Just a tip: a couple – make that a handful – of tissues always come in handy when watching films on destitute quadrupeds. Based on the book by W Bruce Cameron, who’s also written ‘A Dog’s Journey’ (due out later this year) – the follow-up to his immensely successful ‘A Dog’s Purpose’ (2017) – it…
When Dr. Strange utters ‘We’re in the endgame now’, in the closing stages of Infinity War (2018), it’s possible that a few viewers would have guessed the title of this, the 22nd in the series. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo along with previous collaborators, have attempted a closure of sorts in this three-hour epic. The backstory…
Firstly, classics – and this one claims to be an official remake of the 1980 Saeed Mirza original – are to be left well alone. Secondly, one wonders why this has been tagged as the ‘official remake’. There are few, if any, similarities – the essence of the two films being the angst and the…
Fifty-three years may not be a long time to reopen a case involving the — mysterious, no doubt — death of India’s second Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. That he was grossly underestimated and has been almost obliterated from public memory is borne out with the film repeatedly reminding us that though he too was…
No prizes for guessing why, but films on politics, national fervour and patriotism seem to be the flavour of the season, and the rule rather than the exception. RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), the abbreviation of the film’s title, begins with black-and-white frames of an agent being brutally tortured in an ISI detention cell. Mercifully,…
The brutal killing of Australian Graham Staines, along with his two young sons Philip (10) and Timothy (6) in Odisha, allegedly at the behest of a political party and because of forced conversions and those done through inducements, had rocked the nation — and caused a backlash worldwide — back in 1999. Two decades later, first-time…
Going… going… gone! It’s literally a hair-raising experience when the departing substance refers to a female’s tresses, which, in some cultures and societies, is her most treasured asset. ‘Gone Kesh’ is a bold subject, especially when one realises that an almost two-hour film is woven around such a delicate subject. Enakshi Dasgupta (Shweta Tripathi), who lives…
For cinegoers of another generation, ‘Junglee’ is reminiscent of the 1961 and 1971 classics (Junglee and Haathi Mere Saathi) of two yesteryear superstars. But Vidyut Jammwal is neither Shammi Kapoor nor Rajesh Khanna and Sameer Uddin is neither Shankar-Jaikishen nor Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Having got the basic equation out of the way, let’s have a look at…
“Tum log humsey better hotey toh tum hamaarey ghulaam nahi hotey,” says gora British army officer, Lawrence (Edward Sonnenblick) to his subordinate Havaldar Ishar Singh (Akshay Kumar). And this, after the Havaldar demonstrated raw courage in the face of extreme danger, by jumping to the rescue of an Afghan woman about to be beheaded as…
When sports journalists try their hands at directing films based on their vocation, much is expected – especially when the sport is one which the nation breathes and eats 24/7. To begin with, the title of the film, which alludes to the distance between stumps to stumps, is a tad misleading. Ron Sen (TV actor…
There is little likelihood of the regular Indian movie buff having watched a 2016 Spanish film, whose English translation was ‘The Invisible Guest’. Sujoy Ghosh (director of the Kahaani films and producer of Te3n), known for his penchant for mystery and thriller films, has adapted Oriol Paulo’s Spanish film, but with a gender role reversal….