Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Tripti Dimri, Vijay Raaz, Mallika Sherawat, Rakesh Bedi, Archana Puran Singh
(1/5)It comes with a statutory warning — “No animal (sic) were harmed during the making of the film.” Grammar be damned! But what about the grammar of filmmaking? Raaj Shaandilyaa, who has directed and co-written the film, has scant respect...
‘Yeh masala film thode hi hai…’ perhaps not, or maybe yes. For, ‘Jigra’, otherwise inspired by Yash Johar’s Sridevi and Sanjay Dutt-starrer ‘Gumraah’, sounds like an ode to Big B. Coincidentally coming on Amitabh Bachchan’s birthday, Vasan Bala’s film pays...
Cast: Anupam Kher, Mahima Chaudhry, Ranvir Shorey, Annu Kapoor, Manoj Joshi, Neena Kulkarni
(3/5)Paise se jaan to nahin kharidi ja sakti, but a ventilator can keep one’s heart beating. Can you sign the form to take a loved one off ventilator support? Arvind (Anupam Kher) is faced with this task as his wife...
Cast: Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Bryce Gheisar, Gillian Anderson, Helen Mirren, Jo Stone-Fewings, Patsy Ferran and Stuart McQuarrie
(2.5/5)Marc Forster’s previous film ‘Wonder’ becomes the framing device for this story. Bryce Gheisar, who had a role in the film, plays a high-schooler here. As Julian Albans, he is trying to adjust to a new educational environment following his...
Ananya Panday can take credit for making influencers mainstream in Bollywood. First, it was her portrayal of Bella, an influencer in ‘Call Me Bae’, and now Nella in ‘CTRL’, whose life revolves around likes and subscribes. And going by her...
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Bill Smitrovich and Harry Lawtey
(3/5)‘Bewitched, bothered and bewildered…’ — these words of the song play on your mind as you sit through this sequel to the much acclaimed and hugely successful ‘Joker’. Yet, there is a beguiling quality to ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’. The...
What happens when the ‘Queen of Nice’ is labelled as the ‘Queen of Mean’? Well, she turns to gardening, and raises chickens. Ellen DeGeneres, the iconic talk show host, who changed the narrative of comedy, bids farewell to the entertainment...
Cast: Jaaved Jaaferi, Bhuvam Bam, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Deven Bhojani, Prathamesh Parab, Nitya Mathur, Shilpa Shukla, Atisha Naik, Vijay Nikam
(2/5)Bhuvan Bam, the first Indian YouTuber to cross 10 million subscribers, is back with a new season of his series ‘Taaza Khabar’. Season 1 may not have been an intensely engaging crime-thriller but had its moments and managed to ensure...
Cast: Sobhita Dhulipala, Rajeev Siddhartha, Sonali Kulkarni, Sankar Induchoodan, Tamara D’Souza and B Jayashree
(2/5)“Har happy family ek jaisi hoti hai, lekin har unhappy family ek dusre se bilkul alag hoti hai…” ‘Love, Sitara’ opens with this piece of gyan, and before we can grasp it, we are bamboozled into witnessing an unwanted pregnancy...
Cast: NT Rama Rao Jr, Saif Ali Khan, Janhvi Kapoor, Shruti Marathe, Prakash Raj, Srikanth, Murali Sharma, Abhimanyu Singh
(2.5/5)When the very first scene shows you a turbaned Sikh officer, you think the USP of this Telugu film, dubbed in many languages, lies in its pan-India appeal. After all, apart from NT Rama Rao Jr, the film also boasts...
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Isaac C Singleton Jr
(3/5)Hasbro and Paramount team up for yet another ‘Transformers’ iteration, this time an animation feature though. We’ve seen so many live-action ‘Transformers’ sequels that the franchise had begun to look boring and forced. The surprise element has been missing in...
‘He’s bit of punk rock, Bill Gates!’ Only U2 singer Bono could liken Bill Gates to that genre and get away with it. Throughout the five-episode docu-series, we look for signs to validate Bono’s claim, but there is none. Not...
Cast: Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Megan Stalter, Poppy Liu, Rose Abdoo
(3.5/5)What could a flailing comedian off her heyday and a struggling writer have in common? Triple winner at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series, Lead Actress (Jean Smart) and Writing (creators/EPs Lucia Aniello, Paul W Downs and...
Cast: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Malavika Mohanan, Raghav Juyal, Gajraj Rao, Ram Kapoor, Raj Arjun and Shilpa Shukla
(2/5)A fearless police officer is feted with a gallantry award for busting a drug mafia. He and his pregnant wife are on their way back home. The palpable tension on the rainy road is reminiscent of a zillion movies. And...
