‘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 […]
Tag: Review
Review: Gurgaon
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 […]
Review: Jab Harry Met Sejal
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 […]
Review: Indu Sarkar
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 […]
Review: Berlin Syndrome
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 […]
Review: Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets
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 […]
Review: Indu Sarkar
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 […]
Review: Sing
‘Sing’, also released as ‘Mindenki’, is a Hungarian short film which opened at the 14th Asiana International Short Film Festival in Seoul, and has bagged 13 awards, including the coveted Oscar for Best ‘Live Action’ Short Film this year. Written and directed by Kristof Deak and shot in six days, it has the 10-year-old Zsofi […]
Review: Dunkirk
From 26th May to 4th June 1940, in the French coastal town of Dunkerque, a little over 300,000 troops – mostly British, some French and Belgian – were reined in onto the town’s beach by a sustained German fire – both artillery and aerial. Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a young petrified British soldier, tries every means […]
Film Review: Baby Driver
Rarely does one come across a film on crime with high-octane car-chase sequences, accompanied by an ear-pleasing soundtrack. Baby Driver (Ansel Elgort) suffers from a constant ringing in his ears – a result of a car accident in his childhood that killed his parents – but compensates for his disability by perennially donning earphones and […]
Film Review: Phullu
This film by any other name would have been just the same. The film begins impressively with a high-angle shot of a cremation in a village. Cut to a village simpleton Phullu (Sharib Hashmi) staying with his mother (Nutan Surya) and sister Tara (Trisha). Phullu runs errands for the women-folk of the village, doing their […]