Vishal Menon
HollywoodReporterIndia·The Hindu·Film Companion·Indian Express
Vishal Menon is the Assoiciate Editor at The Hollywood Reporter, India.
Baby Girl
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia
There's a moral dilemma within Arun Varma's Baby Girl that deserved a much deeper film.
Vishwanath & Sons
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia
A plasticky family drama that is just about watchable thanks to Suriya's performance, with the overall impact largely depending on how you feel about Mamitha Baiju's acting.
Vaazha 2
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia
Adulting And All Its Moods In This Beautiful Bromance. The film surrounds itself with so much of the ordinary that the images we see on screen begin to feel like they are ours.
Once More
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia
To call Once More an intense love story would be to reduce it to just one aspect that make this film wonderfully frustrating.
I'm Game
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia
If the first half is a wildly original re-imagination of a film like 'Idle Hands', the second half is a cop-out based around broader aspects of SS Rajamouli’s 'Eega'.
Magudam
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia
40 minutes into the three-hour-long Magudam, you feel like there's almost nothing you've been told that matters to the larger plot.
Bethlehem Kudumba Unit
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia
Nivin Pauly and Mamitha Baiju's charm powers this ageless, age-gap romance.
Enna Vilai
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia
A promising premise and a reliable Karunas are let down by clumsy staging and a bloated, repetitive courtroom drama. As the film goes deeper into this debate, the legalese becomes so repetitive and uninspired that you feel like someone's reading out the case notes, as typed out by the court stenographer.
Unmadham
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia
A complex story about writer's block, stuck in a shoddy investigation drama.
Kalamkaval
2025 · HollywoodReporterIndia
Vinayakan is surely the film’s driving force, but Mammootty also shows us a side to him that we haven’t yet witnessed before
Guruvayoor Ambalanadayil
2024 · Film Companion
Basil and Prithviraj have their own chemistry going on, one that feels fresh and rewarding
DC
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Aug 2026
Where does one begin while setting out to describe the control Arun Matheswaran's exercises over his source material, in what is easily his most complete film?
Con City
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Jun 2026
The best parts of Con City are when it tries, quite successfully, to be a found family film. It has a gentle pace and takes its time to introduce us to its lead.
Drishyam 3
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia · May 2026
Mohanlal in all his elements in this mostly satisfying conclusion.
Patriot
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia · May 2026
Mammootty is charismatic in this complex thriller told with class.
Kara
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Apr 2026
A Heist Of The Highest Order Corners Itself Into Predictability
Made in Korea
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Mar 2026
Cultural appropriation seldom feels as inappropriate as it does in Made In Korea. Made In Korea is the most perfunctory a film could have been, given how it's made to cater to algorithms, with the connective tissue between scenes so awkward and implausible that it strains credibility.
With Love
2026 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Feb 2026
A tender Tamil rom-com that trades grand gestures for easy intimacy, finding modern love in friendship, comfort, and quiet honesty.
Dude
2025 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Oct 2025
Pradeep Ranganathan's Dude wants to be a self-aware romantic satire about love, ego and liberation, but its loud tone, chaotic twists and overcooked emotions leave you more exhausted than entertained.
Hridayapoorvam
2025 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Aug 2025
Hridayapoorvam is what you'd call a typical Sathyan Anthikad movie, and I mean this in the nicest way possible.
3BHK
2025 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Jul 2025
Armed with superb performances by the ensemble cast, Sri Ganesh's '3BHK' is full of emotions but never enters melodramatic territory.
Padakkalam
2025 · HollywoodReporterIndia · May 2025
There's an infectious amount of silliness in Padakkalam which makes this fantasy impossible to take seriously.
Good Bad Ugly
2025 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Apr 2025
The Ajith fanboy in Adhik Ravichandran ends up shooting so many references from the star's filmography at us, that he nukes the fourth wall and builds a grand tomb over it in 'Good Bad Ugly'.
Test
2025 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Apr 2025
What we're left with it, as we near the last day of the Test match, is a set of fascinating characters that deserved better writing, and a film in which they are allowed to move the plot — instead of remaining slaves to the plot itself.
Ponman
2025 · HollywoodReporterIndia · Jan 2025
A Stunning Basil Joseph Shines In This Stressful, High-Stakes Drama
Abraham Ozler
2024 · Film Companion · Jan 2024
... The movie sure offers a cinematic experience, but is that enough?
Vishwaroop 2
2018 · The Hindu · Aug 2018
...too dialogue-heavy for an action thriller...
Kaala
2018 · The Hindu · Jun 2018
...an underwhelming film made for Rajinikanth, the politician
Pelé: Birth of a Legend
2016 · Indian Express · May 2016
All too linear and straightforward. Pele: Birth of a Legend, is a glorious opportunity missed. It had all the ingredients for a humongous biopic. With Pele, the canvas was always going to be broad. But the simplistic treatment, followed by the feeble performances by the cast, makes this film a huge let down.
Sethupathi
2016 · The Hindu · Feb 2016
Sethupathi is one of those films with a second half so good that you are willing to forgive it its first-half flaws. Vijay Sethupathi, who we last saw playing a rowdy in Naanum Rowdy Dhaan, shows that he can be just as good playing a character on the other side of the law.
Uppu Karuvaadu
2015 · The Hindu · Nov 2015
One wonders what these ideas could have been with better execution, with a bit of craft. There's so much good material, so many interesting characters, so many funny ideas…but they remain mere ideas as we watch Uppu Karuvadu.
Hero
2015 · The Hindu · Sep 2015
It's rather surprising that Salman Khan, given his present form, has chosen to produce such an insincere film. What do you call a film even Salman Khan can't save? Hero.
All Is Well
2015 · The Hindu · Aug 2015
All is Well is the kind of film you want to show to that relative who assumes it's easy to watch movies for a living.
Hamari Adhuri Kahani
2015 · The Hindu · Jun 2015
...could still have an audience considering the lady sitting next to me was sobbing during the climax, but given how the three youngsters sitting in front of me were constantly on their phone, it is perhaps a story that would have been best left untold.
Bombay Velvet
2015 · The Hindu · May 2015
In one of the most spectacular-looking Hindi films in recent times, Kashyap transports us effortlessly to a different age and time. Despite pacing issues, the tendency to overstate the obvious and an inconsequential Tommy gun shootout, the film stands true to an indie filmmaker's idea of a blockbuster. The film is every cinematic cliché and so much more. It is every crime movie you have already seen but so much more.
Vai Raja Vai
2015 · The Hindu · May 2015
With Vai Raja Vai, Aishwaryaa has gone unapologetically commercial and this time, her protagonist, Karthik (Gautham Karthik) suffers (or should I say gains?) from a Nostradamus-like power to predict. As I walk out of the theatre, I can't help but feel that her second film too suffers from bipolar disorde
Ungli
2014 · The Hindu · Nov 2014
With its incoherent subplots and all its silly dialogues that would embarrass even David Dhawan's dialogue writer, Ungli becomes a shadow of what it could have been.
Happy Ending
2014 · The Hindu · Nov 2014
The promos -- with its kitschy Paaji Tussi Such a Pussycat song -- promised a quirky entertainer from the makers of the poignant Shor in the City and the fun Go Goa Gone. But what it becomes, at the end of it, is the kind of film it thinks it's making fun of.