Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

Cast :  Chris Hemsworth, Conrad Khan, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain, Niamh Walter Rated:  4.5/10 After  Snowhite and the Huntsman , here comes a tale that happened before, the tale of two witch sisters who fought, killed, froze, burnt and raised armies to vanquish humanity. Incidentally, and quite surprisingly, their unexplained warfare had nothing to do with Snowhite, despite there being that dreaded evil mirror dominating the proceedings. In fact, there is only a hazy glimpse of Snowhite herself, something you would miss if you happened to be blinking for that fraction of a second. So, here you have a story around Snowhite without Snowhite, much like a clothes store without garments. Unimaginable but true as the tale pegs on a broken hearted younger witch sister whose child is burnt by her lover, under the evil spell of her elder sister. She goes away, builds an ice empire, kills parents to take away their children and then trains them to beco...

Cast:  Randeep Hooda, Pia Bajpai, Akshay Oberoi, Meenakshi Dixit, Rajneesh Duggal Rated:  5/10 Blood theft is a serious, a life taking crime; an issue that needed serious, no-nonsense display. Laal Rang could have done that  brought on the big screen the dark crime that is being committed all across the nation as patient after patient becomes victim to non-availability of blood, or worse still, infected blood bought in the black market for huge sums. But  Laal Rang,  sadly, almost frustratingly, gets waylaid by Randeep Hooda’s somewhat rippling muscles in gaudily printed vests, his alcoholic haze, his unkemptness, his failed love affair and his strange but real-time affability. Laal Rang  is not an issue-based movie, though one fervently wishes it were. It is out and out a Hooda worshippers though one will have to admit that Randeep lives up to star as the only bright spot of a film that loses direction after splashes of brilliance in showing up t...

Cast :  Boman Irani, Vir Das, Neha Dhupia, Lisa Hayden, Johnny Lever, Ram Kapoor, Vijay Raaz, Vrajesh Hirjee, Sanjay Mishra Rated  : 1/10 Now, why would you even attempt such a one? To make viewers laugh? Well, they cry. To make sense out of nonsense? Well, that doesn’t happen even once. To milk some funny stars like Vir Das and Boman Irani? Well, they are entirely trumped by the complete lack of humour. All the Santas and Bantas of the world cannot save this bumbling and almost unreal blunder in the comic genre. The director — and the hard at work actors — fail to conjure up even a whisker of comedy all the way in Fiji. Of course, India’s premier external agency RA&W should sue the filmmakers for making such a bad spoof on their activities. The viewers should do the same, or, in this day and age of PILs, file one to ensure that electricity, time and space are not wasted on such needless, fruitless and listless ventures. That, despite all attempts to keep the kit...

Cast :  Swara Bhaskar, Ratna Pathak Shah, Pankaj Tripathi Rated :  8/10 Nil Battey Sannata is a confusing title but an endearing, simple, gentle and real film. Besides, the title confuses only till Swara Bhaskar as Chanda explains it to you with endearing simplicity much ahead in the movie. It literally means zero understanding and zero marks — in her and her daughter’s case, in Mathematics. But this one is not just about the mind-boggling numbers that have become the bane of students and parents alike. It is about the maths, algebra and geometry of life itself — an equation that director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari puts on the blackboard in an engaging, simplified format. Nil Battey Sannata  is a film sitting on a very real firmament, a very you-and-me story about the in-your-face problems that everyone encounters. In here, it is about misrani  (cook) Chanda and her full of life but anti-studies daughter Apeksha Sahay’s daily churn. Thankfully, it is not the drudg...

Cast  : Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Amin, Yogendra Tiku, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Waluscha de Sousa, Sayani Gupta Rated : 8/10 Here comes Fan. Shah Rukh’s differently abled revelation. He is the star of this film. He is also its fan. He has the star swagger. He has the fan obsession. He has everything right and in equal measure which makes this one a film to visit and serenade the power of the star that has gone wrong on many previous occasions but is bang on this time round. As movies go, this one is bold and away from the rut of the general SRK movies which usually take you by storm despite being surprisingly bad ( Dilwale, Happy New Year ). Fan is good. It is well rested on seasoning. It has direction. It has composure. And it has Shah Rukh all by himself and as his very different double. As the star, he is unqueasy about leading you into the heart of his (read as differently named Aryan Khanna) home, into the backstage, into life away from the camera and even into snigger-orien...

Cast:  Neel Sethi, voices of Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong'o, Scarlett Johansson Rated:  9/10 This one is perfect to a fault, only there is no fault in the ageold Kipling classic in its newest Disney version. Entirely CGI other than Neel Sethi and his delightful interaction with the camera, this version of  The Jungle Book is  so real in the artificial world that you forget the animals, the insects, the reptiles and even the jungle is entirely make-believe. From 1967, when Disney wowed the world by screen-testing Rudyard Kipling’s endearing and eternal tale of a man-cub (Mowgli) being raised by wolves (Akela and Raksha), to now when technology has given it the Sher Khan kind of muscle, it’s been not just a leap in time but also in excellence. Director Jon Favreau and his special effects team have done more than a commendable job to give such an enthralling reality hug to studio graphics. Be it the menacing and resentful Sher Khan, the ...

Cast:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper, Judah Lewis Rated:  6/10 Relationship status: Complicated. That’s what you will say about this “comedy drama” that hit the theatres rather silently. Pivoted over a man losing his wife in accident and then going crazy trying to break down (read demolish) every gadget/structure/relationship/movem-ent/behaviour, the film carts around what you may call weirdo action. And yet, all this craziness embodied in and displayed interestingly by the dead wife’s husband, grows on you. You kind of wait to see what he does next and he does pretty much any and everything. That includes writing saga letters of his situation to a vending machine company, picking up the customer care executive for a weird kind of friendship, straightening up his adolescent son with ‘gay’ issues, convincing himself that the loss of his wife means nothing to him and even dreaming about half his heart missing in an X-ray! Indeed, there’s a lot happening ...