Editor's Reviews
In-depth reviews by our experts 🔮
Disclosure Day
"The Second Coming of Virtually Nothing or maybe just multiple Pauls. You've gotta be kidding me. That's it? What's with all the hype about how the OG Spielberg is finally back!! Vince Gilligan has already done a phenomenal job with Pluribus. Spielberg is just catching dirt following Gilligan while not being able to get his Ready Player One monkey off of him. He mixes it all up with a little bit of The X-Files and Fringe and viola, we have ourselves a bit of everything from Close Encounters and E.T. to Artificial Intelligence and Minority Report nostalgia going on with hints of Shyamalan. It's all jumbled in the end. Steven goes full on David Wilcock mode and the conspiracist MJ-12, Ufologist route along with Reddit subculture. Advocate of what is known as the Disclosure Movement Stephen Greer once claimed, "aliens are here to help us and the military-industrial complex is hyping their danger and creating the U.S. Space Force to prepare for interplanetary war", and films such as Independence Day are indicative of "a false narrative created by covert groups striving to generate fear of ETs". It looks like Spielberg took heavy inspiration from that. The conspiracy angle doesn't hold up because the concept itself has been out there for quite some time and therefore, looking pretty worn-out by now. So many fascinating and exhilarating things beyond comprehension were happening along with surprising addition of some of the devil-may-care stunt works yet the main plot itself was very flat riddled with contrived magic from the philosophy of one of those mediocre 2000s science fiction tv shows or those ludicrous documentaries about first contact.Apart from the empathy booster shots Spielberg wants to inject into us which if I may say so is very timely and topical along with the patently varying views different people hold about how to operate under a specific conundrum, the skeletal framework of a science fiction which is to fundamentally challenge us by knocking the socks off of us while relish in the awe and wonder of a fresh idea never been experienced before. That whole element was missing. Highly disappointed with this one even though the direction, performances and all the technical details meet the right marks as per the required Spielberg standards. I get it with the Congressional hearings on the UAPs and the supposed evidence for the retrieved extraterrestrial biologics, excitements have been ripe and are hardly containable but this isn't the way. I expected something akin to Arrival given all the hullabaloo but this definitely ain't it. I thought I would never say this and hoped this day would never come. But, here we are. It physically pains me to admit that Disclosure Day is not just one of my worst experiences while watching a Spielberg movie but also it's one of the most mediocre sci-fi movies of all time filled with outdated story devices and trite unoriginal foundational quotients. Even if it all follows this particular fate, it's cute that one of the most proficient, accomplished and venerated directors of modern cinema thinks it's gonna be that easy and smooth. This new first contact film is a wet dream for the conspiracy theorists and it's majorly mundane and uneventful. It's definitely not the return of the OG Spielberg, not even remotely close, rather it's a downgrade."
The Peanut Butter Falcon
"About a couple of old souls that long ago got left behind somewhere on this godforsaken rock where wild, wild flowers used to grow... This was back when Shia LaBeouf had us fooled that this woe is me act was just for the screen and in real life he was pretty well adjusted and a decent guy. Weirdly enough The Peanut Butter Falcon has the colors and themes of Mud with hints of early days Terence Malick in it while having the foundations of The Hunt for Wilder People, The Kings of Summer, Brigsby Bear and Leave No Trace."
How to Make a Killing
"Alright there Tom Ripley's second cousin twice removed, this is supposed to be a confession not a chronicle. Is this pseudo-postmodernist way is how we need a story on the sin of avarice to counter the grand narrative and the spiralling down path of the star-spangled awesome winner-take-all dog-eat-dog world parallel to our morally bankrupt systems to design a makeover of the current trend of eat-the-rich? ....And Whitelaw Redfellow!! It's virtually impossible to blow anymore than that going two for two with both the name and the surname. Given the way Elon has been spreading his franchise, it wouldn't be too far to imagine something like this coming for him in 30 years. Also, color me full circle, banal and blatant and please, help me with this. How is this any different from the principal premise of Nightmare Alley? Not even gonna dignify with a Kind Hearts and Coronets reference."
