‘A world without the Beatles is infinitely worse’, we are told at one point in this film. Worse than what, we aren’t told. Doesn’t matter, because the film is about the Beatles, though not exactly. Confused? Then read on… Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is an amateur singer, working in a cash-and-carry in a coastal town in…
When one considers that a young piano-playing prodigy (Mathew Illesley) grows up to be a millionaire by 25, and that four per cent of all record sales were attributed to Elton John, one has a fair amount of idea of the subject. The grown-up Elton John (now played by Taron Egerton), born Reginald Dwight, is…
The opening moments of the film set the tone for the entire first half – a hottie stripper in London makes an unannounced appearance at a bachelor’s party, where, it seems, half the junior artistes of the British film industry are hired! The lass, Ayesha (Rakul Preet Singh) – all of 26 years – whose…
In one of the scenes in the film, Maatun (Urmila Mahanta), promoted from a lowly housemaid position to a responsible post in the office, is the only one who doesn’t arise from her chair to greet her boss, Abhiraj Malhotra (Narendra Jha). That eloquence just about sums up the genre of the film, besides the…
To an extent, Farhan Akhtar’s tryst with musicals continues in his latest ‘Lucknow Central’. It’s a wonder that, having sung in six of his previous films, he doesn’t croon a single song in LC despite being the lead musician in his group! But moving ahead… Kishen Girhotra (Farhan Akhtar), an aspiring singer from Moradabad, is…
To begin with, the title as well as the subject matter of the film is risqué, at best. In tackling this bold and gritty subject, Akshay Kumar seems to have temporarily forsaken his superstar aura and dauntlessly dived into a subject the current PM holds dear to his heart — Swachh Bharat campaign. Keshav (Akshay),…
Any film of Shah Rukh Khan romancing in Europe must inevitably fall in the shadow of that incorrigible romantic Yash Chopra’s ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’ — 22 years ago. In Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’, the director spouts the same tale (Jab We Met) of the girl severing her betrothal and marrying another. A…
First, the title – an astute ploy by director Bhandarkar to bear out part of the lengthy disclaimer that Indu Sarkar is a work of fiction. This, despite the director, who’s also co-scripted the film, going on record to say that “The film is 70% fiction and 30% documented fact”. Indu Sarkar – a pun…
What would you do if you were a woman, backpacking on your own in a faraway continent, and ‘accidentally’ bump into a stranger who delivers a worn-out, clichéd pickup line? Laugh it off and walk away, or fall an unsuspecting prey to his wiles? Scripted by Shaun Grant and based on the 2011 novel by…
First, the title – an astute ploy by director Bhandarkar to bear out part of the lengthy disclaimer that Indu Sarkar is a work of fiction. This, despite the director, who’s also co-scripted the film, going on record to say that “The film is 70% fiction and 30% documented fact”. Indu Sarkar – a pun…
A confession at the outset would be in order: though musically inclined, I am neither a fan nor an aficionado of the rap denomination of music. All Eyez On Me is the short-lived but eventful life led by rapper, actor, lyricist and activist Tupac Shakur (Demetrius Shipp Jr.) — his mother Afeni (Danai Gurira) was…