Movie Review

• NETFLIX IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack

  Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Arvind Swami, Anupam Tripathi, Amrita Puri, Kanwaljeet Singh, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Sushant Singh, Aditya Srivastava, Rajeev Thakur, Dia Mirza, Patralekha and Yashpal Sharma

  'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' review: Many sides of Kandahar hijacking

  (3.5/5)

  Capitulation to terror elements, or a trade-off to save precious lives? Making a series on an incident which many are likely to see as an abject surrender to terrorists requires some courage. In times when we are blowing the trumpet...

  31 Aug 2024
• Drive-Away Dolls

  Cast: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon

  Driving you away

  (2.5/5)

  Simply put, it’s a ‘lesbian rom-com’ drama belted out by one half of Coen brothers. Together, Joel and Ethan have given us fun movies like ‘Fargo’, ‘The Big Lebowski’, ‘Where Art Thou?’ and the crime thriller, ‘No Country for Old...

  24 Aug 2024
• Alien: Romulus

  Cast: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu, Rosie Ede, Soma Simon

  Nothing Alien here, just re-vitalising the franchise with familiar template

  (3/5)

  There have been nine editions in the ‘Alien’ franchise, and the story has nowhere to go except to mirror and reference past events with newer younger actors. The template remains the same, with a few diversions here and there. ‘Romulus’...

  24 Aug 2024
• Netflix Emily in Paris: Season Four

  Cast: Lily Collins, Lucas Bravo, Lucien Laviscount, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, Camille Razat, Bruno Gouery and Paul Forman

  Life is good, all is well in this modern-day fantasy

  (3/5)

  The fans of ‘Emily in Paris’, who have been glued to the show ever since it dropped in 2020, know too well — the more things change, the more they remain the same. Thus, you can’t possibly expect dramatic, earth-shaking...

  24 Aug 2024
• Prime Video Angry Young Men

  Cast: Salim Khan, Javed Akhtar, Salman Khan, Farhan Akhtar, Arbaaz Khan, Zoya Akhtar, Shabana Azmi and Helen

  No Deewaar in Sholay dons’ Dostana

  (3.5/5)

  ‘Kitne aadmi they — do!’ And these ‘do’ were the hottest selling duo, writing 24 films together, 22 of these blockbusters! The famous Salim-Javed story gets to the masses with docu-series ‘Angry Young Men’. And, it’s a masterclass in how...

  24 Aug 2024
• Shekhar Home

  Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Ranvir Shorey, Rasika Duggal, Kirti Kulhari, Kaushik Sen and Rudranil Ghosh

  Holming in

  (2.5/5)

  ‘Pushpa, I hate tears’

  17 Aug 2024
• Vedaa

  Cast: John Abraham, Sharvari, Abhishek Banerjee, Tamannaah Bhatia, Kshitij Chauhan

  Loose threads drag this drama from Kashmir to Rajasthan

  (2.5/5)

  Mona Five years after ‘Batla House’, director-actor duo Nikkhil Advani and John Abraham once again come together in the Independence Day release ‘Vedaa’. The action drama is a revenge story that moves from verdant Kashmir to royal Rajasthan! The plot...

  17 Aug 2024
• Khel Khel Mein

  Cast: Akshay Kumar, Vaani Kapoor, Ammy Virk, Taapsee Pannu, Aditya Seal, Pragya Jaiswal, Fardeen Khan

  Khel with no clear winner

  (2.5/5)

  Parbina Rashid Voila! Akshay Kumar has shed his fake moustache and the acquired ultra-nationalistic aura for Mudassar Aziz, and that’s quite refreshing. The familiar Khiladi plays an unfamiliar game here, but he is in form. We may not agree with...

  17 Aug 2024
• Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank

  Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, Abhishek Banerjee and Atul Srivastava

  Fear, tears and laughs, twice over

  (3.5/5)

  Nonika Singh Six years ago, when ‘Stree’ was released, it established horror.com as a commercially viable genre. Yesterday’s sleeper hit is today a full-blown franchise, evident not only in full-house shows across the country, but its surprise guest entries boasting...

