I did for Vidya Bagchi. Perhaps I was just too caught up waiting for Ghosh to fool me twice.
Dear Zindagi
2016 · LiveMint · Nov 2016
Shah Rukh Khan bears down with starry charm on the role of Jug, but his mountaineer anecdote just can't compare with his co-star talking about herself in disguised third person earlier in the scene. Bhatt has a rare ability to make the emotional decisions of her characters look as if they spontaneously occurred to her. In other words, she gives the impression she's winging it, which makes even the most ordinary scenes she's in terribly exciting.
Ae Dil Hai Mushkil
2016 · LiveMint · Oct 2016
Ae Dil Hai Mushkil has a run-time of 158 minutes, but there's surprisingly little filler, and a better ratio of good to bad jokes than one might expect from a Johar film.
Train to Busan
2016 · LiveMint · Oct 2016
Train to Busan doesn't make many emotional demands of the viewer, nor does it further the zombie genre in any significant way. But you don't really need to break new ground if you can tread familiar paths so confidently.
M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story
2016 · LiveMint · Sep 2016
M.S. Dhoni is a blandly professional piece of work. This might be enough for fans of the man, but for anyone who'd hoped that the first ever film about a still-active Indian cricketer might have traces of insight or daring, this will likely be a disappointment.
The Magnificent Seven
2016 · LiveMint · Sep 2016
Fuqua's film, set in the 1870s, has a posse so breathtakingly multi-racial it would seem to turn genre convention on its head. Yet, the film never suggests that the white men among the seven had any problem taking orders from a black man, or that there was any friction between a Native American and a former Indian killer. It's revisionist for revisionist's sake—there's no political charge in its challenging of genre conventions.
Pink
2016 · LiveMint · Sep 2016
Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's film is low on nuance, high on moral certitude
Sully
2016 · LiveMint · Sep 2016
The problem with Sully is that nothing apart from the incident at its centre is particularly interesting: not Sully's financial problems, or the flashback to another tricky landing he made, or the committee hearings. By the time we're shown the entire flight and landing for the second time—and for no good reason—it's clear that Eastwood is so enamored of his subject that he assumes the audience is as well.
Baar Baar Dekho
2016 · LiveMint · Sep 2016
Nitya Mehra's time-travelling film is pat but fairly effective...
Island City
2016 · LiveMint · Sep 2016
What Island City achieves is far more important than where it trips up. As a tonally tricky, slyly subversive mood piece, it finds itself in a very small group of Hindi films. It's also an intriguing new entry in the long tradition of films that explore the spiritual heartache of living in Mumbai.
Thithi
2016 · LiveMint · Aug 2016
Like the countless sheep that appear in it, Thithi is shorn of fluff. Because the film is so engaging on a minute-by-minute basis, it's a while before one notices the absence of the usual markers of movie-dom. There are no songs or dances or fights (at least in the accepted sense), no heroes or villains. The cast is made up of non-professionals from screenwriter Eregowda's village, Nodekoppalu, in Karnataka. There's no background score, unless you count the constant refrain of bleats and baas and moos and clucks.
A Flying Jatt
2016 · LiveMint · Aug 2016
A Flying Jatt is derivative, sloppily structured and, especially in its latter stages, tacky beyond belief. That it might also be the best Indian superhero film ever (barring Mr India, if that qualifies) is an indication of how low the bar is set.
Happy Bhag Jayegi
2016 · LiveMint · Aug 2016
Shergill is fast turning into one of Hindi cinema's great sad sacks, and Mishra into one of its finest mutterers. Their collective enthusiasm renders the film's lack of subtlety endearing and its gaps in narrative logic inconsequential. I'm having a hard time remembering the last time I watched a Hindi film this silly but still found myself laughing.
Rustom
2016 · LiveMint · Aug 2016
Though Rustom uses all the sensational material the Nanavati case has to offer, the treatment is laughably silly...
