Gandhari

“Gandhari is neither impactful nor believable. The film about a child sex trafficking ring run by devilish characters, upended by the mother as ultimate saviour, suffers from unoriginality and fails to deliver the emotional or narrative weight such serious subject matter demands.”

“If you like fast-paced murder, kidnapping mysteries and thrillers... I have never seen such a fierce side of Taapsee Pannu, she makes you emotional and also makes you cry.”

“Taapsee Pannu's rescue thriller unfolds like a 90s-style drama in search of a contemporary voice.”

“All of Gandhari's attempts to shroud itself in mystery are laughable. Despite a promising premise, the movie quickly devolves into manufactured thrills and illogical plot twists, sacrificing narrative sense for contrived revelations.”

“Gandhari is like a layer cake put together badly. There are layers upon layers... but the layers don't hold. The ingredients don't complement one another so much as jostle for attention. The result is neither particularly satisfying thriller nor convincing folk mystery, neither grounded crime drama nor fully realised mythological action film.”

“Gandhari takes a slightly different route, giving the familiar cat-and-mouse chase a twist. But does this mother's fight actually tug at the heartstrings? The thriller has the action but not enough emotion to truly land.”

“Gandhari is a shrill, blurry, barely coherent movie that's a strong contender for the year's worst Hindi film. The pacing is on its own trip entirely, racing to establish a barrage of details, rushing past characters, stopping for a scene or two before diving headfirst into the next messy montage.”

“Gandhari is a film that not only tests your patience but also exposes the extent to which a narrative can solely operate on smoke and mirrors. The script mostly tends to be superficial, with the buildup to the seemingly big twist tending to feel like much ado about nothing.”

“Gandhari attempts to subvert the typical Bollywood revenge trope, but it ends up more intellectually burdened than artistically elevated. The film tries to bring together director Devashish Makhija's realistic, socio-political minimalism and Kanika's commercial feminist template. However, as it turns out, it is bereft of tonal identity. Ultimately, Gandhari is consumed by its own contradictions.”