Editor's Reviews
In-depth reviews by our experts 🔮
Manjummel Boys
"What particular genres Indian movies always failed to put a flag on? Sci fi and Survival thriller. Now, sci fi is totally understandable. Needs money and technological advancement with leaps beyond vision and risk taking. But, survival thrillers have nature as a character element, and every industry in India has historically been failing to make strides in that. Vikramaditya Motwane directed Trapped and i liked it but a skyscraper is hardly a character. But, Kerala movie industry has been doing…"
Love Lies Bleeding
"Saint Maud director's modern retelling of Thelma and Louise where corrosive masculinity gets crushed in a chokehold of hyper-feminist biceps. One of these days, Kristen Stewart is gonna clinch the statue but a conflagrant Katy O'Brian blazes on in this dark romantic thriller."
Madgaon Express
"One has to hand it to the critics who claimed after watching this movie that comedy in Bollywood was somehow back. On the contrary, this movie is actually an explanation as to why we may never return to the glory days of comedy once singlehandedly shouldered by Priyadarshan. A pathetic attempt to encash the nostalgia with cheap parlor tricks and Kunal Khemu, the director here did not even attempt to hide those nostalgic elements cleverly in references or easter eggs…"
The Spectacular Now
"Miles Teller's most impactful role before Damien Chazelle enters into the scene. With an amazingly grounded performance by Shailene Woodley. A lesson in the importance of the presence of a father figure in a young man's life. Very tender and underrated. Not just any ordinary coming-of-age love story. A male equivalent story to The Edge of Seventeen. A24 never disappoints."
Late Night with the Devil
"Watched with an expectation of a unique horror premise, stayed for the brilliant acting by David Dastmalchian. His first movie as a leading actor and he delivers, although the movie after a while falls flat with a great ending nonetheless."
Cat Person
"A better than average movie with good performances but the message felt a little out of place. About consent, fear of rejection, stalking, miscommunication and imagining worse in people. The thriller elements were well designed, giving it a new spin when it comes to the usual trope of men being creeps and women victims. Here, it becomes way more complicated with life changing consequences."
Dune: Part Two
"Prophecy, Messiah, Revenge, War, Peace, Power. A meandering first act, an interesting second act with exponential growth in characters, and then chooses to go down the path of least resistance. I mean, Game of Thrones handled the elements way better barring the ending. GoT's creators didn't come off well under the maxim- All's well that ends well. On a visual level, there is no doubt that the movie is cinematic, majestically cinematic. But, that's the technical, vision-driven and the VFX…"
Sing Street
"Rebel with a cause. A band of misfits that can force other bands to pack up and go home. Found family dynamics plus all the dysfunctions of a real family. The songs just act like an antidote. A coming-of-age story while walking on a guitar string, looking across the sea waiting for the right opportunity to fly away."
Lost Ladies
"What makes Laapataa Ladies special compared to let's say a progressive feminist adventure of a movie like- Queen? While Queen did break barriers and showed its protagonist as a fish out of water and then getting the lay of the land and gaining agency, it was mostly about following one woman's journey with a fairly upper social status, after all 65% of the Indian populace lives in village and almost all of them would never make a inter-state journey, let…"
Baby Reindeer
"People keep asking me why I haven't said anything about this seven-episode show. Is it because it reflects the abuse men have to endure in a society where the scale of justice is skewed towards women? And the answer is- No. To be frank, I binge-watched this limited TV show in one day a month back and it gave me such a level of PTSD that I haven't experienced lately while watching something. While it was the most traumatic and…"
Animal
""Women care not for beauty; they have no regard for age; be he handsome or ugly, they enjoy the man simply because he is a male." (Manusmriti 9:14). Where women are honored, divinity blossoms there and wherever women are dishonored, all actions no matter how noble it may be, remains unfruitful. (The Same Manusmriti 3:56). Since a woman is not capable of living independently, she is to be kept under the custody of her father as a child, under her…"
Jawan
"And I thought Karan was an overrated smarmy cultist leader, turns out his brother Arjun is even a bigger one. An overindulgent self-absorbed false king of Bollywood fights a cartoonish villain that you can find in Japanese manga series, and like Morpheus he has a red pill and a blue pill. Atlee is so confident, he has managed to make a remake from previous Bollywood movies like- Nayak and Gabbar with hollowed out actors and actresses. Turns out the ladies…"
2018
"2024's Oscar submission from India, while impressed me in the category of special effects and sound mixing and editing, it fails to impress me as a disaster survival drama. It amplifies the emotions of people from all social status irrespective of their caste, creed and religion coming together to help each other to win over nature's wrath and there lies the triumph of life over despair. But, it grossly misses out on the massive destruction and death that flood inflicted…"
Navalny
"The story of the bravest dissident since Snowden who not only stared down the face of pure evil but also made it blink. This documentary is an emotional one since we now know what happened to Navalny this year but at the time this one got released and while sweeping award ceremonies including the best documentary feature 2023, the makers along with Navalny's family, his lawyers and colleagues would have had no idea that 2024 would be the stopping point…"
The End We Start From
"Mahalia Belo's ecological dystopia that left me restless and anxious in the first half and then becomes this beacon of joy and full of optimism in the second half. After the apocalyptic dust settles, what's left for the characters to face the music becomes so devastating in this movie that there isn't enough time remains even for shedding two drops of tears. And still, the female protagonist faces the music with a smile on her lips and dance in her…"
Kadaisi Vivasayi
"And just like that Kadaisi Vivasayi became my favorite South Indian movie of all time. What the hell! I am gonna go out on a limb here and claim that it is the greatest movie from any Indian industry I have ever come across. Is it about nature? Is it about arid farmland and drought? Is it about the beasts of burden? Is it about potters and masons and the scarcity and government regulations of soil and mud? Is it…"
Chup
"Probably the most incredibly stupidest Bollywood movie I have watched in recent years. That says a lot considering it is directed by R Balki who is known for his experimental ideas for scripts, even his movie titles have been eccentric. But lately with multiple failures he now comes after the critics through the script of this movie instead of working on his writing. Dulquer Salmaan is among the actors of South who have a wooden acting face among others in…"
Kumbalangi Nights
"A movie on the celebration of brotherhood and about learning both the joy and sorrow which come part and parcel with the new ways of life, while along the way a couple of children turn into men. A movie that will instantly make you fall in love with not only the mesmerizing countryside Kerala and as the official state tourism tagline correctly advertises- God's Own Country but also with the verities of people of Kerala. And somewhere in all this,…"