Mohenjo Daro
2016 · LiveMint · Aug 2016
Though this is the shortest film he's made in years, Gowariker isn't—and probably will never be—an efficient film-maker. What other directors convey in two lines, he does in seven. Long after scenes have revealed their purpose, he allows them to continue, lest the audience miss out on some imaginary subtlety.
Suicide Squad
2016 · LiveMint · Aug 2016
It isn't just the celebration of casual violence, or the uneasy marriage of a gritty real-world aesthetic with comic book rules...
Star Trek Beyond
2016 · LiveMint · Jul 2016
There's nothing remotely path-breaking about this film, but the visible affection of the actors for the characters they're playing makes Star Trek Beyond more enjoyable than any third film in a franchise has a right to be.
Sultan
2016 · LiveMint · Jul 2016
Everyone does their job with a degree of professionalism befitting a YRF production. There's too much slo-mo as usual, but Artur Żurawski's camerawork is nimble. Vishal-Shekhar's title song is played something like a dozen times in the film, and is catchy enough to withstand this overuse (credit, also, to Irshad Kamil's lyrics). Zafar's writing is simplistic but rousing; one could say the same of his direction too.
Independence Day: Resurgence
2016 · LiveMint · Jun 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence is so contrived and slow-witted a sequel that it's making me reassess my fondness for the 1996 film.
Raman Raghav 2.0
2016 · LiveMint · Jun 2016
A gleefully amoral serial killer film with Nawazuddin Siddiqui in terrific form...
Udta Punjab
2016 · LiveMint · Jun 2016
Abhishek Chaubey's Udta Punjab isn't interested in making things easy or pretty. In scene after scene, the film shows how the state of Punjab has been crippled by heroin, smack, cocktail drugs and chitta—'white' in Punjabi—shorthand for cocaine.
Dhanak
2016 · LiveMint · Jun 2016
In its two-hour running time, Dhanak throws more charm at the screen than one might feel equipped to handle.
Te3n
2016 · LiveMint · Jun 2016
'Te3n' has plenty of twists, not all of them convincing...
Do Lafzon Ki Kahani
2016 · LiveMint · Jun 2016
This is exactly the sort of no-hope venture that Randeep Hooda seems to land up in again and again, frustrating those who believe that he ought to be a much bigger star and above dross of this sort by now.
Waiting
2016 · LiveMint · May 2016
...apart from a few wobbles, Waiting walks the line between emotional resonance and emotional manipulation skilfully. Hospitals, whether on the big or small screen, are usually used for their dramatic possibilities: IV demanded "stat", failing hearts electro-shocked into life. How curious that someone glimpsed, in the same setting, the emotional possibilities of inaction, of waiting.
Sarbjit
2016 · LiveMint · May 2016
Omung Kumar's Sarabjit Singh biopic is too overwrought to be effective
X-Men: Apocalypse
2016 · LiveMint · May 2016
This god-fearing X-Men film suggests the franchise is out of ideas...
Pelé: Birth of a Legend
2016 · LiveMint · May 2016
A.R. Rahman's score is flashy and fairly unremarkable; the same can be said for Matthew Libatique's cinematography. All in all, the sort of hagiographic biopic one expects when the person being profiled is the executive producer.
Azhar
2016 · LiveMint · May 2016
Even if Azhar wasn't so sketchily written and the cricket scenes weren't so tacky, this would be a tall order. The makers might have been better off trying to explain how he pulled off those impossible leg glances rather than how he took (but didn't actually take) money to throw matches.
Captain America: Civil War
2016 · LiveMint · May 2016
With a slate increasingly crowded with jester superheroes—the Guardians crew, Ant-Man, Deadpool—Marvel seemed in danger of becoming a little too in on the joke. With Civil War, it seems to have found its balance.
