By Troy Ribeiro Film: “III Smoking Barrels”; Director: Sanjib Dey; Cast: Indraneil Sengupta, Subrat Dutta, Mandakini Goswami, Amrita Chattopadhyay, Shiny Gogoi, Siddharth Boro, Nalneesh Neel, Rajni Basumatary, Disha Thakur, Bijou Thaangjam, Niloy Sankar Gupta and…
By Troy Ribeiro Film: “The House with a Clock in Its Walls”; Director: Eli Roth; Cast: Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, Owen Vaccaro, Sunny Suljic, Collen Camp, Lorenza Izzo, Kyle Maclachlan, Renee Elise Goldsberry; Rating: **1/2…
By Subhash K Jha Film: “Manto”; Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rasika Duggal, Tahir Raj Bhasin; Director: Nandita Das; Rating: 4.5/5 stars “Jaane woh kaise log the jinke pyar ko pyar mila…” Echoing the disenchantment of a…
By Troy Ribeiro Film: “Mitron”; Director: Nitin Kakkar; Cast: Kritika Kamra, Jackky Bhagnani, Prateik Babbar, Prateek Gandhi, Neeraj Sood, Shivam Parekh; Rating: **1/2 There is nothing exceptional about the predictable love story “Mitron”, yet the…
By Subhash K. Jha Film: “Love Sonia”; Starring: Mrunal Thakur, Riya Sisodiya, Richa Chadha, Freida Pinto, Anupam Kher, Manoj Bajpai, Rajkummar Rao; Director: Tabrez Noorani; Rating:** (2 stars) This well-intended melodrama about human trafficking and…
By Subhash K. Jha Film: Manmarziyan; Starring Abhishek Bachchan, Tapsee Pannu, Vicky Kushal; Directed by Anurag Kashyap; Rating: **** (4 and a half stars) Imagine if Mani Ratnam had sex in his mind for Moun…
By Troy Ribeiro Film: “Manmarziyaan”; Director: Anurag Kashyap; Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Vicky Kaushal, Taapsee Pannu, Ashnoor Kaur, Akshay Arora, Pavan Malhotra, Gurpreet Bhangu; Rating: *** “Manmarziyaan” seems like a derivative of the 1999 released Sanjay…
By Troy Ribeiro Film: “Love Sonia”; Director: Tabreez Noorani; Cast: Mrunal Thakur, Riya Sisodia, Adil Hussain, Anupam Kher, Manoj Bajpayee, Richa Chadha, Freida Pinto, Rajkummar Rao; Rating: *** With some shocking moments based on true…
By Troy Ribeiro Film: “The Predator”; Director: Shane Black; Cast: Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Alfie Allen, Augusto Aguilera; Rating: ** (2 stars) Unlike its predecessors, the 1987 release “Predator”…
By Subhash K. Jha Film: Paltan; Director: J.P. Dutta; Starring: Arjun Rampal, Harshvardhan Rane, Gurmeet Chowdhary; Rating: ** For what seems like an intermittent period of acute stock-taking “Paltan” looks like J.P. Dutta’s “LOC Kargil”…
By Subhash K. Jha Film: Laila Majnu; Director: Sajid Ali; Starring: Avinash Tiwary, Tripti Dimri; Rating: *** It takes this revisionist version of “Laila Majnu” time to come its own. For a very long spell…
By Troy Ribeiro Film: “Paltan”; Director: J.P. Dutta; Cast: Jackie Shroff, Arjun Rampal, Sonu Sood, Gurmeet Choudhary, Harshvardhan Rane, Siddhanth Kapoor, Luv Sinha, Rohit Roy, Abhilash Chaudhary, Nagender Choudhary, Abdul Qadir Amin, Esha Gupta, Sonal…
By Troy Ribeiro Film: “Laila Majnu” Director: Sajid Ali Cast: Avinash Tiwary, Tripti Dimri, Parmeet Sethi, Shagufta Ali Rating ** Director Sajid Ali’s “Laila Majnu” is obviously his take on this legendary Persian tale of…
By Troy Ribeiro Film: “The Nun”; Director: Corin Hardy; Cast: Taissa Farmiga, Demian Bichir, Jonas Bloquet, Bonnie Aarons, Charlotte Hope, Michael Smiley, Ingrid Bisu, Sandra Teles, August Maturo, Jack Falk, Lynnette Gaza; Rating: ** “The…
By Troy Ribeiro Film: “Halkaa”; Director: Nila Madhab Panda; Cast: Paoli Dam, Ranvir Shorey, Tathastu, Aryan Preet, Anjan Rath, Navisha Kalra, Harshit Mahawar and Kumud Mishra; Rating: *1/2 Director Nila Madhab Panda’s “Halkaa”, which figuratively…
By Troy Ribeiro Film: “Gali Guleiyan”; Director: Dipesh Jain; Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Shahana Goswami, Ranvir Shorey, Neeraj Kabi, Om Singh, Arbaaz Khan; Rating: ***1/2 Inspired by a true story, “Gali Guleiyan” is an astutely mounted…
By Subhash K. Jha Film: Gali Guleiyan; Starring Manoj Bajpai, Ranveer Shorey, Neeraj Kabi, Shahana Goswami, Om Singh Rating: **** (4 and a half stars) Rarely does the location serve as an antagonist. In most…
By Subhash K Jha Film: Stree; Starring Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurrana; Directed by Amar Kaushik; Rating: ****(4 stars) A new language in the horror genre burgeons as we watch this quirky…
By Subhash K. Jha “Ghoul”, a three-part series by Netflix; Director: Patrick Graham; Cast: Radhika Apte, Manav Kaul, SM Zaheer; Rating: **1/2 If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought this was a low-budget…
By Subhash K. Jha Film: Toba Tek Singh; Starring Pankaj Kapoor, Vinay Pathak; Directed by Ketan Mehta; Rating: **(2 stars) The sheer anticipation of the extraordinarily talented Pankaj Kapoor coming together with the exceptionally virile…