Latest Bollywood Movie Reviews

To me the basic weakness of so called ' action' flicks is that they focus on the muscular physic of a single individual to bail out the cruelty and miseries heaped out by the antoginist ( invariably a terrorist in many cases).
What an army can't do,this single man( Tiger Shroff) can .
Come on,be sensible.
With poor scripts ,dubbed dishum dishum and computer generated ' hair raising' action,is hyped as the selling point.
Not any more please.
For Tiger's fans only,not viewers of realistic contemporary cinema. less

Let this reviewer first set the plot in perspective,giving four options to unravel the ' likely outcome' in the climax( for the viewers to guess without viewing it ),do view to compare with your choice.
Vikram,a workohlic corporate guy ,has hosted a party to celebrate his promotion cum transfer from Delhi to London.During the celebrations he receives a call.What?
He feels annoyed and in a fit of anger his slap lands on his spouse Amrita.
She feels insulted.Her Lotus glow appearance and lively behaviour gets converted into how dare u?Till the end she's subdued,annoyed and uncaring towards the hubbie and her mother in law.
All attempts are made to make the wife just forget the issue as a ' given'.
The issue is - does she forget it as a ' one off' outburst with zero mens rea?Does she lodge a case under the Domestic Violence Act? Does she seek seperation? Does she seek a divorce?Does she settle for alimony? Equal division of property? or else?( by now she's got pregnant,does it lead to the husband accepting the unborn child? The custody issue? Abortion? Charging the spouse for infidelity? or else?).
What's the choice exercised? Never seen in Indian cinema.Go see for yourself.
The main leads are brilliant.Natural.Believable.Though unconventional.
The moral of the story- sons are never taught to be sorry by their parents. The girls are always tutored to be submissive,never defy the hubby and cover up the matrimonial home.
Is a look in/ review required?
To me the first 20 minutes could have been cut .They are redundant.The remaining 2hours run time would still have kept the plot tight.
This reviewer saw the movie with misty eyes .
The director could have realised that one doesn't ride bikes in the capital city without helmets.
Also,all husband's need not be presented as wife beaters.
The new age male lead( a look alike of Jaspreet Bumhra in this case,a brilliant and sanskari debutant,but on the receiving end) could be a bearded one,not clean shaven.
The main question makes us think- does women empowerment necessarily weaken the family bonds?
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Ayushman Khurana once again plays an unconventional role where he is forced to masquerade as a sex chatting telephone girl Puja since he does not get a regular job. Around this concept the makers have spun a yarn with some interesting characters. He is so successful in his job with the result that a policeman, a young man , and also Ayushmann's father get enamoured by his ( Puja's) tantalizing sex talk with amusing consequences. Actor Rajesh Sharma plays the boss of the seedy joint with conviction. Nushrat Bharucha fits the bill as the perplexed heroine. Vijay Raaz is good as usual as the cranky policeman with a weakness for Urdu poetry . Annu Kapoor does a good job as the father desperate to get married.
The situations are quite funny at most places and will keep the audiences amused. Credit must go to Ayushmann for continuously accepting and acting out convincingly totally off beat characters even though he is a mainstream top star. A movie which is entertaining and worth your visit for the novelty of the basic plot and the amusing scenes developed. less