Baaghi
2016 · LiveMint · Apr 2016
It's nice to see an Indian film sling a few convincing action scenes together, yet it's also depressing to think that we'd probably never have been able to work out such sequences if there hadn't been a ready template. But then, that's what we do best: imitate a superior product and package it as rebellion.
Nil Battey Sannata
2016 · LiveMint · Apr 2016
Nil Battey Sannata is plenty smart, but it might have seemed smarter still had it been more trusting of its audience's capacity to get the joke, or the point.
The Jungle Book
2016 · LiveMint · Apr 2016
It may sound like a backhanded compliment, but this Jungle Book is a fine children's film that's happy to be just that. It's scarier than the original, of course, but I'd imagine kids nowadays will take a 3D tiger leaping out from the screen in their stride.
Ki and Ka
2016 · LiveMint · Apr 2016
For a film this saintly, I was disappointed to note the replacement of one kind of prejudice (against housewives) with another (against hired help). Ki and Ka's maid is shown to be untrustworthy, which is then used as justification by Kabir to install a spycam to keep track of her activities while they're on holiday. That's the problem with making a film that considers itself a sort of public service. The higher you raise yourself, the farther you have to fall.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
2016 · LiveMint · Mar 2016
The audience I saw it with seemed desperate to find reasons to cheer and whoop—a sad commentary on the balance of power in movie making and watching today. Personally, I find it more than a little depressing that films like these—bloated, inept, making heavy weather out of pieces of pulp entertainment tossed out for children decades ago—have become such an inescapable part of our lives.
Race
2016 · LiveMint · Mar 2016
Stephan James manages to imbue Owens with both a sense of purpose and a sense of humour. He's more than adequate, in a film that's barely that. The only other intriguing note is struck by Carice van Houten, whose poker face is perfect for the manipulative genius that was Leni Riefenstahl.
Teraa Surroor
2016 · LiveMint · Mar 2016
All of Reshammiya's films lie somewhere on the spectrum from so-bad-it's-good to so-bad-you-want-to-gouge-your-eyes-out. Teraa Surroor has its moments of campy fun...
Jai Gangaajal
2016 · LiveMint · Mar 2016
This is a film that's nominally against mob justice, but nevertheless includes a scene in which a small child is allowed to commit a dragged-out murder while a crowd of people cheer him on. Jha's cinema has always been about broad strokes for simple folk, and Jai Gangaajal is no exception.
Zubaan
2016 · LiveMint · Mar 2016
The only thing the film cannot dim is the promise shown by Vicky Kaushal. Even in this, his first film (he shot for it before Masaan), he's a likeable, transparent performer, his face consistently betraying whatever emotions his character is experiencing. I'm sure the audience would have willingly followed him into darker territory. But the film doesn't seem to believe that, and is left, like its protagonist, fumbling for eloquence.
Carol
2016 · LiveMint · Feb 2016
The soul of the film is in the little details—the side glances and nervously tapped cigarettes and jazz records playing in the background—rather than the broader, more easily understood movements of plot and character. If you're watching Carol, watch it closely. Not a lot happens, but an entire world is revealed.
Aligarh
2016 · LiveMint · Feb 2016
It's inevitable that any cinematic rendering of gay lives in India will be seen and promoted as an "issue film". This has certainly been the case with Aligarh, and I hope it sparks conversations about Section 377 in TV studios and living rooms. Yet, an even bigger victory for the film might lie in getting vaguely homophobic viewers to empathize with Siras, to understand his distaste for easy labels, to admit that even they sit in the dark with a drink and listen to old Hindi film songs.
Neerja
2016 · LiveMint · Feb 2016
The film suggests an unusual emotional impetus for Bhanot's bravery by linking, through a recurring flashback, her passivity in a recently ended abusive relationship to her decisiveness during the hijacking. It's a reminder that courage can spring up unbidden, much like the crises that prompt it.
Spotlight
2016 · LiveMint · Feb 2016
Tom McCarthy's Spotlight is that rare film that is first and foremost about journalism.
