Heropanti 2, Review: A bullet in his bum Denizens of Mumbai and environs might not need the meaning explained, but this is an international portal, and an explanation is in order. The title comes from two words, hero, which needs no translation, and panti, which does. Most probably, it is derived from panthi, which mean traveller. Panthi easily becomes panti, the combination with hero standing for one who follows the hero’s, or heroics’, path. Lead actor Tiger Shroff took a walk a...

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 ...

Pati Patni Aur Woh, Review: Eternal try angle Same title, same production house, same concept, yet Pati Patni Aur Woh is nothing like its 1978 original. Crucial elements like the ‘woh’ (she) being the protagonist’s secretary and the lead couple having a son are missing in this 2019 ‘remake’. Yet, the film works quite well, and if such a brazenly adult theme can avoid becoming a bedroom farce, while delineating the plot on a tight-rope walk, there must be somethi...

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...

Kalank, Review: Masochistic miasma Everything in Kalank (blemish, stigma) is grand, both in content and in form. Sets and décor, riches and poverty, locales and vehicles, make-up and costumes, dances and fights, colours and luminance, all are designed to make your jaw drop in awe. All this opulence is merely the canvas on which a heart-wrenching tragedy is painted, around the time of India’s partition, with the entire ensemble cast at the receiving end of a woeful operatic wail, ...

Stree, Review: Ironing ‘bored’ What do you call a female ghost? For want of a better word, the villagers who are haunted by this entity call it Stree (Hindi for woman). Fair enough. If English film-makers can call a ghost Entity, what is wrong with a Hindi film selecting Stree as its eponymous title? Mind you, this is no ordinary ghost that haunts or possesses the simple village-folk. It kidnaps only men, every year, with precise accuracy, on the same dates, and leaves behind only...