Shubhashish Bhutiani’s film undercuts its heavy subject with humour and grace…

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.

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.

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.

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.

The first Star Wars spinoff is an underwritten, unexciting plod through space…

They’re well-matched, these two actors, and it’s unfortunate that the material they’ve been handed is so slight.

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.

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 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.