  17 Aug 2024
• ZEE5: Gyaarah Gyaarah

  Cast: Raghav Juyal, Kritika Kamra, Dhairya Karwa, Harsh Chhaya, Aakash Dixit and Gautami Kapoor

  Difficult time

  (2.5/5)

  Sheetal Can one change the past and hence the future? ‘Gyaarah Gyaarah’ by Umesh Bisht answers the question by bending the laws of nature, science and mystery in this investigative thriller. ‘Gyaarah Gyaarah’ is adapted from a Korean series, ‘Signal’,...

  10 Aug 2024
• It Ends With Us

  Cast: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Brandon Sklenar, Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj

  Love that hurts, and an adaptation that endears

  (3/5)

  Mona For starters, it’s just not another two-hour-long romantic drama, but a phenomenon. When one of the bestselling authors of current times Colleen Hoover’s most notable work, ‘It Ends With Us’, gets a screen outing, there is already a tribe...

  10 Aug 2024
• Borderlands

  Cast: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Jamie Lee Curtis, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon

  Lame is the name of the game

  (2/5)

  Johnson Thomas Director and co-writer Eli Roth’s attempt to score with a ‘game’ franchise comes a cropper because his vision for the adaptation is sorely lacking in skill and imagination. Lilith (Cate Blanchett), the main heroine, is quick with a...

  10 Aug 2024
• NETFLIX: Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba

  Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey, Sunny Kaushal and Jimmy Sheirgill

  Predictable, but keeps you hooked

  (3/5)

  Nonika Singh Those like us who found ‘Haseen Dillruba’ not all that haseen don’t quite expect too much from its sequel. Yet, ‘Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba’ comes riding on an interesting new twist, and additions. To say that ‘Phir…’ is...

  10 Aug 2024
• Ulajh

  Cast: Janhvi Kapoor, Gulshan Devaiah, Roshan Mathew, Adil Hussain, Rajesh Tailang, Meiyang Chang, Rajendra Gupta and Jitendra Joshi

  No tangles here

  (2.5/5)

  Sheetal We’ve seen movies involving Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies, where things generally don’t end well for the ones on the evil side. But what happens when your protagonist is cooperating with the enemy? Director Sudhanshu Saria has made ‘Ulajh’...

  03 Aug 2024
• NETFLIX Modern Masters: SS Rajamouli

  Complex portrait of a cinematic icon

  (2.5/5)

  Parbina Rashid Prabhas calls him a mad person. “He will beg, borrow, steal or even kill to get 100 per cent out of his actors,” NT Rama Rao Jr chips in. Grudgingly admiring words! Even his cousin, MM Keeravani, talks...

  03 Aug 2024
• Trap

  Cast: Josh Hartnett, Hayley Mills, Allison Pill, Ariel Donoghue, Jonathan Langdon

  A trap for the audience

  (2.5/5)

  Johnson Thomas Manoj Night Shyamalan’s latest project, ‘Trap’, has him teaming up with Josh Hartnett, who happens to be on a comeback trail himself. This film is meant to be a white-knuckle suspense thriller laced with black comedy and it...

  03 Aug 2024
• Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha

  Cast: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Saiee Manjrekar, Shantanu Maheshwari and Jimmy Sheirgill

  Romance thriller flatters to deceive

  (2/5)

  Nonika Singh Tales of star-crossed lovers have given us many touching films. Add to it the deep shade of sacrifice as in yesteryear classics or modern-day ‘Raanjhanaa’, and there’s nothing better to tug at our heartstrings. As ‘Auron Mein Kahan...

  03 Aug 2024
• Bhatt why?

  Sheetal The Bhatt camp has produced the maximum number of horror films in Hindi cinema. Their last outing was with actress Avika Gor. Titled ‘1920: Horrors of the Heart’, it was headlined by debutant director Krishna Bhatt. It failed miserably...

