With Queen of Katwe, Mira Nair has, as in Mississippi Masala (1991), put Uganda once more on the world map. Based on a true story, QoK is a simplistic tale of an 11-year-old who is plucked from virtual obscurity to being a global chess player. It’s 2007 in the poverty-stricken slums of Katwe, in Kampala,…
If a modern-day film with a legendary folktale as the backdrop and boasting of 15 tracks qualifies as a musical, so be it. Let’s check that out later. Mirzya is purportedly based on the lines of immortal sagas such as Heer-Ranjha and Sohni-Mahiwal. Munish and Suchitra are pre-teen classmates, bonding over everything — travelling to…
Dhoni’s initials are the most famous of all cricketers’ — M S could stand for Master Strategist or Motivational Skipper. It could perhaps, also denote Mahendra Singh. A film made on one of the shrewdest tacticians the game has seen, is bound to create more than just a flutter. MSD charts the ascent of the…
‘Days of Tafree’ — whatever that means — uh, uh, it’s supposed to mean your ‘carefree’ days, is an official remake of the 2015 Gujarati film ‘Chello Divas’ (by the same director), alluding to your last day, or days, in college. As you may have guessed, it has at the core of its story (story?),…
Westerns have always been the precursor of the superhero genre. 113 years after the first Western ‘The Great Train Robbery’ was exhibited, this genre still has the potential to enthrall audiences, despite this film being a remake of the 1960 classic (with itself was patterned on Kurosawa’s ‘Seven Samurai’). For audiences closer to home, ‘Sholay’…
A second sequel, 15 years after the original is by Hollywood standards not an unduly long interval. But, perhaps it would, if the subject is romance and subject is romance and at the core of the film is a 43-year-old childless spinster. Bridget (Renee Zellweger) celebrates her 43rd birthday all by herself. But at a…
In a country where archaic laws prevail, especially over women, and in a society where hollow traditions are hallowed, a film with a subject so bold as to tackle female emancipation has to be lauded. Set in an obscure village in Rajasthan, the film has four protagonists, all of them subjugated in various ways. There’s…
Based on the 2012 novel by ML Stedman and spanning 32 years – from the end of WW1 to 1950, LBO is as evocatively emotional as it is refreshingly riveting. Shot in New Zealand and Australia, LBO tells the story of Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender), who, after his stint in the Great War, takes up…
600 feet can be more than just a distance – it could spell the difference between life and a gruesome, horrifying death. Texas girl, Nancy Adams (Blake Lively) has dropped out of medical college after her mother’s death due to a long bout of cancer. She sets out to visit the beaches and surf the…
Daniel Dafoe’s 1719 influential novel — by the same name — has undergone a sea-change (pun intended) in the 297 years since it was published. Kesteloot’s film gives Dafoe’s beloved tale a new dimension — a 3D one. Crusoe (voice of Yuri Lowenthal) gets marooned after escaping a shipful of buccaneers. Stepping on an island…
‘Wrong Side Raju’ is partly based on the 2013 BMW hit-and-run case in Ahmedabad, involving Vismay Shah. Simpleton Raju Bhambani (Pratik Gandhi) is a driver in the country’s biggest law firm, whose owner Amitabh Shah (Asif Basra) shares a tempestuous relationship with his son Tanmay (British-born Kavi Shastri — last seen in ‘Neerja’, as the…