The ageless Jackie Chan pairs up with Johnny Knoxville in this cop-and-crook buddy action-adventure flick that, in terms of substance promises much, but due to its clichéd plot delivers little. Benny Chan (Chan) is a dedicated Hongkong detective bent on uncovering the identity of crime-boss Matador. Chan’s detective partner Yung (Eric Tsang) is despatched to…
The genre of a film is foretold by its actor. The English Jason Statham, one of the best known and highly paid stars of the action screen, reprises his 2011 Mechanic role, that of an assassin in this sequel five years later. Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham) is living a life in near anonymity in Rio,…
When the Chairperson of the Censor Board Pahlaj Nihalani endorses a film, the industry is all ears. ‘A Flying Jatt will create history and remind the viewer of (the 1975 sleeper hit) Jai Santoshi Maa’, the great man opines. But then, Nihalani forgets that history comes in various hues and disparate shapes and sizes. And…
The film is out, and so are the reviews and the verdict. While the critics’ reviews have been mixed, audience reactions in general have been encouraging. That the film is based on the celebrated Nanavati case was never in doubt. While the actual events of the late 50s and the early 60s had political undertones…
Originally planned to be titled ‘Dolly Lahore Mein’, ‘Happy Bhag Jayegi’ is a carefree, nonchalant film which promises much but fails to go the distance. Harpreet ‘Happy’ Kaur (Diana Penty) is a feisty and plucky bride-to-be who decides to play the vanishing trick on her wedding day in Amritsar. Jumping into a truck laden with…
[otw_shortcode_info_box border_style=”bordered” css_class=”boxed”]We Love Our Bollywood masala films and Bollywood loves us Parsees right back in return! Every once in a while do we get to see flicks portraying us. Parsi Times film critic Hoshang K. Katrak gives us a peek into a myriad choice of films which had a Parsee connection[/otw_shortcode_info_box] On Pateti, Navroze…
The only category left unexplored by the Filmfare folks is that of ‘Best Casting Director’. With Akshay Kumar in the eponymous Rustom, based on the celebrated Nanavati case of 1959, this lacuna should hopefully be addressed. But first things first. The film, ‘suggested by actual events’, bears striking resemblances to the incidents of the 1959…
The initials J B are not the only common denominator. If this, the latest Bourne film had the signature James Bond theme music during its opening credits, one could have forgiven the viewer in mistaking it for one. As action films go, Jason Bourne is right up there, but as thrillers go, it is a…
Whatever happened to the winsome comedies starring Boman Irani and Arshad Warsi, two of our most gifted comedians? That they both require a good script is stating the obvious—the Munnabhai films, Jolly LLB, where they shared screen space. Arshad Warsi is Michael Misra (yes, we are told the ‘h’ is absent), who is a wannabe…
Accompanying Jason Bourne this week in losing his memory is Armin Salem (Rajeev Khandelwal) who meets with a car accident on a lonely road in picturesque Switzerland. Attending to him there is Dr. David Roy (Victor Banerjee) who asks him all the right questions but fails to ignite his memory. ‘It’s a brain injury,’ the…
It was a term originally coined for cricketing greats such as Bradman, Gavaskar and Tendulkar. Budhia Singh, at the age of four, earned the epithet, ‘The Run Machine’, but with a literal connotation. Timed to release during the 2016 Rio Olympics, for which Budhia was trained and slated to run, the film is a sincere…