All out escapist entertainment for children and family audiences. One more of the no brainers which prides on being one such. This time this commercially successful franchise, spins a yarn about discovering the past life ( 400 years back )of the main characters and for comic effect. The results are far from hilarious, the jokes are flat and developments are obnoxious most of the time. The makers have gone the extra mile to pack in just about everything which the Sunday afternoon popcorn eating fun loving family audience would like to see. The film has made pots of money at the box office because everyone wants to see a fun movie, the crazier the better. Already the song " Bala" has caught the imagination of the masses.
All one can say is that ensemble of the artists are having a whale of a time, acting out the ridiculous sequences and playing to the gallery all the time. But this kind of stuff works and collects lots of money for the producers which I figure is their main objective. No harm done but you do feel cheated because the makers have given you stuff assuming you have the IQ of
an 8 year old.
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After putting his money in Ghazni,Karan Johar co- produces another sea location movie Bhoot Part One - The Haunted Ship.His first in the horror genre.
What's this part one( among others to follow) about?
It's 2015. An abandoned ship ( Sea Bird) has been noticed at the sea shore in Mumbai.
None dares to ascertain the why and how of this wreck until an executive of the shipping corporation( Prithvi,played by Vicky Kaushal) is assigned to probe deeper into the mystery.
Some clues emerge during investigation. What are these? How far do they go? Are they real or super natural?
The basic drawback with such genre flicks is that nothing new gets said .The same dubbed voices and CGI continues.
The scare remains missing.
Nothing more to put out except avoidable.
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One understands that the opposites attract each other.This has been happening ever since the first Adam ate the fruit offered by Eve.
So what's new about LAK?
It has two periods- 1990,2020.One pairing for each period.In both periods,what's the end? Unclear?
The lover boy in 1990 wears half sleeved bushirts.Is clean shaven.Is a medical course drop out.Way ward.Been a waiter in a hotel,until he has owned a ' mini bar' financed by a foreign investor.He has been changing partners .
The lass has been desiring that the boy follows her as a routine from her school days.Wears salwar- kameez,her longish hair are woven in the snaking paranda.They meet secretively in parks,abandoned ruins,train.Their ' affairs' have gone ' viral'in the neighbourhood.
The lass longs the boy to remain committed.Instead he's always changing his ' woh's'.
The relationship breaks.
In the second period the lover boy he has a bike.Wears jeans.Is unshaven.Caries a lap top ,but is' supposedly ' a software programmer.Longing for a commitment from the girl.But?
She's dreaming about a career..Has joy rides with the boy.Is fully liberated ,both in her attitude and behaviour. Prefers a ' performing partner ' in the bed.When responding to a query in an interview for a job,she unabashedly speaks about wearing an unbuttoned blouse as a ' strategy' to draw ' attention' .She thinks that her confidence level increases this way .Damn with what others ' pretend' to be ' lechrous'.
She lands up with a high-fi job.Her sips at a bar are routine.She is prepared to abuse her mother even.
' Oh maa,just chill,don't poke your nose in my affairs'.
What happens to the boy? Don't ask.
The few words repeatedly uttered by the lass of the next gen are distinctly audible are whatever,s..t,s.x and f... u.
To me ,LAK is a ' rare' flick which is direction less,all round OTT performances,irrelevant,the entire second is redundant.Not a single number is worth.The ' post climax' number is the nth version of the naagin number.
The media hype of the new gen pairing is a ' publicity stunt'.
Avoid.
Instead pay homage to the martyrs of Pulwama on the Valentine's Day and prepare for your boards.
In the post climax' number the viewer is posed a question- could 2+2 be greater than 5?( perhaps drawing inspiration from Do Aur Do Paanch Banadey).
Nah.
Infact the movie under review is much lower than 2+2 being 4 even( pun intended). less

It seems the next gen is care free,it has disengaged with family values and intends to lead an independent life style as ' malangs'.
One such footloose pairing of a boy and girl have met each other in Goa.They have been into partying,booze and drugs at rave parties in this city.Off course,they are only in a live in relationship and not married as yet.
The girl is pregnant.Not inclined to get the child aborted.
Another person( not to be revealed in this review) whose stigmatized by his friends as an impotent ,has by mistake entered the premises of this girl ,to prove his masculinity.
In the tussle,the girl gets killed? By whom?
Now revenge begins.
How things get sorted out ,is the rest of the story.
To this writer,the theme represents the changing values in the society,the drift of the youth into the zone of ecstacy ,freedom from peer pressure and leading a life as if there's no tommorow.
The cops believe that they can get away with encounter killings in settling scores.All this because of pressure on them to some how or the other to procure evidence during the remand period,which they are seldom to get.
The plot involves a series of killings.The mystery is whose behind them?
An ordinary viewer may not empathise with such malang time attitude.
What kind of offsprings would get born whose partners are on drugs?
It's not known how the malangs' finance their interests?
All the numbers are back grounders.How far they uift the narrative is difficult to fathom.
All in all,Malang doesn't seem to be easily understood with editing being backwards and forwards.
Could b given a miss despite highly being publicised. less

This film is about DRDO Scientist Akshay Kumar and his group of lady scientists planning and successfully launching a space vehicle to Mars. The protagonist played by Akshay is determined to see the project to completion and despite the obstacles he successfully does this. The 4 lady scientists and one senior citizen scientist have their personal problems to solve and initially they are not motivated enough, but leader Akshay motivates them to this project not as a 9 to 5 job but a national mission to be accomplished with zeal. One of the ladies Sonakshi Sinha is trying to get to NASA through Dilip Tahil who is sceptical of the success of Akshay's mission. Budget for the mission is a big issue and Akshay goes way out to request and beg for finance from the authorities. Vidya Balan,Tapsee Pannu , and Sonakshi Sinha put up spirited performances. The film makes for fairly interesting viewing and is worth a visit. It brings out that when ordinary people are motivated they get persistent and determined to achieve something against odds. Finally success does come to them.
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This is yet another biopic about an underdog overcoming all obstacles through sheer tenacity of will to finally achieve success in the teaching profession. So we begin with young man Anand Kumar ( Hrithik ) the son of an economically backword family in Patna. Anand has a passion for solving mathematics problems and this takes him to the University library to study the latest journals. He is caught by the attendant (since he is not a student) who tells him to send the solution to Cambridge University, and if they accept his work, he will get a lifetime supply of the journal.
Fortunately for Anand, not only only does the University like his work, they offer him admission to the undergraduate course. Anand is ecstatic but his father ( A postmaster ) is not able to arrange funds inspite of all his efforts. Heartbroken and hugely disappointed Anand gets down to his humdrum life of selling papads in hinterland Bihar. There he is " "discovered" by an owner of a coaching Institute ( read teaching shop ) who sees an opportunity to use Hrithik's talent to make money. Some developments take place and Anand is sucked into the vortex of money earning through teaching forgetting about the economically backward students. Later he realises his folly, and gets down to the task of coaching his poor students with excellent results.
The film is worth seeing for the first class acting of Hrithik as the simpleton. The make up to give him a dark complexion is a little jarring to the eye but the interesting narrative makes up for it. On the whole a good film. less