  Tribune Web Desk

  27 Jul 2024
• A strange passion for high risk

  Johnson Thomas This is a freaky yet breathtaking documentary about an acrobatic stunt couple ‘rooftopping’ through several countries around the world. It’s a strange trend no doubt, but these adrenaline junkies refer to it as high art. Angela Nikolau and...

  Tribune Web Desk

  27 Jul 2024
• Ungentlemanly warfare, and presentation too

  Parbina Rashid Ian Fleming, who was part of Winston Churchill’s top-secret espionage operation during World War II, created James Bond and modelled him after Gus March-Phillipps, the man who led Operation Postmaster in 1942 against the Third Reich. In 2024,...

  Tribune Web Desk

  27 Jul 2024
• Anything is possible, and it works

  Nonika Singh X-men buffs know too well that Logan, aka Wolverine, died in the 2017 film ‘Logan’. So, how do you bring him back to life without ‘dishonouring his memory’? Heavy words for a ‘Deadpool’ film, which thrives on irreverent...

  Tribune Web Desk

  27 Jul 2024
• Topper flunks test

  Sheetal Unlike what the title suggests, this film is nowhere near ‘Kota Factory’ and there is nothing educational about it. It is set in Noida, where, apparently, getting a pistol is a lot easier than borrowing money. And Tribhuvan Mishra...

  Tribune Web Desk

  20 Jul 2024
• A believe it or not horror-thriller

  Johnson Thomas The story is quite captivating despite hyperventilating over the grotesque and the incendiary. Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), an American nun of devout faith, is sent to a remote convent, aptly titled ‘My Lady of Sorrows’, in the picturesque Italian...

  Tribune Web Desk

  20 Jul 2024
• Tornado-chasers whip up a storm easy to get caught in

  Parbina Rashid Spoiler alert! There is no cow flying in this one. Yes, the black and white (or, was it brown and white) bovine from ‘Twister’, which became a symbol of disaster movies, is missing in this standalone sequel of...

  Tribune Web Desk

  20 Jul 2024
• Good news, Bad Newz isn’t that bad

  Nonika Singh It’s a strange, tangled love triangle and at one level, progressive too. A woman expecting twins by not one but two men is certainly a novel idea and out of the box, indeed. A sequel to the highly...

  Tribune Web Desk

  20 Jul 2024
• Wildcard entry, exit

  Sheetal There’s a reason Luv Ranjan’s love and break-up universe is received with open arms. It catches the pulse of modern-day relationships and friendships. But Ranjan-backed ‘Wild Wild Punjab’ takes a wild turn and steers away from its staple plot,...

  Tribune Web Desk

  13 Jul 2024
• Aiming for moon, falling way short

  Johnson Thomas Though a fresh romcom genre offering, ‘Fly Me to The Moon’ is not exactly a risible entertainer. The narrative is a bit confused about the tone it needs to stick to. There are bits of comedy, satire, drama...

  Tribune Web Desk

  13 Jul 2024
• It finally ended, and that was the film’s high point

  Parbina Rashid Older, wiser, deadlier — that’s how fans of Indian, aka Senapathy, who is now teaching Indian martial arts in Taipei, perceives the erstwhile vigilante as they get ready to welcome him back after they find him through a...

  Tribune Web Desk

  13 Jul 2024
• Sarfira flies, but not to soaring heights

  Nonika Singh Behind every successful man, there is an obstacle race, endless challenges and, of course, steely grit and obsessive determination. Here there is a woman, too, but more on her later. As expected in a Bollywood film, ‘Sarfira’, an...

  Tribune Web Desk

  13 Jul 2024
• Revenge served hot

  Sheetal This triple collaboration between producers Karan Johar and Guneet Monga and overseas distribution partners Lionsgate Studios is being marketed as the most violent film Bollywood has ever made. Starring known faces yet relatively new actors, Raghav Juyal, Lakshya...

  Tribune Web Desk

  06 Jul 2024