Film Review: Bala

“DDLJ jaisa ending hoga kya?” asks a character, referring to the blockbuster of the 90s. This is just one of the many films alluded to in Amar Kaushik’s latest, written with wittiness by Niren Bhatt. The theme of male ‘premature’ issues seems to be captivating audiences of late. Just a week after ‘Ujda Chaman’ hit […]

Film Review: Phillauri

Phillauri is the story of a friendly but confused ghost and age-old traditions, peppered quite liberally with Punjabi folk songs. Kannan (Suraj Sharma – Life of Pi) is a Canada-returned Punjabi boy due to marry his childhood sweetheart Anu (a comely Mehreen Kaur Pirzada in her first Hindi film). But as the disinterested Kannan is […]

Film Review: The Space Between Us

A well-intentioned plot, some none-too-brilliant casting and more than a few gauche movements are what make up The Space Between Us, a film set in the near future. Innovative entrepreneur Nathaniel Shepherd (British veteran Gary Oldman) brings to fruition his long-cherished dream of setting up a human colony in neighbouring planet Mars. The only hiccup […]

Film Review: Kaabil

Director Sanjay Gupta has always shown a penchant for adapting, or taking inspiration from foreign films — his first directorial venture Aatish (1994) was based on the Hong Kong film ‘A  Better Tomorrow’ (1986). Eight years later he remade Tarantino’s cult ‘Reservoir Dogs’ into the hugely successful ‘Kaante’. Now comes ‘Kaabil’ — part ‘Blind Fury’ […]

Film Review: Ok Jaanu

Shaad Ali’s (Saathiya) tryst with the romance genre continues. This time he’s opted to remake Mani Ratnam’s Tamil version of ‘OK Kadhal Kanmani’. Adi (Aditya Roy Kapur), a video-game designer from Kanpur, meets Tara (Shraddha Kapoor), an architecture graduate at a friend’s church wedding. The two don’t have any compunctions about communicating and relaying phone […]

Film Review: Haraamkhor

Released with barely an ado, Haraamkhor is the story of 15-year-old Sandhya (Shweta Tripathi), a small town schoolgirl infatuated with her school teacher Shyam (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), even as 12-year-old Kamal (Irfan Khan) secretly pines for Sandhya. Goading him on is his confidant Minto (Mohammed Samad). Writer-Director Shlok Sharma, in his debut feature film — one […]

Film Review: Passengers

Apparently set in the distant future, the starship Avalon is on a 120-year journey to ‘Homestead 2’ – a distant colony planet of Earth. During the voyage, due to a systems failure, passenger Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) wakes up from his hibernation within 30 years, 90 years too early. The 5000 passengers and 258 crew […]