Deadpool
2016 · LiveMint · Feb 2016
Deadpool is subversive. It is also very keen to be seen as subversive. There's more cussing, violence and nudity here than in any previous comic book movie, but what registers even more is the film's constant vigilance against even the smallest of superhero tropes. As soon as a cliché raises its head, the film jumps on it, hitting it back with a wisecrack or a filthy joke or someone's head exploding. It is fascinating to see this sort of undercutting going on, like someone repeatedly sawing off the branch they're sitting on.
Fitoor
2016 · LiveMint · Feb 2016
Fitoor is lush and aching, more Regency novel than Dickens. And it works, but only up till a point.
The Finest Hours
2016 · LiveMint · Feb 2016
This is meat-and-potatoes film-making, but if you aren't averse to a lot of scenes with tough guys gritting their teeth, The Finest Hours is a reasonably engaging 120-odd minutes. The churning, roiling waves look pretty much like the VFX that they are, but the snowstorm that hits the land is beautiful.
Sanam Teri Kasam
2016 · LiveMint · Feb 2016
If you're the viewer, this curse lifts after 154 minutes, by which time we've been introduced to Mumbai's most forgiving cop, the worst fiancée in the world and the most literal interpretation of the phrase "You're dead to me".
Mastizaade
2016 · LiveMint · Jan 2016
Mastizaade doesn't have a story worth detailing. It's a bunch of loosely connected skits built around Aditya and Sunny's attempts to get with, respectively, Laila Lele (Sunny Leone) and her sister, Lily (also Leone, wearing spectacles). The onslaught of failed gags is relentless; there's no attempt to build anything like a narrative in between jokes about round and pointy objects.
Jugni
2016 · LiveMint · Jan 2016
hough the soundtrack is consistently ear-wormy, it might have been nice to have artistes from Bhushan's Beat of India days doing some of the singing. Still, if Bibi Saroop and Mastana can lead curious viewers to seek out Swarn Noora and Dilbahar and the other sources of these sounds, Jugni would have done its job.
Airlift
2016 · LiveMint · Jan 2016
This is how it ought to be more often–a mainstream movie with a list of grouses you can list on one hand. Not to mention a film that's destined to end with flag-waving–literal flag-waving in this case–but is also shot through with a healthy dose of scepticism.
Chauranga
2016 · LiveMint · Jan 2016
There's no denying that the film in unflinching, unafraid to show Dalit village life as the series of compromises it often is. Had the performances been stronger, the accents more convincing, and the ideas more novel, Chauranga might have achieved something like the dramatic power of recent Marathi-language films about childhood.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
2015 · LiveMint · Dec 2015
...is fun while it lasts and a welcome opportunity to meet old friends, but the series might need something more radical if it doesn't want to be lost in a sea of franchise films.
Dilwale
2015 · LiveMint · Dec 2015
A lazy, cynical attempt to cash in on Shah Rukh-Kajol nostalgia...
Bajirao Mastani
2015 · LiveMint · Dec 2015
Bhansali's long-awaited 'Bajirao Mastani' is unapologetically sumptuous...
The Peanuts Movie
2015 · LiveMint · Dec 2015
It saddens me to say this, for I love Peanuts and would like anything connected to it to succeed, but The Peanuts Movie doesn't understand what it was that made Charles M. Schulz's comic strip special.
Legend
2015 · LiveMint · Dec 2015
Though Helgeland's writing is frequently funny and the period detail immersive, the film suffers for lack of someone to root for. The only sympathetic character is Frances, who—in an uncharacteristic move—is entrusted the voice-over.
Angry Indian Goddesses
2015 · LiveMint · Dec 2015
...its best moments are the ones with the six women sitting around, cussing, getting drunk, and talking about everything that comes into their minds, with Lakshmi hovering somewhere in the background. When's the last time you saw a female character in a Hindi film have a wet dream, or come out to her friends? If the answer is 'never', Angry Indian Goddesses might make for instructive viewing.