JJ is a presentation with two ' twists' in one go.What? Read below.
There's a well settled PIO family from Punjab whose main business is of estate brokerage in London.One of the sons Dimpy( Kumud Mishra) is the busy guy,the other ,Jazz( Saif Ali Khan) is a jugadu,staying alone and a womaniser.For him marriage and family responsibilities at a ' no no'.He's a boozer,a one night stand walls with partners ' eyed' from night clubs.
Each such indulgence is ' raat gaai,baat gayi'.
In one such case,his eyes fall on a pretty gal,whose in her 20s.
The gal willingly follows the Casanova.But why?
She has a ' hunch' that this person could be his dad who has ditched her unwed mother.
Her hunch turns out to be true.
What more?
That the daughter herself is impregnated by her boy friend.
These ' twists' changes the persona and outlook of the paapa- naana.
He becomes more caring,responsible and accepts his own fling with Ananya( Tabu,as the unwed mother of Tia,his daughter,played with confidence and sensitivity by the debutant Alaya Furniturewala) and his daughter's even at the cost of loosing a high brokerage from a settled deal.
Moral of the story - one shouldn't be judgemental in relationships that are consented and that family provided love,care and legitimacy.
It's difficult to say whether such a plot could have been acceptable in the Indian setting?
By now Tanishk Bagchi has become the master composer of rehashed numbers.
Just a single night club scene ( where the story takes a turn) would have sufficed.
To me the title itself has to do nothing with the narrative.
Go for JJ with an open mind,shedding all societal and finger pointing stigma's . less

Remo D'Souza's ' dance drama' is'nt in 3D format,though it's about two warring street dancing groups ( of Indian and Pakistani immigrants) based in London.
The former is led by Sahej( Vatun Dhawan) and the latter by Inayat( Shraddha Kapoor).The ' cold war' between the two takes place partly because of attitudes/ego and partly because of the ' animosity' between the two nations in real life.
A big prize money dancing competition is announced .The local British team engineers defections from the immigrants to some how win the big prize.
An intermediary,Anna( Prabhu Deva,running a restaurant and a ' silent dancer' himself) advices the immigrants to unite and challenge the British.The advice is heeded and the title won.
Mission accomplished.
What appeals? All the dance numbers are well choreographed,put into execution and keep the viewers engaged.The unity shown between the two immigrant factions could b replicated in the arts and culture field in real life as well. Illegal immigrants should'nt fall in the 'trap' that the grass on the other side is greener than at home
.Dancing at a professional level has rich dividends a la sports.
What could be better? Presentation in the 3D format would have had more visual impact .Rehash of old numbers is thought to be an easy route to success at the box office.But is it so?
All in all,SD 3D may appeal to the younger lot who shake and live on pop.
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There is something straight about sequels. The original is always better than the first sequel and the first sequel is better than the second sequel. Dabang 3 is a thoroughly diluted version of the original. Salman is older and it shows. There is no Vinod Khanna and he is missed. So also Dimple Kapadia as the loving mom. The scenes and dialogues are rehashed and recycled versions of the original. Even the cameos of brothers Arbaaz and Sohail don't help in any way. What is left is the desperate effort of Salman to come up to the benchmark set earlier. Even his constables do not create any impression.
So what is there to write about. We have a new heroine ( as a part of a prequel) to bring up Chulbul Pandey's past. But then Salman takes over the job of pleasing his fans by doing things they love . So the the goggle is hurled up to position itself behind his shirt collar, you have badnaam munna instead of munni, and the belt is moved on the trouser etc etc. We have seen similar stuff in the original.
No doubt die hard fans of Salman will lap it up in glee and the producers will laugh all the way to the bank. Nothing special in this film but then one viewing of a Salman film by all is the order of the day. less