Mission Raniganj-The Great Bharat Rescue, Review: The capsule that saved 65 lives Few films have done as much disservice to their cause by having a misnomer as a title as Mission Raniganj. There is no Bharat Rescue, although the film is about a rescue. Over the last decade, there has been a spate of films with the Mission prefix, dealing either with operations against Pakistan or our scientific achievements. So, if the name of the film at hand been merely Mission Raniganj, it would have been ...

Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2-Song launch at Imagicaa: How far will you go to watch a film song? Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 is the second part of the franchise, the title of which means Maze or Labyrinth. Imagicaa is an amusement park situated at Khopoli, some 80 kms from Mumbai. The invitation from the Public Relations was tempting: 1.00 pm - Media assemble time at T-Series office, Andheri West   2:00 PM - Departure For Imagicaa, with Media   - Media to be segregated in 2 buses   5:00 PM - ...

Bachchan Paandey, Review: Gangsters are best played by real-life gangsters Why would you choose a name like Bachchan Pandey, unless you thought you could cash-in on the franchises called Amitabh Bachchan (name of a real life actor) and Chulbul Pandey (name of a reel-life character, played in several movies by Salman Khan)? Point is, does a superstar himself, like Akshay Kumar, who plays the title role, need these props? Leaving the Paandey behind, ‘Bachchan’ is made to speak some ...

Good Newwz, Review: Madame Ovary Apologies to Gustave Flaubert, whose French novel, Madame Bovary, lends itself to the headline for this review. The title was too punny to escape, what with his famous trial of 1857, on charges of obscenity, and the subsequent classification of the work as a classic of modern realism. Among those who made films on this subject are Jean Renoir, Vincente Minnelli, Claude Chabrol and David Lean, not to mention our own Ketan Mehta’s Maya Memsaab. Good Newwz ...

Housefull 4, Review: Emptiness to the fore In the age of the multiplex, a sign saying that a particular show is House-Full, meaning all the tickets have been sold in advance, is about as rare as discoveries of the abominable snowman. Producer Sajid Nadiadwala is a grandson who carries on the business his grand-father started, and even calls his company Nadiadwala Grandson, complete with an animated logo featuring an old man and a young child. Housefull 4 is Sajid’s fourth foray with the...

Simmba, Review: Slo mo shun It would be unrealistic to expect anything but action comedies from director Rohit Shetty, showcasing bad guys turning good guys along the line, with tons of slow motion action, having the protagonist landing blow after blow, and the goons rotating before landing on the floor or table or chair or cupboard or door or window or car or cycle or motor-cycle or truck or hand cart or whatever. This time around, the theme, ostensibly, is the heinous crime of rape, with t...

IFFI 2018, III: India’s Film Facilitation Office portal launched India, a land of stories and a melting pot of emotions, narrates itself through breathtaking landscapes. It expresses itself via age-old, man-made splendours, like the Taj Mahal, the mythological narratives at the Ghats of River Ganges, and the cultural clans of the Seven Sister states in the North-East of India. A Film Facilitation Office (FFO), set up by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, has been working t...

Toilet—Ek Prem Katha, Review by Siraj Syed: Loo and behold! There is no point getting revolted by the title. Any fear that the film might have ‘dirty’ scenes can be laid to rest by the realisation that we have a robust Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) that sanitises every film before release. And almost every Indian knows that the current Prime Minister launched a campaign two-and-a-half years ago, to ensure that millions of villages and small towns in rural India ...

Singh is Bling, Review: Kickass, jackass and badass                                                                                       Singh is blink-ing. Maybe winking. After many head-banging, from a ledge, he is hanging.  His lady love is English talking. With them is in...

Gabbar is Back, review: No, he’s not In his first incarnation, he was called Ramana. When the Tamil film was remade in Telugu, they called it Tagore. Then came the Kannada version, called Vishnu Sena (deriving its title from the lead actor, the late VishnuVardhan). Now, 13 years after the first film, we have a fourth version, called Gabbar is Back, starring Akshay Kumar, and hitting cinemas 40 years after Sholay, which starred late Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh, the ultimate villain. Gabba...

Baby, Review: Premature A Wednesday director Neeraj Pandey’s film Baby was previewed for the press on Thursday. It is made under his Friday Films banner and reunites Akshay Kumar with Pandey, after Special 26. Baby is an espionage action-thriller, in a genre similar to his earlier two outings, but much bigger and more ambitious in span. Ajay Singh Rajput is a leading officer in an elite counter-intelligence unit of 16 men, informally called ‘Baby’, because they have a time ...