“Although the events are dangerously true, this is a work of fiction”. Reminiscing on the opening title-card of the film, one could have had absolutely no idea how ‘dangerous’ – fabled or not – it would turn out to be. And that, probably, would be the only prism through which the Indian censors would view…
Sequels are not always successful, despite the makers’ best commercial motives and despite how hard the storyline – and budget – is stretched! For those who missed out on the 2016 prequel, Harpreet ‘Happy’ Kaur (Diana Penty) was in the title role with Pakistan as the backdrop. This one shifts base to its more affluent…
Genre: Thriller Rating: 2/5 141 minutes Director: Milap Milan Zaveri Exiting the auditorium, one gets the clear impression of the producers sitting in their plush air-conditioned offices and glancing inquiringly at each other as if to say “Which story shall we lift now?” Replies one, “In two words — John Abraham. Let him do the…
Genre: Sports, Drama Rating: 3/5 154 minutes Director: Reema Kagti Referring to the benign Mr. Wadia, the Hockey Federation mogul, Tapanda utters thrice in the film “What a fine Parsee gentleman”! Spanning 12 years — from the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the 1948 Games, ‘Gold’ is the story of Tapan Das (Akshay Kumar) who…
Genre: Drama, Action, Thriller Rating: 2/5 145 minutes Director: Kamal Hassan ‘Collateral damage’, utters a minor character in the film a couple of times, which left me wondering whether he was referring to the fate of this film — directed, written and co-produced by Kamal Haasan. For those who missed the prequel in 2013 —…
Genre: Action, Comedy, Thriller. Rating: 2.5/5 117 minutes Director: Susanna Fogel Had it not been for the gory violence and almost continual action scenes, I would have been tempted to classify ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’ as a screwball comedy. A spin on the title of the 1977 ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (Roger Moore’s third…
Genre: Musical 114 minutes Rating: 2.5/5 Director: Ol Parker This sequel to the moderately successful ‘Mamma Mia’, almost exactly a decade ago, lives upto the promise of its sub-title ‘Here We Go Again’, literally and figuratively. Set in Greece (although filmed in Croatia) between 1979 and 2005, the sequel attempts to bridge the (generation) gap…
Genre: Drama Rating: 3.5/5 140 minutes Director : Anubhav Sinha If the first half set the tone with ‘Naach gaane ke liye theek hai, par hum khaana kahaan khaate hain inke yahaan?’ voiced by a Hindu guest at retired advocate Murad Ali Mohammed’s (Rishi Kapoor) 65th birthday party, the second half has the ‘hum aur…
Genre: Comedy Rating: 3.5/5 120 minutes Director: Akarsh Khurana Compared to the West, fewer road movies have been made here. One of the first, ‘Chori Chori’ was later remade as ‘Dil Hai Ke Maanta Nahi’. We had Mehmood’s ‘Bombay to Goa’ and Shahid-Kareena’s ‘Jab We Met ‘. But, as the saying goes, these are few…
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller Rating: 2.5/5 125 minutes Director: Tigmanshu Dhulia It took almost a half century to metamorphose Guru Dutt’s iconic title (thankfully not the film) ‘Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam’ 1962 to ‘Saheb, Biwi aur Gangster’ in 2011. A sequel ‘SBG Returns’ followed a couple of years later. The more-than-moderate success of the two…
A dialogue such as “There has never been peace without a great suffering” would surely seem out of place in an action thriller, especially when that film belongs to the MI franchise. Now, in its sixth instalment in 22 years and the longest, at 148 minutes, ‘MI-Fallout’ incorporates the best a JB (James Bond or Jason…