Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

Cast:  Manish Paul, Sikander Kher, Piyush Mishra Rated : 5.5/10 Is it anywhere near the original?  Naa...  Not a patch on it. Is it not at all funny? That’s not true either. Could it have been any better? Yes, much much better. Tere Bin Laden 2  came riding on high expectations and, as expected, could not live up to them. But then no sequel ever does. And as far as  TBL 2  goes, even the main character Osama is long dead and thrown into the sea. Hence, the central character is not so much Laden as it is David Do Something, an American Marine assigned the task of proving that Osama is actually dead. Sikander Kher as David is more than brilliant and holds the film together. Osama has few moments as does Manish Paul who plays the film’s director in the middle of all the drama, action, shooting and a fallen brigade of jihadis helmed by Piyush Mishra. A lot happens in this film but much too quickly. It’s more than evident that the slapstick pace is int...

Cast:  Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Courtney Eaton, Rufus Sewell, Gerard Butler Rated:  6/10 This big canvas fantasy adventure, pegged on Egyptian folklore and celestial beings, is an engaging saga which turns a little bit prolonged by the end of it all. Here, Gods are fighting the rogue God who has the throne of Egypt under his sword after killing his King brother and maiming his heir-apparent nephew forever by swooping out his all-powerful eyes. Or so he thought, till one measly mortal — a thief at that — loses his beloved to her master and bargains with the God in Exile King to give her life back in barter for his eyes which he steals from the rogue King’s vault. Amid all this mumble jumble, the flashy film high on computer imagery and graphic action unfolds interestingly enough to keep you seated through its prolonged journey through well conjured mountains, deserts and heaven, not to mention the ultimate abode of life — the sun. Another matter thou...

Cast:  Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Jake Lacy  Rated:  7.5/10 Classified as a love story, this same-sex tag of a romance may sound over indulgent and groovy about lesbian encounters, especially when they are all unfolding in the forbidden age of the 1950s. But it has a story alright — and it’s all about the straight out of Vogue, rich, restless and seasoned Cate Blanchett (Carol) and the gauche, young, hesitant, middle-class salesgirl Rooney Mara (Terese) shacking up together in the face of stiff taboo. The beauty of their slowly unfolding relationship spread around an expansive road trip to the West, is that it is both a counterfoil and a complement in equal measure. Blanchett is more than extra-ordinary in her role of a much married mother of one who has had same-sex flings before, the ultimate lady of the world in her brown fur, red lipstick and a swagger so unique that you might just give her the Oscar for Best Actress. But then there is Roone...

Cast:  Leonardo Di Caprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter, Domhnall Gleeson, Lucas Haas Rated:  7/10 It’s a dark, depressing and mostly frigid environment that this film takes you into. To top it, the journey is full of horrors, blood, gore and a burning revenge plan of a half-eaten-by-bear way-scout to travel to the other corner of this unending landscape and kill the murderer of his son. Despite the slow but intense action of a factual story set in the 19th century, despite its lead actor Leonardo Di Caprio not speaking many, or should we say any, dialogues, despite the prolonged and agonising journey that battles the pitfalls of sheer monotony — it grows on you and you want to navigate to the end. Though all the talk of this film based on real character of folklore America, Huge Glass, is about whether this time round — finally — Di Cap will get his much awaited Oscar for Best Actor, one should not take away from the immense work put into this landscape-ridden film by ci...

Cast:  Lily James, Sam Riley, Jack Huston, Bella Heathcote, Douglas Booth, Matt Smith, Charles Dance Rated:  6/10 For one, this a brave film, a very brave attempt to marry the other world with a classic love saga whose bastardisation could have evoked a riot among viewers. But some how, God knows how, this brave and virtually outrageous effort grows on you. I mean, just imagine Mr Darcy engaging more with bloodied zombies than the delightful battle of wits with Elizabeth. Imagine those Bennett sisters wielding swords and pistols and gunning for the ghosts rather than for the delectable and rich boys next door. Imagine London falling to zombies and not to those groovy balls where girls met boys in coy circumstances and diamond-laden mothers got busy making matches with impunity. Yes, unimaginable but  P&P&Z  has its very own charm — the charm of seeing the Bennett sisters fishing out weapons from their suspenders, the warrior girls who can defend the...

Cast : Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton Rated:  7/10 When a group of investigative journalists of the  Boston Globe  get down to probing the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests (70 of them eventually in Boston alone!) and the Church recycling the culprits into the system despite the bigness of their crime, an engaging film like  Spotlight  happens. Spotlight  is not just about the enormity of the issue. It is a hell of a film because it is thorough and because it captures the routineness of the work at hand with amazing alacrity. This, when the investigation itself is as slow as spreading over one whole year. The back and forth, the interviews of the emotional victims, the backgrounding, the digging away, the not breaking with time, the decision to hold on to the story till the system and not just the priests get nailed, and not hyping it at all (actually underplaying it) — is what thorough journalism is all about. All this ma...

Cast : Girish Kumar, Navneet Kaur Dhillon, Naveen Kasturia Rated:  4.5/10 Boy meets girl on his bachelor’s party night. Of course there is  Hangover  but without too much of that kind of fun which no one can forget. Rather, it is eminently forgettable. Of course, there is a quick romp in the bed with the wrong girl but that too is forgotten for some time and the boy does marry the maneater that he shouldn’t have. Of course, there’s a divorce and, of course, boy meets the same girl all over again four years later, this time on her bachelorette party in groovy Mauritius. Of course, there is this thing that this one from the YRF stable is without any star power and that means half the love story gone down the drain. The male lead works very hard to flex his muscles and six pack abs but fails to land a punch either way. The debutant Navneet Dhillon is good looking and has some amount of screen presence but that’s about all there is. In a love story that is predict...