Sambhavam Adhyayam Onnu
"Time is not just a flat circle in Sambhavam Adhyayam Onnu, it's a spiral one. This is what Ram Gopal Verma's disastrous Agyaat should have been and what could have been recently, if Bhooth Bangla had two brain cells to rub together. I can see why this movie created a buzz due to its intriguing quotient of the occult and yes, it takes a bold step given the style of consumer demographic Indian industry attracts but Sambhavam Adhyayam Onnu mixes it up with the recurrent themes from Triangle, Dark, Caddo Lake, 1899, Jules Verne and H. G. Wells novels. But, you gotta hand it to Mollywood for constantly and doggedly trying to apply imaginative concepts instead of those worn-out trash giant Industries with the means have long been mired in. Even with the process involving what may arguably be called upcycling, this regional film industry stands tall and shines. This supernatural mystery thriller has a desi spin on Lost but it also stands on its own although with a hackneyed folklore as foundation woven out of ancient mythology but also it's its own thing with an elevated plot design that resembles puzzle solving. It's quite evident from the beginning that a salient section of the overall theme tries hard to be the wonderfully brilliant 2021 science fiction horror Churuli by Lijo Jose Pellissery but it's nowhere near that one. Still, for the initiation of a large swathe of the audience who want to dip their toes in this "Time as a Muse" concept will most definitely find this film mind-bending and enthralling. It has the convoluted potency to plunge you into the abyss of utter madness even though it uses upcycled materials long been used outside the boundary of our nation. However, salutations must be in order for at least attempting to measure something of this scale and magnitude. I hope the Malayalam industry keeps up this appeal of an inquiring mind and the sponge never dries up. The underlying idea behind the allegory is simple yet profound- if blood spills on hallowed ground, time will make it so to exact untamed revenge on generations to come. The only way out is through the contraption of trauma and traps. And of course, the lesson at the top- Crows are intelligent creatures, piss 'em off at your own risk."
Backrooms
"Instead of a carnival, if the belly of a whole new kind of beast had an abandoned mall as its chambers. Trippy hypnotic horror swallows you into a gradual onset of psychogenic fugue yet by the time it ends, you realize you haven't even figured out what subgenre to put it under. Yet Backrooms somehow resembles so much of something out of an Adam Neville novel but not quite. Ejiofor locks in, eyes on the target. But, the issue remains as it has been with many of the movies in the horror genre. They first set the premise, make a mental map or a mnemonic system, fill in the design, create this giant and rather than placing the characters inside that design, rather make the design itself all about the characters. With that formula, the sense of immeasurability and incomprehensiveness vanishes, the scope pruned limited. The 'cosmic' part of the horror gets boxed into familiar themes like- personal trauma, loneliness, history of abuse, guilt-ridden conscience, letting go of the burden yada yada yada and thus doesn't remain cosmic at all. The fear of the unknown gets molded into something we quite perfectly know. It's like a David Cronenberg film, only the surrealism itself gets represented onto the screen vividly. This feature-length version tries too much to make sense of a USP that relished in exactly the opposite of that. P.S.- As a man from Odisha, I can't fully express how very surprised I was to hear a few Odia words in a Hollywood movie."
The Furious
"Supposed to be the action movie of the year. Supposedly aims to cross the limits of Monkey Man meeting The Man from Nowhere, let alone the Raid movies. But, by the sharp jagged edges of broken glasses, I kid you not when I say how funny the action sequences were. Even though I am a huge admirer of the quintessential Hong Kong style bullet ballet rhythmic gun-fu and martial arts choreography. This was excessively dramatic, cartoonish, grandiloquent and requires quite a higher threshold of suspension of disbelief. Violent, bloody and brutal, sure. Imaginative and unique, Nope. Didn't work for me."
Ikka
"A soap opera styled legal drama that's not only an affront to the Code of ethics and conduct for advocates under the Advocates Act of 1961 but also a minor backsliding of the much warranted courtroom realism Bollywood has gained lately. Akshaye Khanna refuses to budge from his stuck key as Rehman Dakait and Sunny Deol, well, he remains committed to his Tara Singh bit in this legal thriller that reminded me of the soap operas I used to watch as a kid with my family, the ones with dramatic music and unrealistic set pieces as court houses with the most ludicrous dialogues that would warrant immediate contempt proceedings against the law officers (Funnily enough, both the actors were at a pivotal stage in their careers while being part of Border; Deol right there in the midpoint of his and Khanna right at the beginning of a milestone, although Akshaye has since come a long way from the days of Deewangee while also choosing a role like this to underline the other side of Section 375). Even for Sunny paaji's standards, Ikka has one too many finger wagging and fist slamming going on. Bollywood being Bollywood couldn't let go of its trademark effusiveness, melodramatic hand-wringing and a score that is very on par with that melodrama. Characters would be trying coats in front of mirrors with the most sweeping theatrically energetic and grandiose music blasting from the background like it's not a courtroom drama/ investigative thriller, rather a movie from the Mad Max franchise."
