Samudra’s “Mallepoorvu” comes as a surprise package for many reasons. The director, known to have made many commercial potboilers earlier, has handled this film in a refreshing manner. But it has too many twists and turns in its narration to sustain the audience’s attention. (more…)

After “Phoonk”, you’d think the possessed woman was a thing of the past. But wait, it’s time for another lady to elevate far beyond her bed in a horizontal high that gives you a crick in the neck. “1920″ is “Phoonk” in Scotland (or whichever foreign scenic spot), where the devil catches hold of the leading lady as she rests her head on the rattling bed, moved back by almost a century. (more…)

The most unreliable thing in life is life itself. This, the protagonist of this sweet little concoction discovers when he wakes up one morning to find that his live-in girlfriend, perfect in manner and devotion, might have to die. A simple premise based on the theory of déjà vu, “Ru-Ba-Ru” derives its slender strength from the conversational tone that the the debutant director brings to the romantic comedy, a genre that remains largely over-used and under-sensitised in Hindi cinema, thanks to the florid dialogues, over-the-top performances and incessant flow of song-dance. (more…)

Greatness, they say, is never thrust on you. You are either born with it. Or you are not. Amitabh Bachchan is at a place today where nothing and everything he does surprises us. The Bachchan saga gets one more twist in the tale as the ageing, cantankerous, flamboyant, eccentric and embittered Shakespearean actor battles old age, unwieldy hair and a receding genius. (more…)

Of all the films on the theme of terrorism, this one takes the ache. Painfully puerile and designed to put you off cinema on counter-terrorism forever, “Hijack” is a clumsy, amateurish take on all those slick airport-disaster Hollywood films like “Airport” and “Flightplan” that you’ve seen over the decades. (more…)

A fable like fragility runs through Santosh Sivan’s latest film. An exquisitely shot, wonderfully performed work of art set at a lyrical low-octave mellow pitch where you can actually smell the spices from a slow-burning chulha as they cook up an ambrosial aroma that permeates the greenest valley on this side of Frank Capra. (more…)

First things first. A WEDNESDAY is not about the train blasts that rocked Mumbai in 2005. It isn’t so much to do about terrorism and counter-terrorism as it is about making these grim socio-political facts into digestible riveting cinema. (more…)

First things first - what kind of a name is “Chamku”? Is it the name of a detergent or a whitener? No, it’s the name of a Maoist-turned-government-assassin who later becomes an avenging angel. (more…)

A large number of our films are about life. Some are about music. Seldom has a film blended the music of life into the fabric of a film with such seamless expertise. “Rock On” is that rarity where every component, character and episode falls into place with fluent virility. (more…)