Movie Reviews

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's Review: No One Killed Jessica

  The lone investigating cop in this film could pass off for a deadly butcher himself. He certainly looks like one. He’s still the more honest of the lot of sharks around (mark the superlative, more).

• 

  'No One Killed Jessica' - a timely, truthful depiction (Movie Review)

  On April 29, 1999 a shot was fired from a .22 bore pistol whose loud reverberations lasted over a decade. The shot that killed a vivacious, aspiring model Jessica Lall was fired in the presence of more than 100 'socialites' present at a party in New Delhi.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's Review: Ada

  Words in relatively chaste Urdu, most would agree, makes commonplace dialogue, even gibberish, sound like poetry. So goes a voice like Gulzar’s throughout this film, gargling what’s
  probably meant to be Rumi’s works.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's review: Toonpur Ka Superhero

  Children evidently make for cinema’s best audiences. For one, they never buy less than three tickets at one go. While they’re harder to please, once they do love a film, they express the sentiment better with their parent’s money: merchandise sales instantly pick up, video games flood mall-stores, franchises are easy to roll out.

• 

  TMK fails to impress critics

  When Sheila Ki Jawani first hit the small screen, the junta went berserk. Suddenly, Sheila was being touted as the next Munni and Tees Maar Khan as the next Dabangg. But, while Dabangg (with Munni intact) got rave reviews from the critics, Tees Maar Khan has failed to impress the critics.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's review: Isi Life Mein

  "Dude, I've started 'gyming', man," says the fat boy, because he wasn't good enough for the hot girl. His best friend is the Adam's apple of all female eyes. He chomps on "falafel sandwich" at home, is the artsy kind, I suppose -- so he roams around with a copy of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead!

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's Review: Tees Maar Khan

  A celebrated heist king Tabrez Mirza Khan urf
  (alias) Tees Maar Khan (Akshay Kumar) poses as a Hollywood director to a leading Bollywood star (Akshay Khanna, hilarious). The star’s dying to grab an Oscar some day.

• 

  Subhash K. Jha on Tees Maar Khan

  You have to hand it to Farah Khan. The zany spirit never leaves her side. "Tees Maar Khan" (TMK) is a goofy oddball of a film, replete with the most outrageous takeoffs on the dreaded Hindi Film 'formula' seen in recent times.

• 

  It's 'Tees Maar Khan' vs 'Toonpur Ka Superhero' this Friday (Preview)

  Film buffs are in for a treat this Christmas as choreographer-turned-director Farah Khan's highly anticipated film "Tees Maar Khan", starring Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif, hits the silver screen along with Ajay Devgn's animation film "Toonpur Ka Superhero" this Friday.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's review: 332 Mumbai To India

  The nation's PM is Sikh, the president Maharashtrian, the woman running the country is beep female. Eh?

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's review: Mirch

  Possession is the flipside of love. All lovers are
  possessive. Unfortunately. Women merely express their insecurities more freely. The man, over generations, has hidden his persecution complex under the garb of physical strength. He’s emotionally much weaker, his ego, far more delicate. An unfaithful lover can destroy him. Completely.

• 

  'Tera Kya Hoga...' Sudhir Mishra's tribute to Mumbai (Preview)

  After exploring Mumbai in "Dharavi", "Is Raat Ki Subah Nahi" and "Chameli", director Sudhir Mishra is set to take audiences through the murky lanes of the western metropolis again in his dark thriller "Tera Kya Hoga Johnny", which is releasing Friday.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's review: Band Baaja Baraat

  If you bump into a bunch of young 'filmies' in Mumbai's western suburbs, you may be forgiven to believe you'd walked into a Delhi University alumni meet instead. Batches range from early '90s to late 2000s. Practically everyone working in movies these days seem to have once called Delhi their home. It's bizarre. Shah Rukh Khan, I suspect, was the catalyst -- not for their creativity, but their move to Bollywood.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's review: No Problem

  A fumbling policeman plays Anil Kapoor here. At an early scene in this film, right after a group of goris in tanktops and black men in bush shirts have spoken fluent Hindi and lip-synched to songs for our pleasure, 14 bullets gets pumped into Kapoor, the South African cop's body. Doctors manage to remove 12 of these. Two remain stuck in his stomach.

• 

  Subhash K. Jha on 'Band Baaja..' (Movie Review)

  Have you ever wondered what they mean when they talk about the chemistry between a screen pair? Watch this delightful ode to the great Indian wedding and it will solve the mystery for keeps.

• 

  Few laughs in Anees Bazmi's 'No Problem' (Movie Review)

  The bad news is that good films are not doing well. But the better news is that bad films are also being rejected.

• 

  Rakht Charitra 2 gets mixed reviews

  The 30-minute flashback of Rakht Charitra 1 is not going down well with some of the movie-reviewers. The film's direction, however has got a thumbs up. Read on to know what critics are saying about the movie.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's review: Raktacharitra 2

  The only time the female lead in this film opens her mouth by way of ‘strategic advice’, her husband’s (Vivek Oberoi) lieutenant loses his life. The beautiful lady admits her rightful place is in the kitchen, says she is clueless about ways of the world, returns to cook forever, I guess.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's Review: Phas Gaye Re Obama

  Kidnapping and ransom (K&R) is evidently an organised industry in parts of one of India's Bimaru states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, UP), where the film is set. The top office of this trade has an assigned accounts section; a receipt issued by one of the clerks here protects you against another kidnapping attempt for a year. The guarantee is compete.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's Review: Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se

  A little boy, who looks mysteriously like the ‘Malgudi’ (Master Manjunath) from the television show Malgudi Days, plays a zamindar’s son here. First he fibs his age. Then he concedes he’s only 13. Him and his friends, at least one of them who’s 14, line up at a makeshift office. Adult, firebrand revolutionaries interview them.

• 

  'Allah Ke Banday' makes it a point not to glorify crime (Movie Review)

  A feeling of foreboding and damnation builds up in the narration from the first frame itself. Here's a gloriously gutsy film exploring the underbelly of Mumbai through the lives of two slum kids who grow up in identical circumstances, but with somewhat disparate values.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's Review: Break Ke Baad

  I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about certain couples. While they may be in a serious relationship, a good way to figure if they started out being close friends, is if the girl calls the boy by his last name. As does the heroine here.

• 

  'Break Ke Baad' about space in relationships (Preview)

  Debutant director Danish Aslam's romantic comedy "Break Ke Baad", on the need for space in relationships, will see Imran Khan and Deepika Padukone, who play childhood friends-turned lovers, going their separate ways for some time.

• 

  Mayank Shekhar's review: Guzaarish

  His hair’s smartly tousled, beard elegantly unkempt. Neither his jovial mood swings nor the occasional, charming smiles on his face give out a body below that’s entirely paralysed: numb to touch or any external stimuli. Read On..

• 

  'Guzaarish' - big, beautiful, dazzling (Movie Review)

  Breathe a sigh of relief. During a year when cacophonic crassness masquerading as comic entertainment has been sanctioned by critics and the masses, "Guzaarish" comes along to remind us that excellence is alive in our cinema.