Assi
"Assi has dragon's breath. For the entirety of it's runtime it fumingly snarls. Ultimately, a director cracked. Guessing that director would be Anubhav Sinha of all people was never on my list. I guess he has had it up to his neck dealing with nuanced conversations and having civil discourse. Giving a Gabbar Is Back/Bhavesh Joshi treatment to a sensitive topic would be an easy way out of a complex problem. Sinha rounds up his usual band of collaborators in this investigative/legal crime thriller that is horrendously detailed to the point of leaving you winced where the process of justice lays asunder after filtered through several layers of muck. Assi is clinical, painstakingly itemized and analytical and there lies the rub. The trade-off between subtlety and shock value drawn from the bestial nature of savagery, the product of an aggressive form of masculine power trip that doesn't take consequentiality into account let alone moral imperative is the issue with the film here. But, at the same time Mr. Sinha also puts a fair bit of thematic underpinnings catering to the casual toxicity that seeps from the closest ones in the family and from acquaintances and society as a whole. The close-up shots were pretty on the nose, the dialogues unabashed, undisguised and bracingly pointed conveying the distressing elements that gradually weigh as much on the characters as on us audiences. A jarring experience. Overall, in an era of post Pink and Delhi Crime, it's natural to expect more corrugation when it comes to similar premises, more complexity, more sensitivity and the ever-changing challenges associated with such cases as per the ground reality. Unfortunately, all of these were just glossed over because much of the focus was zeroed in on the heinousness of the crime itself and character-specific adversities, for the perps it was just a hitch. All in all, we have incessantly been consuming this diet of how the path that leads to the travesty of justice goes. It's just that even though the maker's and cast's hearts were in the right place, Assi leaves more to be desired or should I say- More to be dreaded and frowned upon!! Or the topically worrying question- Have we gone numb because of the incidence rate of such unsettling depravity and the propensity of how shamefully the rest of the community behave around these "incidents"? Except for Kani Kusruti and Satyajit Sharma's performances, everyone else feels tepid. P.S.- While that Chhole-bhature metaphor was very ballsy and spot on reflects the repugnant mindset, What's up with the raag aalaap in the background when there is an abhorrently disturbing scene transpiring right on the screen!!!! For a sensitive subject about savagery, Sinha chooses sensational with brief moments of sanity."
La Jetée
"The aestheticization of dread and longing with a sense of awe and wonder at the precipice of memories and existence while looking through a slide projector. The arrow of time and ontological paradox condensed behind the eye lens. Mere words aren't eligible to describe La Jetée. Ineffable."
Raakh
"Amazon's semi-fictional Raakh starring Ali Fazal, a remarkable Akash Makhija, Ramandeep Yadav, Sonali Bendre along with Aamir Bashir and Rakesh Bedi is as dry and beige as perusing through the docket of the infamous Ranga-Billa kidnapping-murder case. A tad bit out-of-touch in terms of its drama and performances across the board, the webseries tries to bounce around among mourning in the aftermath of the crime, the technical investigative procedural part of it, the back and forth between the flashbacks and the investigation, interpersonal relationships of the characters and how the high-profile case caused distress and rather boldly portrayal of the very rare aspect of how poverty perpetuates vicious crimes. It is quite undoubtedly the situation here that this one unapologetically tries to follow Delhi Crime but fails on multiple fronts despite being gloomily atmospheric. I don't get this fascination with the industry about this particular case. Even after the two episodes of Crime Patrol, one Black Warrant episode, it seems people are still not over this. Apart from being a case associated with the upper echelon, the then PM Morarji Desai's personal interest in it and a panic-stricken environment during those days in Delhi, the case was pretty straight forward cookie cutter crime. A heavily embellished account of a rather simple enough kidnapping-murder true story of the late 70s."
Obsession
"Some kind of psilocybin-induced parallel world that branched out from 500 Days of Summer into the horror genre and years later vindicates as to why JGL was right about audiences completely misunderstanding that 2009 romantic drama. Blumhouse Productions' new horror doesn't just induce unsettling dreadfulness, it also in the most twisted sense shapes a commentary about personal agency, power imbalance in relationships and how an unhealthy degree of fixation can intrude and then corrode someone's mind. Despondently enough Obsession also forces you to marshal empathy for the feckless as he realizes the cliched meaning of what true love is supposed to be instead of the industry's recent fascination with the all-consuming, ever-enveloping kind. Shots framing and Blocking in this one is absolutely crazy and has no chill at all. The more the scenes linger, the spookier it becomes. Additionally, the score and the sound mixing left me terror-stricken. A nerve-rattling tribute to W.W.Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw and special shoutout to Inde Navarrette for her future endeavors."
Akira
""Complete Surrender", says the new God. It's like Harlan Ellison wrote his surrealistic version of Project Sentry that was too imaginative in scale to be adapted by Hollywood. I am sure stories about how this story materialized, must have been written as legends somewhere; this one was so far ahead of its time. Viewers who gave lukewarm responses to Luc Besson's Lucy did so maybe because they were comparing that with something unscalable which got released 26 years earlier. Now, it feels like I am up to speed and kinda see their point. What amazed me the most was how this late 80s anime tackled the concept of- Whether one deifies and kneels before this pure energy or revolts against it to keep the matter surrounding us humans intact, the energy itself which it drives from this fundamental forces of cosmic horror doesn't care. Facing the sheer nature of boundless energy eye to eye, how borders, ideologies and social hierarchies melt before it because everything we hold dear to including emotions, values, love, loss, despair, trauma and others, everything and quite literally anything is just fodder for it. The best way to explain Akira is- It's like conducting a bhajan ceremony or putting your house in order at the precipice of existence while a massive black hole is engulfing everything around you on the horizon. At the current juncture of stunting and wasting of the superhero genre that's been going on lately, this is the superhero movie I have been searching for which came from the late 80s in the form of anime."