Cast: Gippy Grewal, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Jasmin Bhasin, Nirmal Rishi, Prince Kanwaljit Singh, Malkeet Rauni, Sardar sohi
(3.5/5)Ardaas Sarbat De Bhale Di, the third instalment in the acclaimed Ardaas series, is a cinematic exploration of faith, personal struggle and redemption. Directed and written by Gippy Grewal, this film continues the legacy of its predecessors by delving into...
Cast: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, Alix West Lefler, Aisling Franciosi, Dan Hough, Kris Hitchen, Motaz Malhees
(3/5)Blumhouse’s latest strike at upping the fear quotient, ‘Speak No Evil’, is largely a straightforward lift of Christian Taldrip’s 2022 Danish horror thriller ‘Gaesterne’. The only difference in the remake is that it ends on a note way too dissimilar...
Having a robust law and order system is essential, as is ensuring fairness. Director Aditya Nimbalkar’s ‘Sector 36’ takes up the infamous Nithari case and turns it into a hard-hitting drama. Though the disclaimer at the beginning of the movie...
Cast: Aparshakti Khurana, Ishwak Singh, Rahul Bose, Anupriya Goenka, Kabir Bedi, Jigar Mehta, Nitesh Pandya, Joy Sengupta and Deepak Qazi Kejriwal
(3/5)Chocolate eclairs, vegetable puffs with dollops of intrigue — that’s what Cafe Berlin’s menu offers. The cafe may have nothing in common with the German capital when it comes to culinary delights (Berliners love their Currywurst, not veg puff), but...
Cast: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Brar, Ash Tandon, Prabhleen Sandhu and Keith Allen
(3/5)A grieving mother is tasked with the responsibility of solving the case of a missing child. Can she overcome her personal pain and unravel the mystery objectively? Will her loss cloud her judgement and stand in the way of the...
Bad Boys: Ride or Die Netflix Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back with their action comedy franchise. In the fourth part, the stakes are higher for these detectives of the Miami Police Department because the case they take on...
Cast: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega, Willem Dafoe and Arthur Conti
(3/5)This film is a sequel to the 1988 horror comedy about a renegade “bio-exorcist” liberated from afterlife. A family tragedy prompts three generations of the Deetz family back home to Winter River. Danny Elfman’s jumpy score helps us along the...
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Eve Hewson, Billy Howle, Ishaan Khatter, Meghann Fahy, Dakota Fanning, Donna Lynne Champlin and Jack Reynor
(3.5/5)There are enough rich-people-doing-rich-stuff shows on OTT, so what makes this whodunit murder mystery a clickbait on Netflix? For starters, the impressive ensemble, renowned Danish director Susanne Bier and the fact that it is an adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s book...
It’s amazing how a ticking clock can be used to keep us on the edge of our seats for those few minutes as Apollo 13 loses communication with the ground after it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. This despite knowing that it’s...
Cast: Ananya Panday, Vir Das, Gurfateh Pirzada, Varun Sood, Vihaan Samat, Muskkaan Jaferi, Lisa Mishra and Mini Mathur
(2.5/5)A rich heiress thrown out of her palatial mansion… the basic theme of ‘Call Me Bae’ might remind you of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ in which a multibillionaire family suddenly has to rediscover themselves sans their riches. Baeurf Bella (Ananya Panday), too,...
Cast: Vaibhav Tatwawadi, Mukti Mohan, Akshay Anand, Lakshvir Singh Sharan, Monica Chaudhary
(2/5)An interesting premise fails to deliver because of sketchy writing and scatter-brained treatment
Cast: Bill Skarsgard, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston, Laura Birn, Jordan Bolger, Isabella Wei, Sami Bouajila, David Bowles
(2/5)Rupert Sanders (‘Ghost in the Shell, ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’) re-envisions the dark super-heroics of James O’Barr’s comic about a man who comes back from the dead to avenge his girlfriend’s murder as a sort of homage to Brandon...
Cast: Adam Sandler, Dan Bulla and Jonathan Loughran
Adam Sandler is back on stage with his comedy special. Some stupid jokes, crude ones too, peppy songs to a heartfelt tribute, this not so long Netflix show comes packed with his signature silly voices, funny antics and some really...
Cast: Morfydd Clarke, Robert Aramayo, Charlie Vickers, Benjamin Walker, Daniel Weyman, Ciaran Hinds, Markella Kavenagh, Megan Richards, Charles Edwards, Sam Hazeldine, Owain Arthur and Maxim Baldry
(3/5)JRR Tolkien’s novels and Peter Jackson’s trilogies made the world of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (‘LOTR’) an epic that fans of the fantasy genre couldn’t get enough of. The lore of ‘LOTR’ is sacred and not many have thought...
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
(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...
Cast: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon
(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...