Tamasha
2015 · LiveMint · Nov 2015
While no one could accuse it of being subtle, Tamasha is affecting in parts, thanks in large measure to its lead players. Kapoor, with his gift for light comedy and mimicry, outpaces Padukone in the Corsica leg, but when they return to India and things become complicated, her pain is as palpable as his (this in spite of Tara being an underwritten character). Ali's direction has also acquired a lightness of touch; when we first see Ved as a child, the legend reads "Shimla, flashback", a little joke but also perhaps a reference to how memories are edited into home movies in our imaginations.
Creed
2015 · LiveMint · Nov 2015
With its tearful mothers and musical interludes and unfettered emotions, Creed comes close to the spirit of films made in this country. What could not have been achieved here is the kind of immediacy to the fighters it allows. Coogler keeps the fights free of distracting camera effects, and the results are as close to the real thing as possible. You can feel the weight of the punches as they land, hear the whistle of the rope as Adonis skips during training.
X: Past Is Present
2015 · LiveMint · Nov 2015
Perhaps there'll be those who'll find something resonant in X, who might be moved to try and figure out the time-travel business teased towards the end. Personally, I doubt I would have thought less or more of the film if K and his friend had come across the DeLorean, travelled back to the start of the film and begun their conversation again. I wouldn't stick around for the rerun, though. If past is present, my time is all the more precious.
Spectre
2015 · LiveMint · Nov 2015
Casino Royale and Skyfall suggested there were still ways left to tell a Bond story that weren't archaic or rehashed. Spectre, though, is simply a case of middle-of-the-road big-budget franchise furthering. Studio logic might dictate that it's time for another reboot. But how many times can something be rebooted before the batteries give up the ghost?
Main Aur Charles
2015 · LiveMint · Nov 2015
It's difficult to know what to make of a film that casts Chadha as a wide-eyed ingénue (surely there's no shortage of those in Bollywood) or suggests that Sobhraj is more victim than aggressor, something Mira tries to explain to Kanth without a trace of irony. Are we meant to take this at face value? Or is it just Raman's way of showing how completely Sobhraj's accomplices come under his spell?
Titli
2015 · LiveMint · Oct 2015
Unrelentingly grim, morally unmoored, Titli festers like a sore on your consciousness. Misleadingly funky second trailer notwithstanding, it's unlikely to be anyone's idea of fun. Yet, from time to time, it's important that a film like this get under our skin and remind us why we value catharsis so much.
Shaandaar
2015 · LiveMint · Oct 2015
For two hours, Shaandaar strains to entertain, throwing everything from animation to skydiving at the audience. Then, with around 20 minutes to go, Bahl seems to let go of the reins and everything careens out of control. The film ends on such a vague and uninspiring note, it feels like the director himself gave up on it.
Bridge of Spies
2015 · LiveMint · Oct 2015
Though Ethan and Joel Coen brothers are screenwriters here, along with Matt Charman, this is an extremely Spielbergian film. He's still the most fluent of directors—you could teach a class on scene transitions with the dozen or so examples this film provides.
Crimson Peak
2015 · LiveMint · Oct 2015
Crimson Peak is a strange mix of gothic romance, horror film and, in its frenetic last moments, giallo. It's yet another advertisement for Guillermo Del Toro's supreme visual imagination, something that's informed all his films...Yet, too often, one gets the feeling of being haunted not by ghosts but by tropes.
The Martian
2015 · LiveMint · Oct 2015
Unlike Gravity, which was at its best a unique sensory experience, The Martian rarely tries to overwhelm us with scale or spectacle. Instead—and this might sound weird—Scott's film is mainly a wry comedy, one which smoothly transfers the castaway narrative to outer space.
