Based on the unbelievably one-sided bloody Battle of Saragarhi, the movie takes an unbelievably long time to get there.
Category Archive: Action
Captain Marvel must be the first superhero who faced vicious, non-alien attacks even before she made her onscreen debut. And in this Anna Boden-Ryan Fleck helmed project, there’s an element of grace and humanness, a struggle to match superhero power with emotions that aren’t always the right guiding compass. It also mirrors all that is wrong in today’s more connected, more polarized world. Even as it entertains and gets in its messaging, the movie has a far bigger battle lying ahead. No, not the ‘ Avengers: Endgame’, but the one awaiting it offscreen.
Kangana Ranaut is so movingly magnificent, she earns this review an extra point. In a movie not without flaws, hers is an act that’s packed with sizzling energy and ferociousness; she touches you and stuns you all at the same time. In perhaps what is fitting irony and tribute, the queen’s (Ranilaxmi’s, not Ranaut’s blockbuster movie) fight against patriarchy and society’s campy behavior is what the actress faced in real life to complete this movie, and that’s the negative energy she seems to turn around and harness to blaze ahead in this project.
Director Aditya Dhar comes up with a slickfest of a first half that’s let down by a second half that compromises on too many fronts. But despite its malaises and tendency to take the pat route out, ‘Uri’ is worth a watch for actor Vicky Kaushal’s magnificent performance. He not only shines in the action sequences, but more importantly, shows the humane side of a trained combatant. And that, the most prestigious medal that you carry around is the one that your elders pin on you.
LICH rating: (This rating is only a snapshot. The details are in the words.) Director Rohit Shetty […]
Thanks to Netflix, director Vikramaditya Motwane’s dark take on what it means to be a superhero in India, gets a deservedly new lease of life. Despite some of its obvious failings, ‘Bhavesh Joshi Superhero’ is grittily superb, where for a change the superhero is as human as the rest of us, and as vulnerable too.
In this 1970 outing, director Shiv Kumar makes an unbelievably lame and unintentionally comic contribution to Hindi cinema, combining family drama, a spy caper, and coming up a cropper. Composer Rahul Dev Burman, painting out a silver lining with his score, comes to the heroic (and hero’s) rescue.
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.
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.