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….
Six-and-a-half decades after Sohrab Modi’s technicolor epic but commercially disastrous ‘Jhansi ki Rani’ hit the screens, comes a modern-day version with Kangana Ranaut in the lead of Manikarnika (Manu). The common runtime of 148 minutes could be a mere coincidence though. The story begins in 1828 in Varanasi where great fame is predicted for a…
Also known as ‘The Mumbai Siege: 4 Days of Terror’, the film attempts to recreate the ghastly, inhuman attacks on the iconic Taj Mahal hotel which claimed 166 innocent lives. The four-day siege on the Taj was just one of many such strikes, though it was the one which was the one to have captured…
The first sign of attempted comedy in the film comes when a local politician Pandya (Adil Hussain) is shown reading a motivational book on Donald Trump, while in jail. Names such as Ramesh Wadia and Arjun Sorabjee may be attributed to either intentional, or unintentional humour. Meghna (Radhika Apte) is a Public Relations officer attached…
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Action Rating: 3/5 159 minutes Director: Rohit Shetty Let’s get one thing clear – Rohit Shetty has proved amply in the past that his films (Golmaal, Singham), like Manmohan Desai’s in the 70s, are intended to titillate the grey cells – not stimulate them; nor has he ever demonstrated any pretensions to…
‘Reach for the moon and the stars will fall in your lap,’ seems to be the philosophy followed by SRK and the people responsible for bringing the film to its title ‘Zero’. In a runtime of two-and-a-half-hours plus, Zero undergoes a series of transformations – possibly more than the number of titles thought of by the…
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: 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…
Genre: Animation, Fantasy 101 minutes Rating: 4/5 Director: Wes Anderson BFF, not so long ago, signified something else: it meant the friendly and loyal dog. Writer/producer/director Wes Anderson (Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Grand Budapest Hotel) takes us through a story of exile and reinforces our belief, though circumlocutorily, that BFF is still the canine. Orphaned…
Genre: Biography, Drama, Comedy Rating: 3.5/5 162 minutes Director: Rajkumar Hirani Clearly deviating from their forte — comedy (Munnabhai films, 3 Idiots), established writers Rajkumar Hirani and Abhijat Joshi have tried their best to incorporate elements of the genre in their biopic of Sanjay Dutt — ‘Sanju’. The film traces certain phases of Dutt’s chequered…