Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

Casting : Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Ranveer Singh Rated : 6/10 Censor Board boss Prasoon Joshi should have suggested the simplest solution to the Padmavat saga — to name the film Alauddin Khillji which, in the first case, Sanjay Leela Bhansali should have done on his own. Not because the loony fringe of Hinduism was on his trail but because the film, from the start to the end, is all about Alauddin Khilji. All others — including the resplendent Padmavati — are characters fleshed out in reaction to Khilji’s primitive domination of the film. But let’s first talk of the Karni Sena issue. It is totally misguided, indeed politically motivated and an entirely lunatic response to a film that never gets off the high horse of Rajput honour, and even showcases the misguided Rajput practice of johar with Bhansali working hard to make the entire act look pristine and need of the hour! Even in retrospect, it is disgusting to see a resplendent Rani Padmavati walking into the fla...

*ing: Saif Ali Khan, Akshay Oberoi, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Deepak Dobriyal, Vijay Raaz, Sobhita Dhulipala, Isha Talwar, Shivam Patil Rated: 5.5/10 Big guy Aamir Khan may have given this one a big thumbs-up but   Kaalakaandi   lives up to its intensely “dark comedy” tag only in bits and pieces. Saif Ali Khan, who plays a cancer-struck, dying man on a bucket list trip, tries hard, perhaps extra hard, to make the film look extra-ordinary with a stress on making it look like a normal reaction to a hurtling journey into death, but fails to keep up the gusto. The film starts with Saif getting blow-struck by the unfairness of life — after all, he has never smoked, drunk or even had non-vegetarian food or aerated drinks for that matter. He has maintained a good health graph with enough greens in his diet and sticks to exercise and fitness regimes that make his body look toned and supple. He has no vice to point out in his lifestyle and yet he is struck by none less an abusive dis...

*ing: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks Rated: 9/10 Can a Steven Spielberg-Tom Hanks-Meryl Streep team up be anything but a big, splashy wonder? The Post seems heading for the Oscars on more counts than one but that’s not the real feather in the cap of this amazing venture. The real thing about   The Post   is how it manages to engross you so completely that you never find a moment to point out how utterly slow the proceedings actually are. Other than that, but most importantly, the film brings into focus the relevance of journalism in a time when it has been caricaturised by paid news, so-called product endorsing lifestyle journalism and the crippling perception about the overall needlessness of the print medium. Based on   The Washington Post’s   effort to throw up the eternal corruption in the corridors of power (this time through the Vietnam saga) it has Tom Hanks in a brilliantly done role of Editor Ben Bradlee who eggs on his publisher and owner Katherine Graha...

*ing: Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Kristen Wiig Rated: 5.5/10 A revolutionary idea at best — downsizing humans to about 5 inches tall with a promise of prosperity both personal and environmental is a striking premise for an emotional scientific drama and Matt Damon’s  Downsizing  scores well on that count. But like all of Hollywood’s adventurous science-oriented ventures, this one too bloats on the hocus pocus of a dying humanity and its planet, poverty, disease, globalised oppression of the poor, some lab wonders and a lot of drama around the very concept of downsizing to make it look real, contentious and debatable all at the same time. Damon (Paul), an occupational therapist with a middle class life and wife dealing with bills and mortgages on one side and dreams of a big-life-big-house vertical journey on the other, is slowly but surely drawn by the concept of downsizing and eventually persuades his rather sceptical but loving wife to join the communit...

*ing: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw Rated: 7/10 Well, the cute bear is back, lending quite a few of his signatures awww moments in London. Same as original, he is with the Browns whose two kids are obviously grown up from the last time they smuggled Paddington into the house for him to get permanent residency in human enclosures with all the human trappings — the love, the belonging, the fun and the frolic. All in all, it is big-time family time film which the viewers will savour with similar emotions of love and indulgence. The good — and somewhat rare — thing about this No 2 in the  Paddington  series is that it is as good as if not better than the first one when Paddington found a home and was being eternally in danger of being hunted down by some lab-museum freaks. This time round, no such existential problems but for a pop-up London book which Paddington wants to gift to his au...