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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

Amaran (4)
Mithya: The Darker Chapter (1)
Ka (1)
Lucky Baskhar (2)
The Substance (1)
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (1)

Page 77 of 97

Amaran
Vishal Menon
The Hollywood Reporter India
An Earnest Sivakarthikeyan, Stellar Battle Sequences, Middling Drama

The film is sustained by the power of its source material and its inspirational hero, rather than its filmmaking.

In one of the many interesting segues in Rajkumar Periasamy’s Amaran, an officer talks to Major Mukund Varadarajan (an earnest Sivakarthikeyan) about the Kashimir women these officers refer to as “half widows”, stuck in perennial conflict as they wait for their husbands to return, unsure if they’re still alive. This is explained in a rush, as though someone is reading aloud a Wikipedia entry, but one can still make a connection between these women and the film’s narrator,

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All 7 reviews of Amaran here

Amaran
Gopinath Rajendran
The Hindu
Sivakarthikeyan and Sai Pallavi march into our hearts with this soul-stirring action film

A pacy screenplay, marvellous performances and excellent technical prowess make ‘Amaran’ a brilliant ode to the resilient families who love their braveheartsamaran-3

“When the guns roar, the arts die,” said celebrated playwright Arthur Miller. Many art masterpieces have been swallowed up by wars but art, like the ever-forgiving land that has caused countless battles, has withstood it all. It has been the blank canvas to paint everything from propaganda films to anti-war movies. While many of them resort to skewed agendas, director Rajkumar Periasamy takes the road less travelled with Amaran, and along with producer Kamal Haasan and powerhouse performances from Sivakarthikeyan and Sai Pallavi, the filmmaker delivers an evocative biopic of Major Mukund Varadarajan.

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All 7 reviews of Amaran here

Mithya: The Darker Chapter
Rahul Desai
The Hollywood Reporter India
How much Mithya is too much Mithya?

The second season of Mithya continues to be a celebration of mediocrity.

One of my pet peeves features Hindi cinema’s toxic relationship with technology. You know how, in the middle of a public event, every single cellphone in the hall simultaneously beeps with a headline alert because the famous person it’s about is also present? Everyone turns to dramatically look at this unfortunate person; whispers and gossipy glances hijack the scene. This is how news spreads in such stories. It can be at a press conference, a panel discussion, even at a party. In Mithya: The Darker Chapter, it’s at a business auction that comes to a standstill. My questions are simple. How is it that nobody’s phone is on vibrate mode? Why are the shock and awe so coordinated? Why is it that no other message or app on the phone has a pop-up sound? The closest I’ve experienced as a real-world viewer is when, during a press screening of Super 30 (2019), most journalists in the hall audibly gasped when Dhoni got run out in that World Cup semifinal.

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All 3 reviews of Mithya: The Darker Chapter here

Ka
Srivathsan Nadadhur
Independent Film Critic
Kiran Abbavaram’s ‘karmic’ thriller packs a handful of surprises

Overcoming a fluttering second hour, Kiran Abbavaram’s Telugu film ‘KA’ concludes on a high

Comebacks are always interesting, especially when an actor is willing to look back and understand what went wrong in the first place. After a series of misfires, a resurgent Kiran Abbavaram is back with a festive release, mysteriously titled KA, that invests in a solid story over the heroics of the male protagonist. The period thriller offers a rich blend of action and emotions with a karmic twist.

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Amaran
Avinash Ramachandran
Indian Express
Sai Pallavi, Sivakarthikeyan stand tall in this tale of timeless love

With wonderful performances by Sivakarthikeyan and Sai Pallavi, Amaran is a poignant yet powerful tale about Major Mukund Varadarajan's love for India, and his wife Indhu.

Gentleman cadet Mukund Varadarajan is marching along with his batchmates during his passing out parade. During this march, an animated Indhu Rebecca Varghese shouts out the name of the love of her life. She also runs around to catch a glimpse of Mukund, who is one among the soldiers passing out. GV Prakash Kumar’s rousing score primes the scene for a romantic high. She is jubilant, happy, ecstatic, and sports a smile that reaches her eyes as Mukund marches with a straight face.

