Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

*ing : Diljit Dosanjh, Sonakshi Sinha, Karan Johar, Riteish Deshmukh, Lara Dutta, Boman Irani, Rana Daggubati, Sushant Singh Rajput, Aditya Roy Kapur Rated : 1/10 The IIFA could not have a more lame, stupid and kitschy ambassador than this completely nonsensical, pompous movie Welcome to New York. It not only maligns the name of this prestigious awards ceremony but also goes a long way in questioning the mental efficacy of an actor of some repute like Sonakshi Sinha to have accepted such a crazy project even in the silly season of her career. Daljit Dosanjh, too, has by now gathered a modicum of momentum for his acting ambitions in Bollywood so doing this film comes across as a blind date he took up in a fit of insanity. The film, a spoof on Bollywood and its mores, does try to showcase the known eccentricities of known biggies like Karan Johar in and as Karan Johar, the Karan-Arjun OTT recall and a vaguely woven in Ek Villain tale that has been inserted at the IIFA presentat...

*ing : Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike Wes Studi Jesse Plemons Adam Beach Rory Cochrane Ben Foster Rated : 5/10 The only thing impressive about this drab journey through the wild west is its starcast and their performance. But that’s about it and that too gets doused by the forlorn landscape and the nothing to do story around an american captain tasked to return a Red Indian chieftain back to his land and family. This despite the fact that the chief has butchered White Americans, women, children and men by the dozens. Nothing much happens on either side of the countryside journey and that’s what kills the film despite its lofty mission to show up how perceptions of even the biggest hostiles change through life experiences with one another. Not really a film to spend money on despite the presence of the impressive Christian Bale. Source: Published in Sunday Pioneer, February 18, 2018

*ing : Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher, Manoj Bajpayee, Sidharth Malhotra, Rakul Preet Singh, Pooja Chopra, Adil Hussain Rated : 6/10 Neeraj Pandey without Akshay Kumar? Naaa! The biggest niggle of this otherwise honestly intentioned film is the absence of Akshay’s inimitable presence as a super spook ahead of one and all. Instead there is Manoj Bajpai and Siddharth Malhotra doing the honours of this here and there spy thriller from the same man who hit it big with films like A Wednesday, Baby, Special 26, Naam Shabana and Rustom to name a few. Pandey’s acumen notwithstanding, this one is a not so tight, not so slick, somewhat straying international spy thriller unfolding in London and India. Siddharth Malhotra looks good and does a fine job of his assignment as does Bajpai but something somewhere is left missing — and that something is the innate thrill of being with Pandey in such ventures. In this one, he fails to stick to the job and often gets emotional. The result is the ...

*ing: Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Radhika Apte, Sudhir Pandey, Maya Alagh, Amitabh Bachchan Rated: 7/10 It is a difficult and uncomfortable subject to make a film on, that too a full length feature, and even if you are above the stigma situation escorting the good old pad stuck in the nether part of a woman’s anatomy, it still makes you a bit shifty to see it on the big, bold screen. So, the film on a sanitary napkin maker is not an everyday kind of film to make and in that context, Akshay Kumar’s latest in issue-raising cinema is laudable. So, is the real link to the story which encases the extraordinary journey of Arunachalam Muruganantham who was shunned by one and all — even his wife — for his obsession to make an affordable and hygienic sanitary napkin (and a sanitary napkin making machine) for primarily rural women. Akshay, who obviously plays Muruganantham, is brilliant and the focal point of a film more on the man than his obsession. Emerging unscathed from the ...

*ing: Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone, Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer, Ray Corasani Rated: 2/10 Why do such lacklustre, directionless and totally unhappening films from Hollywood get made at all? And then, arrive to the Indian market to empty halls is a question that only money-makers will be able to answer. The only exciting thing  about the film is its title which might just deceive you into buying a ticket and wasting money on a film that has a slim story, an anorexic script and a reed thin purpose behind any of the proceeding that keep going back and forth from a running train shooting scene. Even this scene is mostly unexplained and it that was the ploy of the film director to keep some kind of mystery, the attempt falls flat on its belly. Three dysfunctional kids in a convent school in sacramento grow up as friends with two of them wanting to be in the Army to save lives. As it happened in school for them, in the Army too they get into trouble for no fa...