The Intern
2015 · LiveMint · Sep 2015
It's left to Hathaway to rescue what she can. Her Jules is by turns brittle, warm, self-possessed, vulnerable and impulsive, and Hathaway conveys all this without making her performance seem like an acting class. Few actors today can cry like she does on screen; even fewer can transform material like this into something halfway resonant.
Black Mass
2015 · LiveMint · Sep 2015
For a gangster film, Black Mass isn't terribly exciting: It lacks the cheerful invective of The Departed or the masterful set pieces of The Town. Cooper directs with few flourishes, but he has a talent for atmosphere and for letting the tension in a room build. He never allows us to lose sight of how dangerous and unromantic a figure Bulger is, and how in awe of him Connolly remained.
Meeruthiya Gangsters
2015 · LiveMint · Sep 2015
...the plot goes nowhere and the camera goes everywhere—there's a tracking shot or an unusual angle in almost every scene, giving the impression that Quadri is straining for effect. There's also little of the sociological and historical context that underpinned the equally violent and jocular Wasseypur. Still, there's just enough here to suggest that Quadri has a future as a screenwriter. Direction, though, may require a little work.
Katti Batti
2015 · LiveMint · Sep 2015
If Katti Batti didn't go spectacularly off the rails, the worst thing one could say about it was that it bears an unacknowledged debt to Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer.
Hero
2015 · LiveMint · Sep 2015
Ghai may no longer be relevant to today's film-making scene, but there was one thing he was undeniably good at—spotting talent in young actors and taking a chance on them. It's what made the original Hero and so many of his other films exciting for audiences at the time. Modern-day Bollywood, packed to the gills with star sons and daughters, may have to adopt some of his pioneer spirit if it wants a fresh set of idols to replace the Khans.
Welcome Back
2015 · LiveMint · Sep 2015
If Welcome Back's crimes against the ear are unforgivable, almost as grave are its sins against the eye. If there's a tackier-looking film than this made in the country in the last five years, I'm yet to see it.
Manjhi: The Mountain Man
2015 · LiveMint · Aug 2015
Manjhi is rousing, simplistic cinema, just about saved by a fantastic lead turn. It'll do if all you want is a folk tale, but I wish the film had chipped away at Manjhi the way he chipped away at that mountain.
Shaun the Sheep Movie
2015 · LiveMint · Aug 2015
A large part of Shaun The Sheep Movie's charm lies in the fact that this is practically a silent comedy. Though there's a busy soundtrack of bleats, bangs, thuds, barks, howls and mumbles, there is no actual dialogue. The comedy is visual, rendered in Aardman's signature stop-motion style, blending puppets with animated, sometimes actual backgrounds.
Brothers
2015 · LiveMint · Aug 2015
Brothers, directed by Karan Malhotra (Agneepath), doesn't have the heart problem; if anything, it exposes a bit too much of its heart. It does have the script problem, the acting problem and several other problems besides.
Drishyam
2015 · LiveMint · Jul 2015
Drishyam is a solid remake, but a film with Tabu as in the Vijay role and Devgn as the cop would have been so much more exciting.
Ant-Man
2015 · LiveMint · Jul 2015
When someone does something slightly different with a genre as codified and hidebound as the superhero film, it's tempting to overrate the achievement. Yet, the truth is there have already been a number of superhero movies that have mocked the idea of, well, superheroes. Ant-Man builds on the pop smarts of The Avengers and the I'm-no-hero shtick of Guardians Of The Galaxy, just like these films built on the wisecracking Iron Man films.
Masaan
2015 · LiveMint · Jul 2015
Masaan doesn't strive for effect—it achieves it by degrees. No one stands out, but everyone does an outstanding job.
Bajrangi Bhaijaan
2015 · LiveMint · Jul 2015
In terms of directorial competence and narrative novelty, this is probably the best Salman Khan film since Dabangg. It's also, even by Bollywood standards, a particularly transparent appeal to audience sympathies, playing on our collective weakness for children in peril, for heroes with hearts of gold, for pronouncements of Indo-Pak and Hindu-Muslim harmony.
