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Member Reviews

No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough. Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.

You can also browse reviews using our alphabetical index of films reviewed

Films reviewed on this Page

Mrs (1)
Vidaamuyarchi (2)
The Storyteller (1)
The Mehta Boys (3)
Conclave (1)
Bada Naam Karenge (1)
Loveyapa (1)

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Mrs
Saibal Chatterjee
NDTV
Hindi Remake Of The Great Indian Kitchen Hits Home

Sanya Malhotra lives the role and director Arati Kadav orchestrates her resources with striking efficiency.

Home is where the hurt is for the titular protagonist of Mrs., a Hindi-language remake of The Great Indian Kitchen. Sanya Malhotra lives the role and director Arati Kadav orchestrates her resources with striking efficiency. The result: Mrs. gets as close to being a home run as a replication of a critically acclaimed, widely viewed film still fresh in public memory can be. Mrs. makes several significant and clear deviations. The cooking area in the film, for instance, isn’t exactly like the straggly, perpetually damp kitchen in the Malayalam film. Though far less spacious, it is brighter, more airy, and less dispiriting. But the plight of the married woman consigned to this corner of the hearth is no less pitiable. A kitchen sink leaks. The problem remains unattended for days. The lady’s repeated plea to her doctor-husband to summon a plumber falls on deaf ears. The worsening situation isn’t a mere functional crisis - it also points to the state of a disintegrating marriage.

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All 13 reviews of Mrs here

Vidaamuyarchi
Kirubhakar Purushothaman
News 18
Ajith Kumar Takes A Lot Of Punches For The Film To Win

Vidaamuyarchi opens with a long shot of Arjun (Ajith Kumar) casually walking out of his house in Azerbaijan, carrying a bag. He opens his car boot, which provides a chance for a mid-shot of the Tamil superstar. There is no slow-motion nor a close-up. Anirudh Ravichander doesn’t whip out his signature ‘mass’ background score. In fact, the music is almost non-existent. The whole sequence is conspicuously in a matter-of-fact tone, sending a message that Magizh Thirumeni and Ajith Kumar are vehemently steering away from the usual gimmicks of a Tamil superstar film. Within a few minutes into the movie, it becomes certain that Vidaamuyarchi is a story-driven film in every sense of the word, where the superstar embraces a white-collar role that is too subtle for his fans. Every scene screams one thing: There will be no fan service here. And that will be a huge welcome for any Tamil cinema viewer, who has been bombarded with Rockies, Pushpas, Jailers, and Beasts. It is funny how Tamil filmmakers get a pat on the back for not doing the bad things, even if they aren’t doing anything great. That’s telling of the state of affairs.

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All 6 reviews of Vidaamuyarchi here

The Storyteller
Udita Jhunjhunwala
Mint, Scroll.in
A question of authorship

Ananth Narayan Mahadevan's film is a satisfying retelling of a classic short story by Satyajit Ray

Director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan, in partnership with writer Kireet Khurana, has extended Satyajit Ray’s short story Golpo Boliye Tarini Khuro into The Storyteller, a 116-minute drama available on Disney+ Hotstar. Tarini Bandopadhyay (Paresh Rawal) is a recently retired writer, whose longest assignment lasted 13 weeks. He’s a widower who is content with his Calcutta life and takes meticulous care of his Ambassador car. Conversations with his fellow comrades, over fish fry and fish curry, are rarely without mention of Capitalism and its ills and almost always end with ‘Tarini tales’. Tarini is a wonderful storyteller. Even after his wife gifted him a pen to encourage him, Tarini never recorded his imaginative and original stories.

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All 5 reviews of The Storyteller here

The Mehta Boys
Sanyukta Thakare
Mashable India
Boman Irani And Avinash Tiwary's Family Drama Is Raw & Relatable Baghban

Begins on an emotional note

Directed and co-written by Boman Irani, the film also stars him as one of the leading characters alongside Avinash Tiwary, who plays the role of his son Amay. The Mehta Boys follows the father-son duo exploring the complicated relationship and the underlying care and love in it. The film’s music and direction keeps the experience raw and relatable, however the writing in the second half begins to falter a bit. Nonetheless, the message comes across well, and it is the performances that keeps you going. The film begins with Amay’s journey as an architect who isn’t able to assert himself at his workplace, everyone is seen trying to support his vision and his work. But he often ends up giving into the high authority of his seniors even if he doesn’t agree with him. But things begin to change for him when a meeting in his office is interrupted to inform him that he received a call about his mother’s passing. Without a second thought, Amay leaves for his home.

