Editor's Reviews
In-depth reviews by our experts 🔮
Mast Mein Rehne Ka
"A movie which if watched on a rainy day, could make rocks and robots cry and smile. It has the power to rekindle the dying fire that is humanity in the hearts of cynics and nihilists to the similar effect that once The Lunchbox had. For even an emotionless heart, which I often have been accused of like a stranded ship drifting in the dark ocean at night, this moving beams like a lighthouse and coming from me, that is…"
Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani
"Take a syringe and test me for diabetes. Karan Johar's assault on all that is toxic about the conformity in traditional family dynamics and the so-called golden generation's styles. This movie is an antidote to movies like Animal. Having said that, movies like these are why I have never been a sucker for romantic movies, despite the fact that i like the second half leaving aside its heavy-handed approach of forceful assertion of men getting comfortable with lingerie and bashing…"
Ustad Hotel
"First, the good. In addition to the flavourful flooding in the mouth and colorful explosion in the mind because of this Anwar Rasheed movie written by the talented Anjali Menon it leaves a traditional old sense of feel good and happy ending which was used to be the climax of Rajesh Khanna starred movies and Sooraj Barjatya's Rajshri Productions. What stands out for is the warm grandfather-grandson relationship. The answer to the question- 'Where did all the wise old men…"
12th Fail
"This movie was off to a great start and then just after the first act the makers decided to take a turn which was more of a Dharma Production bent rather than the grind surrounding the grunt work of a poor young man. As if all the curve balls life threw at the man in terms of familial responsibilities, father's struggle and mother's labour were not enough, it still went on to add some chat masala by invoking a love…"
Madras Cafe
"Second watch. When I watched this movie in a theater, I didn't care much for it. Sircar was a newcomer and yet to find his spot as a critically acclaimed director. But, now that i sufficiently know the background behind the longest Civil War in history and how intelligence failure led to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, I could appreciate this movie more to its intended depth. It was a meticulously made intense war/spy thriller for a year like 2013…"
The Kashmir Files
"Whatever my analysis of this movie is going to be it's gonna look like one-sided and that's because it was designed that way by the creators themselves to cease any shred of nuance from a complex historical and cultural war that has been fought in the once heaven of India since the 13th or 14th century. Therefore, I will mostly stick to the technical aspects of the movie. First thing first. The color and cinematography have a strong resemblance with…"
Road House
"This movie could have had guilty pleasure written all over it, but unfortunately it didn't make me guilty nor did it give me any pleasure. How much does it move plot-wise? Not much. Except for the disorienting camera angles, there is nothing here. It is probably the worst Jake Gyllenhaal movie since Prince of Persia and Ambulance and let me tell you it is worse than Ambulance. A stoic Buddha like veteran UFC fighter goes on a savior journey western…"
I May Destroy You
"Different colors and shades of a victim who is a fighter and all different kinds of people around her. Into the rabbit hole of trauma, revisit, state machinery, possibility and imagination of revenge, reenactment and closure or the lack of it."
Murder Mubarak
"Big Eat The Rich moment for Bollywood. I don't know why Merry Christmas got so hyped, maybe because of Raghavan's reputation, whereas this is the movie which should have garnered the buzz. By no means, it's an extraordinarily perfect murder mystery movie because it comes undoubtedly with a plot hole or two and got mired with an oversimplified twist at the end while the entire screenplay was forging something convoluted, but it is good, if not better than good. Takes…"
Merry Christmas
"Director- Sriram Raghavan. A movie that tries to be really clever with too little of a nonlinear plot peppered with very wooden performances. In fact, Vijay Sethupathi's performance was so wooden that he made Katrina Kaif look like Meryl Streep. As it is now clear that director Sriram Raghavan has a thing for French cinema, short films and French literature. The mind-blowing previous venture of his, Andhadhun was an inspiration from L'Accordeur, a 10-minute short film which he brilliantly added…"
OMG 2
"Satyam Shivam Sundaram. A well-intentioned movie which is not just a movie, it's an instrument for a cause and it's a fight. After all, the word conservative comes with a 'con' in it. That's the flight against. In a country, where every other movie has scenes of somebody slapping across the face of somebody else and nobody wags a finger because it has been so entrenched as an entitled of norm, this movie makes slaps taboo and makes taboo like…"
Revenge
"2017. A trippy, euphoric, bloody, brutal, violent rape revenge thriller filled with high octane drug-induced hallucinatory cat and mouse chase. Elevated by practical visuals and special effects, this movie is a no brainer, but in terms of color grading, camera works, music and makeup, it gives an escape medium like the title suggests."
Darlings
"It's the best Bollywood movie I have seen this year. If you want to know what happened to Kabir Singh after that movie ends, it's the follow-up. It takes a lot of nerves to satirize a topic of intimate partner violence. It answers very accurately why women go back to trap themselves even after they encounter domestic violence. There is no doubt in my mind now that Shefali Shah is the greatest actress of our generation and she is not…"
To Kill a Tiger
"Can anybody kill a tiger on his own? This year's Academy nominated documentary feature will forever go down on my list of most remarkable things I have ever watched that have come out of India. This documentary will hit you like a tree trunk and it shows where exactly we are lagging behind when it comes to POCSO cases. Writer-Director Nisha Pahuja's might is hard-hitting and palpable throughout its 2-hr runtime. She has shown tremendous fortitude while shooting an obscure…"
A River Runs Through It
""Eventually, all things merge into one and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters." How can any movie with those lines be a bad one? Brad Pitt's career has been the most fascinating one compared to his contemporaries, such…"
Joe Bell
"A sorrowful heartrending true story in which a father with traditional masculine traits makes a thousand mile journey all the way from Oregon to New York to figure out why homophobia and bullying is still a thing. In the end it has a message regarding an age old question- "what does it mean to be a man?". While the movie is emotionally very time bound, it misses all its marks due to straightforward ordinary screen writing. Instead the real story…"
Black Friday
"2nd watch. Banned and then got released in 2007. After the first film directed by Anurag Kashyap named Paanch got banned and Gulaal got mired in a long legal battle, one month before the release of his third movie Gulaal the director got the news that that one too was in the talks of getting proscribed and Kashyap was in suit to go for the premier and it weighed so heavy on him that for a month he didn't get…"
Tamasha
"The fractured psyche of Ranbir finally snaps to find his inner Neo and yank it out from the shell of Mr. Anderson. A well-meant concept gets directionless with cliched old recycled plot instruments. It's like Imtiaz Ali took the snippets and summary points of Wake Up Sid, Love Aaj Kal, Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani and 3 Idiots, put them in a pressure cooker and gave 3 to 4 whistles. One can clearly see the point by point allusions of this…"