Bāhubali: The Beginning
2015 · LiveMint · Jul 2015
That Rajamouli knows his way around VFX was evident in Eega, but he negotiates the massive jump in scale well. Everything is designed for maximum impact—if there are bales of straws, you can be sure they'll be set on fire so that a chariot can be driven through them. The vistas that unfold have a digitally enhanced grandeur that's familiar from films such as Troy and Exodus: Gods and Kings, modern versions of the old sword and sandal epics. Bhallala Dev's chariot even has a whirring scythe attached to it—a little visual tribute to Ben-Hur.
Terminator Genisys
2015 · LiveMint · Jul 2015
What's worse than a dumb Hollywood summer movie? A dumb Hollywood summer movie that thinks it's smart. That's Terminator Genisys for you, the fifth instalment in a series that should have ended, despite promises made to be back, after the note-perfect second film.
Labour of Love
2015 · LiveMint · Jun 2015
Labour Of Love is one of the most visually and aurally striking films in recent years, but you have to wonder whether there's enough going on within scenes to justify all that it chooses to leave out. The film makes it clear that there's a recession going on, but we don't know how this is affecting our couple—whether they're both working because they have to pay the bills, or if that's the way they prefer it.
ABCD 2
2015 · LiveMint · Jun 2015
When people aren't in motion on screen, ABCD 2 is a snooze. Luckily, that's only 20% of the time. D'Souza, who worked for years as one of Bollywood's most successful choreographers, packs the screen with writhing, seizing, arching, flying bodies. It's thrilling stuff, all those flashy moves, rendered even flashier in 3D by Vijay Arora's roving camera, accompanied by Sachin-Jigar's EDM-heavy score. It is also choreographed to a T, and after a while I found myself wishing for something more free-flowing, with less precision and more personality.
Hamari Adhuri Kahani
2015 · LiveMint · Jun 2015
The actors are left out to dry, though Rao manages to escape with some of his dignity intact. The same cannot be said of Hashmi (who gets the worst lines) or Balan (who looks like she's trying too hard). At one point, overcome by gratitude, Vasudha touches Aarav's feet. I don't think I've laughed more at a movie that wanted me to be crying along with it.
Jurassic World
2015 · LiveMint · Jun 2015
Spielberg is only the executive producer on Jurassic World, but the film, directed by Colin Trevorrow, is the logical extension of the position he'd taken all those years ago. If his Jurassic Park represented an exciting new world, this film shows how that world has been commoditized, packaged and served up as a McDino.
Kaaka Muttai
2015 · LiveMint · Jun 2015
All this might sound a little maudlin, but Kaaka Muttai is a largely unsentimental look at hopes and dreams in miniature. Whether they're eating raw crow's eggs, bribing a pair of rich kids for their clothes, or returning drunkards to their homes (for a fee), the film invites us to admire the resourcefulness of the two siblings without turning them into objects of pity or sentiment. It's the strangest feel-good film you'll see this year: two kids in rags, happily walking past piles of garbage, their heads full of pizza.
Dil Dhadakne Do
2015 · LiveMint · Jun 2015
Pretty but never dazzling, busy but never riveting, glib but never wise, Dil Dhadakne Do never does find its sea legs.
Welcome to Karachi
2015 · LiveMint · Jun 2015
The sort of derivative comic slop Arshad Warsi has had to wade through his entire career...All you really need to know is that this is the kind of film in which there's a running joke about two characters named Ittefaq and Watthefaq.
Tanu Weds Manu: Returns
2015 · LiveMint · May 2015
Two Kanganas make this sequel worth your while...
Mad Max: Fury Road
2015 · LiveMint · May 2015
At 70, Miller has directed the most spectacular action movie of the last few years. Mad Max: Fury Road is unabashed, visceral, poetic. One need only compare its pounding action scenes to the staid, formulaic combat in the recent Avengers sequel to see how a skilled director can bring grandeur and imagination to blockbuster moviemaking.