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All 9 reviews of The Mehta Boys here

Conclave
Sanyukta Thakare
Mashable India
Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci's Performance In This Vatican Political Thriller Is Must Watch

The ending turns the table on the audience

In a sense the ending in brilliant where the audience ends up judging themselves on the reaction as they were judging each character through out the runtime of the film, but it may not be enough. Directed by Edward Berger of All Quiet On The Western Front, the film is based on a book by Robert Harris released in 2016. The story sets forward a simple premise but stirs up major socio economic discussion in a religious setting. Conclave isn’t about ideology how much to maintain it while also trying to exist in the same world filled with national and economic borders. The film follows Dean Lawrence arriving after the death of the Pope and then tracking his last moments of the day. Early on the film builds suspense around his death but instead of turning into a crime thriller or drama the film explores several plots and subplots at the same time with much fineness. Much of it can be seen through the screenplay while other can be seen in the performance of the actors and through the direction aka Edward Berger’s point of view. He also explores the contradiction in Vatican’s world, the orders it operates on, the way it is perceived and even tries to break down those notions.

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The Mehta Boys
Shubhra Gupta
The Indian Express
Amid duds served by Bollywood, Boman Irani-Avinash Tiwary film is well worth your time

The theme of the film has a familiar predictive tilt, but what lifts the film are the little spurts of unpredictability built into the script of Boman Irani’s directorial debut.

The spiky relationship between a father-and-son, which shapes the narrative in ‘The Mehta Boys’, leads us to predict a resolution in which things will get better. The theme has that familiar predictive tilt built into it, but what lifts ‘The Mehta Boys’ are the little spurts of unpredictability built into the script of Boman Irani’s directorial debut. That, and the performances, which are all pitch perfect.

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All 9 reviews of The Mehta Boys here

Bada Naam Karenge
Shubhra Gupta
The Indian Express
Weighed down by kitchen-sink politics, this Rajshri series is plain creaky

Watching the new show run by Sooraj Barjatya is a conflicting business as it makes you wonder whether brief interlude of youthful freedom that keeps rearing its head every decade or so is an illusion.

Watching this nine-part show, run by Sooraj R Barjatya, the Rajshri scion who got back maryada and sanskriti back into Hindi cinema in the mid-90s, is a conflicting business. It makes you wonder at the time and place we live in: have we moved forward at all from the 1994 Hum Aapke Hain Koun!, in which it was perfectly acceptable to offer a freshly-widowed bhai’s hand to his sister-in-law, and where the big temple-going joint family is kind-but-dismissive to its minority characters?

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All 4 reviews of Bada Naam Karenge here

Loveyapa
Rohit Khilnani
Bollywood Hungama
All 9 reviews of Loveyapa here

The Mehta Boys
Deepak Dua
Independent Film Journalist & Critic
निराश नहीं करते ‘द मेहता ब्वॉयज़’

महाराष्ट्र के एक कस्बे में रहने वाले मिस्टर मेहता का बेटा मुंबई में है और बेटी अमेरिका में। मां की मौत के बाद बेटी उन्हें अपने साथ अमेरिका ले जा रही है। किसी कारण से मिस्टर मेहता को दो दिन अपने बेटे के साथ रहना पड़ता है। छोटे मेहता और बड़े मेहता के बीच लव-हेट वाला रिश्ता है। बेटे को लगता है कि उसके पिता उस पर अपनी मर्ज़ियां थोपते आए हैं वहीं बाप को लगता है कि ज़िंदगी के प्रति बेटे की अप्रोच सही नहीं हैं। देखा जाए तो यह सिर्फ इन दो मेहता ब्वॉयज़ की ही कहानी नहीं बल्कि भारत के लगभग हर पिता-पुत्र की कहानी है। फिल्म में ऐसे ढेरों पल आते हैं जिन्हें देखते हुए दर्शक उनमें खुद को खोज सकते हैं। बुढ़ापे में भी पिता का ‘मैं कर लूंगा’, ‘मैं संभाल लूंगा’ वाला अकड़ भरा रवैया हो या बेटे का उनकी हर बात को अपनी ज़िंदगी में दखलअंदाज़ी मानने वाली सोच। एक आम भारतीय परिवार में पिता और पुत्र के बीच के औपचारिक-से रिश्ते की झलक इस फिल्म में बार-बार दिखाई देती है और इसलिए अपनी लिखाई के स्तर पर यह फिल्म कई जगह छूती है।

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All 9 reviews of The Mehta Boys here

Vidaamuyarchi
Janani K
India Today
Ajith Kumar's stylish actioner doesn't rely on star-power

Director Magizh Thirumeni's Vidaamuyarchi, starring Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja and Trisha, is a technically sound action thriller. The film stays true to the genre without relying on star power.

Ajith Kumar, the man of many talents, made the country proud with his Dubai racing win. But on the film front, his fans have been patiently waiting for over two years, asking for update after update. Finally, February 6 is the day when Vidaamuyarchi hits theatres across the globe. As Magizh Thirumeni promised, Vidaamuyarchi is not the usual run-of-the-mill commercial action entertainer but a full-blown thriller that does justice to the genre. As the title card rolls with Vidaamuyarchi - Perseverance Triumphs on the big screen, you can’t help but ask if perseverance has truly triumphed this time.

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All 6 reviews of Vidaamuyarchi here