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All 7 reviews of Amaran here

Amaran
Manoj Kumar
Independent Film Critic
Sivakarthikeyan, Sai Pallavi anchor a fine movie on Indian Army

Amaran brings to life the heroic story of Major Mukund Varadarajan, an officer of the Indian Army who sacrificed his life during a crucial anti-terror operation in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014.

Amaran is based on the life of Major Mukund Varadarajan, who died during an anti-terror operation in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014. Biopics like this come with a unique challenge: since audiences already know the outcome, there’s little room for surprises. Directors often leverage the emotional depth of such stories to create resonance, sometimes stirring complex emotions or evoking our deepest fears. Filmmaker Rajkumar Periasamy, as expected, focuses on these emotional elements, ultimately leaving the audience with a deeper understanding of the human conflict hidden beneath layers of turmoil.

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All 7 reviews of Amaran here

Lucky Baskhar
Manoj Kumar
Independent Film Critic
Dulquer Salmaan elevates a solid, safe take on ambition

Lucky Baskhar follows the story of Baskhar Kumar (Dulquer Salmaan), a diligent bank employee in late 1980s Mumbai who embraces a morally ambiguous path to gain financial security.

While promoting his latest movie, Lucky Baskhar, director Venky Atluri claimed that one of his biggest strengths is his talent in screenwriting. However, those closely following his filmography would tell you that his ability to assemble a stellar cast is his greatest asset. He once again showcases this strength with Lucky Baskhar.

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All 4 reviews of Lucky Baskhar here

Lucky Baskhar
Avinash Ramachandran
Indian Express
A terrific Dulquer Salmaan powers this brilliant Venky Atluri film

Venky Atluri spins a fascinating tale involving banking, and scams, and Dulquer Salmaan ensures everything sails smoothly despite hitting a few road bumps.

Legendary American poet Maya Angelou once wrote, “When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence…” Dulquer Salmaan’s latest film Lucky Baskhar is about one such small thing that decided to brave its fears, and find a way to survive when the tree of the great banking scam of the 90s fell. Of course, we have seen multiple iterations of this story through series like Scam 1992 and films like The Big Bull. But what Venky Atluri does in Lucky Baskhar is that he isn’t telling the story that everyone is focused on. He conjures up a story of a man who is caught in the crosshairs and decides to do something about it. Now, it is fictional, but it could have been true. And it is this thin line between fiction and reality that truly makes Lucky Baskhar a terrific watch.

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All 4 reviews of Lucky Baskhar here

The Substance
Rohan Naahar
The Indian Express
Demi Moore goes for broke in stomach-churning body horror with jaw-dropping climax

Director Coralie Fargeat's English-language debut, out on MUBI, features a landmark central performance by Demi Moore.

A gleefully grotesque satire of success, director Coralie Fargeat’s English-language debut, The Substance, lives up to its title. But it has plenty of style to spare as well. Demi Moore stars as Elizabeth Sparkle, a fading actress who, in a moment of great weakness, decides to sample an underground drug that purportedly reverses the ageing process. But she quickly discovers that she has bitten off more than she can chew. The Substance is to Moore’s career what Birdman was to Michael Keaton’s, or The Wrestler was to Mickey Rourke’s, a movie that sheds its superficial obsession with superficiality and transforms into a whole new beast towards the end. It’s the kind of film that requires courage from everybody involved, including the caterers who were presumably tasked with preparing a menu that wouldn’t end up on the shooting floor everyday. It would be remarkable if nobody threw up while making this movie, because every moment of its incredible final act positively challenges you to keep your lunch in your stomach. But before Fargeat unleashes her final flourish, she sets up an increasingly absurd universe for Elizabeth to navigate.

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The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
Rahul Desai (for OTTPlay) 
The Hollywood Reporter India
The Retroactive Stillness Of Grief

Director Benjamin Ree uses the investigative form of a true-crime drama. Except, the twist in this documentary is that the victim was actually a survivor — the grand revelation is life, not death

Benjamin Ree’s The Remarkable Life of Ibelin starts off as a documentary about death. We see the tombstone of Mats Steen, a Norwegian boy whose body and soul were at war. A mix of VHS footage and family interviews then reveals that Mats had duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a degenerative disease that reduced his 25 years to a hellish survival story. His mind yearned for the momentum his muscles never had. Subsequent clips show his body shrinking on landmarks and vacations, the end inching closer.

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