Jahaan Chaar Yaar, Review: 4 oppressed wives and 1 dead, naked, male stripper Sometimes, you don’t realise you have made a fairly good beginning and deviate into unnecessary trappings. Sometimes you don’t realise that it ain’t broke, so don’t fix it. Sometimes you start tinkering with the engine, and don’t realise that the problem is that you have run out of petrol (read ‘ideas’). On the other hand, you might realise that you have run out of petrol an...

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...

Family of Thakurganj, Review: Nannu, Munnu and nothing New, New Referencing dozens of mafia/gangster movies made in India and the West, Family of Thakurganj glorifies crime for the major part, gets into a conscientious hiccup and sermonising after the midway mark, and ends-up offering ‘crime kills crime’ as a solution against the rot of corruption that has set in the entire fabric of the Indian police/law/politics nexus. Except for a couple of twists in the plot, there is little t...

Baa Baaa Black Sheep, Review: Wolf in sheep’s clothing Director Vishwas Paandya is not serious. A confessional in the beginning dedicates Baa Baaa Black Sheep to the films he grew up on. He’s also asked his partner in crime (it’s a crime story), writer Sunjiv Puri, to strictly follow his brief. So, when the film was launched, in early 2015, they were probably referencing films of the 1980s-1990s. One character is named Charlie, in a tribute to the legendary comedian, who rul...