Director Dean Devlin aims for disaster and hits the bull’s eye for disastrous instead. In ‘Geostorm’ everything’s compellingly underwhelming, and you simply can’t wait for disaster to strike. It’s only after the movie ends that you realize that it did and that you were the victim.
‘Karwaan’ is a light-hearted, entertaining look at what constitutes love, life, death, and everything in between. It may meander off the highway for a longish time, but when you have a top-of-the-charts trio of performers, you don’t really mind. And when it does take you to the center of its mirth, it touches you unexpectedly.
The latest outing in the IMF saga has return director Christopher McQuarrie spin an incredible action thriller that’s packed with ridiculously intense and fantastic action sequences and a tight plot that also ties in some of the earlier installment’s threads. Plus, the equally fantastic Tom Cruise with that ridiculously handsome face and that hairline and Henry Cavill with that jawline.
Directors Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane whip up a fantastic first season for Netflix’s original content debut in India. Dividing the story-telling into two tracks, they add layers of conflicted and murderous characters who clash and collide, sparking off intense drama and hard-to-look-from away scenes. The action’s intense, the notes are grungy and the suspense an undercurrent to the main arc: the boiling cauldron of religion, politics, and power. Add to it an all-round superlative cast and an anxious background score, and you have a bloody winner.
Director Shaad Ali makes some unusual choices in the way he depicts the real-life story of hockey player Sandeep Singh. Which also means that he pulls punches where he ought to have bruised, dulling some of the grit and glossing over the darker details of a struggle that must’ve been nerve-and-mind wracking . But with some glorious performances, “Soorma” tugs at your heart when you least expect it.
“Lust Stories” is a welcome—if not perfect—addition to movies opening up about women’s sexuality and the consequences of both men and women dealing with it in this increasingly conflicted society. It’s also a sinking realization: some societal mores just won’t budge, no matter how far—or how much—we’ve come.
In “Sanju”, director Rajkumar Hirani uses a carte blanche of clean chit to justify his choices of portraying actor Sanjay Dutt’s tumultuous life phases. That may make for good friendship, but not necessarily engaging cinema. But it is Ranbir Kapoor who, with a performance that’s nothing short of a stunning tour de force, makes this movie worth a dekko.
Director Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” is a nerve-wracking and terrific addition to the skull cap of horror movies where the unravelling of a family is as mysterious as it is terrifying, and the boiling cauldron of secrets bubbles throughout its length, keeping you worried and anxious. Meanwhile in India, the censor board carries out its own act of dismemberment, unforgivably mutilating the movie beyond repair.
Director Jordan Peele skewers the dark, all too real face of racism and gentrification in a pulse-pounding thriller. But he also adds delicious layers of horror, terror, comedy, and nail-biting suspense. And yet, the questions “Get Out” raises are even more horrifying than its premise.
‘Veere Di Wedding’ could have been a fun-filled cinematic insight into what makes modern women tick. Instead, it’s a one-liner driven, boozy, heavy on costumes-and-little-else on what ticks them off.