It seems the action directors (too many to enumerate) and John Stewart Eduri, who conducted the background music score, had a deal in place : whenever one of them was off duty, the other would take his place. So we have fistcuffs by the dozen and/or a ear-splitting background score, lest you fall asleep. And […]
It’s not just the title that is alliterative: with bounteous babes, bullets and Biharis– though not necessarily in that order– in good measure, Kushan Nandy’s ‘Babumoshai Bandookbaaz’ can lay claim to being a tolerably worthy, albeit milder successor to Anurag Kashyap’s 2012 ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’. Contract killer Babu Bihari (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) has no compunctions about […]
‘The Hitman’s Bodyguard’ resembles the buddy films of the late 80s and early 90s — apart form the fact that the word ‘mother—–r’ is overused. The VFX too belongs to that era and to a large extent so does the script. The film starts with an AAA-rated bodyguard Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) failing to protect […]
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), […]
‘Atomic Blonde’ — the title apparently borrowed from the song Blondie by the group Atomic– is an out-and-out one woman show. Its 1989, before the Berlin wall is set to come crumbling down. MI6 undercover agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) is sent to Berlin for a two-fold reason—to probe the death of an MI6 agent […]
The first few minutes of the film gives you a sneak peak of North Indian culture, real estate wheeler-dealers, gender-bias, sibling rivalry, and more. First-time director Shanker Raman (cinematographer of ‘Peepli Live’, ‘Rocky Handsome’), clearly influenced by the neo-noir films of Anurag Kashyap, has helmed the quizzically titled Gurgaon – showcasing its fanciful malls, buzzing […]
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 […]
Sounds like a geography lesson, but the only experience one takes away from ‘Valerian and The City of A Thousand Planets’ is the hazards of watching a film of this genre, viz. Sci-Fi. The 3D effects are certainly a saving grace though. Even though VFX is all about conception and illusion, how futuristic can film-makers […]
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 […]