Marjavaan, Review: Monica, harmonica, loyalty, penalty, cute, mute, swords, words Umpteenth reworking of the Godfather theme, albeit with a couple of new angles, Marjaavaan is definitely not a film to die for. Old songs are recycled, the religious divide is milked, fights are conceived as moves of dance choruses and a violently doomed love story is thrown in to add to the misery of the lead couple. See it only if you like to feast yourself on blood and gore, tragedy and heartbreak. Translate...

Batla House, Review: Policeman with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Distinguishing one police thriller from another is becoming an increasingly difficult task. He is part of an incident/encounter that results in deaths of alleged criminals. The officer’s marital life is disrupted due to his erratic working hours and heavy post-traumatic stress. Having had enough, the wife threatens to leave him. The incident creates controversy and he runs afoul of the powers that be. Most of his higher-...

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...

Satyameva Jayate, Review: Blood-letting, blood curdling, blood-bath with pyre power Milap Milan Zaveri declared in a press interview a week ago that he will never make a sex comedy again, after the disastrous Mastizaade. “I would like to make films which have drama, action and heroism. I want to make heroic films.” The first station on this journey towards his goal is Satyameva Jayate (Only Truth Be Victorious), a heroic film, or, more accurately, another vigilante pot-boiler with...