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 […]
The film is out, and so are the reviews and the verdict. While the critics’ reviews have been mixed, audience reactions in general have been encouraging. That the film is based on the celebrated Nanavati case was never in doubt. While the actual events of the late 50s and the early 60s had political undertones […]
Originally planned to be titled ‘Dolly Lahore Mein’, ‘Happy Bhag Jayegi’ is a carefree, nonchalant film which promises much but fails to go the distance. Harpreet ‘Happy’ Kaur (Diana Penty) is a feisty and plucky bride-to-be who decides to play the vanishing trick on her wedding day in Amritsar. Jumping into a truck laden with […]
On Pateti, Navroze and Khordad Saal, several members of our community will throng the theatres to watch a farcical Parsee naatak in which Indian cinema has its roots firmly entrenched. Filmmakers have never hesitated (in fact have gone to extra lengths) from caricaturing communities in films and us Parsees have been soft targets. A dagli […]
The only category left unexplored by the Filmfare folks is that of ‘Best Casting Director’. With Akshay Kumar in the eponymous Rustom, based on the celebrated Nanavati case of 1959, this lacuna should hopefully be addressed. But first things first. The film, ‘suggested by actual events’, bears striking resemblances to the incidents of the 1959 […]
The initials J B are not the only common denominator. If this, the latest Bourne film had the signature James Bond theme music during its opening credits, one could have forgiven the viewer in mistaking it for one. As action films go, Jason Bourne is right up there, but as thrillers go, it is a […]
Whatever happened to the winsome comedies starring Boman Irani and Arshad Warsi, two of our most gifted comedians? That they both require a good script is stating the obvious—the Munnabhai films, Jolly LLB, where they shared screen space. Arshad Warsi is Michael Misra (yes, we are told the ‘h’ is absent), who is a wannabe […]
Accompanying Jason Bourne this week in losing his memory is Armin Salem (Rajeev Khandelwal) who meets with a car accident on a lonely road in picturesque Switzerland. Attending to him there is Dr. David Roy (Victor Banerjee) who asks him all the right questions but fails to ignite his memory. ‘It’s a brain injury,’ the […]
It was a term originally coined for cricketing greats such as Bradman, Gavaskar and Tendulkar. Budhia Singh, at the age of four, earned the epithet, ‘The Run Machine’, but with a literal connotation. Timed to release during the 2016 Rio Olympics, for which Budhia was trained and slated to run, the film is a sincere […]
Voices: BFG – Mark Rylance, (Hindi – Amitabh Bachchan); Sophie – Ruby Barnhill, (Hindi – Parineeti Chopra). OK. So it’s just a coincidence. The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) novel on which this family fantasy film is based was written by Roald Dahl in 1982, the same year in which the Steven Spielberg-directed and highly acclaimed […]
OK. The opening and closing frames of the film couldn’t have been more reprehensible — John Abraham (Kabir), a crack member of the Special Task Force and the blue-eyed boy of the External Affairs Ministry (the Minister is a woman, of course!) is shown smoking in an elevator and flicking a lit cigarette at the […]