The Sheep Detectives
"A parable within a parable. Kyle Balda, the Illumination and Pixar animator/director comes to the rescue in these circumstances when Hollywood this year is having a dearth of decent animated movies. The Sheep Detective is full of mirth, humor and uplifting features where the talking animals resemble more of what humanity has since lost. I know we have our doubts due to the infamous debacle of 2020's Dolittle but clubbing The Sheep Detectives with those fluff pieces would be a misreading because it also has its own doughnut hole alongside the usual animals-seeking-adventure-plot with self-aware comedy scattered here and there. It's what could have been if Pedro Pascal's Joel had opened a sheep ranch. Also, Brett Goldstein as a voice actor is too hilarious to be sleeping on this one."
Voicemails for Isabelle
"Here is an idea. Why not clip montage all the references and run it like a movie!! Except they do it everyday on YouTube. Do yourself a favor and binge-watch Somebody Somewhere instead."
Sorry, Baby
"Earnest. Sensible. Proportionate. Writer-Director Eva Victor's solemnly muted performance pays homage to Virginia Wolf and Nabokov. For a sensitive topic, it's a breath of fresh air to watch how unhurried and with measured humor Sorry, Baby was served. The pain and the trauma can be seen behind her eyes but not in a transparent sense often meant through discernible expressions. The discreet pressurized force of PTSD reminds me of Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret meets a softened version of I May Destroy You. Extra credits for casting John Carroll Lynch."
Stolen
"Infant abduction and mob lynching get an upgraded NH10 treatment in this brutally grim thriller directed by a debutant with enough camera and sound design skills to put seasoned veterans to shame. There is nothing like an Indian film where two dysfunctional siblings get thrown into the wringer to figure out brotherhood and the dark side of an impoverished morally bankrupt part of the seedy underbelly of society."
Maa Behen
"Maa Behen explores why is it that 'Witch' isn't a gender-neutral term and modesty, shame, decency, grace and a host of other words come hyphenated only to women. Just when Madhuri Dixit tries to catch her mid-age Tabu moment, Tripti Dimri snatches the spotlight onto herself in this self-aware tongue-in-cheek Black comedy thriller straight out of the pages of Darlings, Monica, O My Darling, Blackmail and Sunflower that couldn't get its head straight whether to focus on its feminist theme of male gaze, misogyny, servitude, intrusive neighbors incapable of minding their own businesses while weaving out of their rumor mills, the proverbial sword hanging over single women and the media trials while cracks in solidarity start to show up or on its hoodwink plot that beguiles women as characterless temptresses that turns its bamboozling shenanigans into rigmarole rather than a clever deceit. P.S.- Still, Maa Behen towers over its contender Booth Bangla vis-a-vis comedic timing and snappy repartee with solid metaphor placements of blouses, boxer briefs and funnily enough a sleazy soundtrack, ludo, one black cat and marigold. With names out of the famous Nirma ad, it keeps its humor in the gray while the plot gets spread thin."
Bhooth Bangla
"A misfire of an attempt to reenact the glory days of Bhool BhulaiyaaPriyadarshan's latest horror comedy is as outdated as its 100 rupee note bundles and the fedora Akshay keeps wearing. One could complain about a hundred different things in Bhoot Bangla, from its recycled materials to its forced call backs to the director's own works to the desperate nature of humor, but out of all the gripes, I don't understand why the filmmaker chose the Soap Opera Effect for frame rate and motion smoothing. Everyone and I mean everyone seems off and generally it's very fitting for Bollywood to act above the limits of grounded reality but here, it felt like none of their heads are in the game. Makes you reminisce what we all have collectively lost since the days of Bhool Bhulaiyaa. Another issue is this unnatural fixation of having the runtime to be stretched out unnecessarily to the point of inefficiency and ineffectuality. Maybe Bollywood has been inundated and therefore saturated with the grimoire, royal and regal, mythology, curse and folklore as of late due to the success of Tumbbad and Stree, and it's time to go back to more of the urban settings, like- 13B, Bhoot, Raaz, Kaun? etc. As a bonus, they should also do away with this archaic reincarnation-rebirth doppelganger recipe. But, still whatever this is, it is better than the path the rest of the Bhool Bhulaiyaa and Maddock franchise have since chosen post-originals."