Bombay Velvet
2015 · LiveMint · May 2015
Bombay Velvet is frustrating and exhilarating in equal measure. Though his ambition is plain to see, I prefer the Kashyap who delivers the shock of the new rather than the glamour of old.
Piku
2015 · LiveMint · May 2015
A worthwhile road movie despite an over-reliance on toilet humour...
While We're Young
2015 · LiveMint · May 2015
There's a sharpness here, allied with a lightness of touch, that recalls recent Woody Allen. Though Baumbach has always doffed his hat to Woody, it's difficult to imagine the old master doing better with the same material.
Jai Ho Democracy
2015 · LiveMint · Apr 2015
There's a desperation to most of the film's scenes, as if the writers were being forced to come up with material on the spot. I'm not sure why Om Puri agreed to act in a film in which his character is forced to do 17 squats by way of apology, but he did, and it's brutal. But the film really begins to lose its marbles when a Pakistani army cook risks his life to bring food and water to the Indian fowl-fetcher in no man's land.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
2015 · LiveMint · Apr 2015
A by-the-numbers follow-up to 'The Avengers'...the best you can say about the film is that it's efficient. It certainly isn't inspired.
Barefoot To Goa
2015 · LiveMint · Apr 2015
I take no pleasure in running down a film that's obviously been strung together on a minuscule budget, but couldn't everything have been thought through a bit more? The screenplay trades in the worst kind of virtuous-villager/seeing-the-face-of-God-in-a-child clichés. The camerawork is all over the place, favouring close-ups when none are required and occasionally shifting to shaky, hand-held shots, with disastrous results. The colour scheme is too dark, though even when you peer through, there's nothing of interest to see.
Furious 7
2015 · LiveMint · Apr 2015
An enjoyably silly movie, and a fitting send-off to Paul Walker...
Chappie
2015 · LiveMint · Mar 2015
Neill Blomkamp's latest is about thinking robots and unthinking humans...
NH10
2015 · LiveMint · Mar 2015
The violence which almost caused the censors to ban the film is still there, and very disturbing indeed. Yet, it doesn't feel like a put-on. There's no flamboyance to it; it isn't movie violence—which is why I have a small issue (oblique, spoiler) with the last-gasp attempt to feed the audience's need for retribution. It may have been dramatically necessary—every nerve in my body was crying out for it—but it was also slightly implausible. Still, this is a minor quibble.
Coffee Bloom
2015 · LiveMint · Mar 2015
This is Warrier's first feature, which might account for a couple of blind spots: too much holy-earth-karma blather on the voice-over, a bland soundtrack, touristy photography. Yet there are also moments when Coffee Bloom's characters access deep reserves of hurt and despair, which is when the film's bruised, beating heart is laid bare.
Gulabi Gang
2014 · TimeOut · Oct 2014
The film is genuinely entertaining, shot through with wry humour and an unblinkered view of life in rural India...
Om-Dar-Ba-Dar
2014 · TimeOut · Oct 2014
If only there'd been a little less invention and a little more organisation of thought, Om-Dar-Ba-Dar might actually have ended up the subversive masterpiece so many are convinced it is.
Children of War
2014 · May 2014
Like Madras Cafe last year, Children of War is a welcome indication that some Hindi filmmakers are starting to look outside India for stories. That Devvrat tackles his subject head-on is something else to feel encouraged about.
Ankhon Dekhi
2014 · TimeOut · Mar 2014
Ankhon Dekhi is unquestionably great, but don't take our word for it. See it, as Bauji would insist, with your own eyes.
Mr Joe B. Carvalho
2014 · TimeOut · Jan 2014
There is one truly bright spark in the film. Jaffrey's performance brings back memories of the time he turned a VJing gig into a variety show with Timex Timepass.