Life is Good, Review: Is it? A sweeping statement, to be sure. Life has its ups and down and is good to some people while not so good to others. To the central character in Life is Good, Rameshwar, played by Jackie Shroff, life has been rather bad, on the whole. So, bad, in fact, that he contemplates committing suicide at least twice. Yes, there is a long period in between when he finds love in an unlikely quarter, but like the tagline of LG (Lucky Goldstar) Electronics, ‘Life’s G...

Mili, Review: Chilly A remake it is. And an ideal vehicle to draw boundless sympathy from audiences for the lead actress, Janhvi Kapoor. For who would not root for a girl locked in a freezer chamber and subjected to temperatures of -12 degrees to -18 degrees Celsius? What if hypothermia sets in, and she freezes to death? No chance. Mili is producer Boney Kapoor’s mini Titanic tale, minus the boy, and killing her would be like committing suicide. So, once the premise of a girl battling s...

Phone Bhoot trailer launch: Horrorlarius Ever since the audience saw the first poster of Katrina Kaif, Siddhant Chaturvedi, and Ishaan Khattar starrer Phone Bhoot, they were eagerly waiting to get more glimpses of the film. Their wait is over: the trailer of this most awaited comedy of horrors was launched on 10 October at the PVR multiplex, Juhu, Mumbai. Phone Bhoot is a title most likely chosen as a pun on the word Phone Booth, and has been in the news for some time now, because superstar ...

Heropanti 2: Tiger does not roar, but croons, courtesy A.R. Rahman Young, macho, human weapon and dazzling dancer Tiger Shroff has sung a song in his latest film, Heropanti 2, titles Miss Hairaan. Is that taking you by surprise and making you hairan? It shouldn’t, because this is not the first time that Tiger has ventured into musical territory. Jai Hemant ‘Tiger’ Shroff has lent his voice to a handful of tracks, including Casanova and Vande Mataram, which got very popular a...

Baaghi 3, Review: Rebel without a pause Meaning ‘rebel’ in Urdu, Baaghi 3 showcases the muscular machismo, kicking quotient and airborne acrobatics of the loose cannon called Tiger Shroff. He first takes on petty thugs and eve-teasers, then murderers and people smugglers and finally the most dreaded terrorist organisation in Syria, nay, it is claimed, the whole world! His own voice-over at the end credits these escapades as the outcome of being a rebel. And does this rebel have a ...

Saaho, Review: Posture Boys Grand emptiness fills the screen as the Saaho saga unfolds. There is a semblance of a plot and a picture post-card collage of both serene and breath-taking visuals. However, most unfortunately, the most crucial element of a well-crafted film, story-telling, is at a discount. Gory and one-sided fights, a floating, free-falling and soaring mortal superhero, and flesh flaunting femme fatales cannot compensate for flimsy premises and disbelief inviting sequences. Prit...

Salman and Katrina come to Bharat Hotel Taj Land’s End, Bandra, is about 500 metres from where Indian superstar Salman Khan resides. It would take him exactly five minutes to walk to the venue, or two minutes on cycle, cycling being among his favourite indulgences. So why did he arrive at 2 pm for the launch of his home production, Bharat’s, title song, when the time on the invitation was indicated first as 11.30 pm and later delayed by half-an-hour? Only he knows. His fans and mo...

Romeo Akbar Walter (RAW), Review: Uncooked meal, raw deal Espionage, as a film genre, is more than 84 years old. A master, no less than Alfred Hitchcock himself, made The 39 Steps in 1935. So it is baffling that a spy thriller, made in 2017-18, is oblivious of the rudimentary ingredients entailed to engross audiences. Ennui and crawling pace are anathema to a spy story. When the yard-sticks are James Bond and even John Le Carré, a shoddy script, amateurishly executed, stands no chance ...

Golf is not very popular in India. Neither is ice hockey. Cricket is. So you cannot blame Sohail Khan for making these basic changes to the plot of the Adam Sandler film of yesteryear, Happy Gilmore (1996). Sandler was a failed ice-hockey player who gets holed big in golf. It’s 2016. Enter Nawazuddin Siddiqui, a failed male underwear street-vendor who can hit sixers at will, and carries over his tennis ball cricket prowess to the golf course. Freaky? What else? And yes, his name is Ali. ...

Chehere: A Modern Day Classic, Review: What’s in a name? Even seven years after it was shot, Chehere: A Modern Day Classic, was unlikely to see even the light of modern day. That it has managed to reach the screen is a miracle, as is the survival of its lead actress, Manisha Koirala, who was battling cancer when the film was almost complete. First screened at the Pravasi Film Festival, New Delhi, in 2010, probably short of a few Manisha scenes, the film was initially titled Badalte Cheh...