TheMovieManiac

When one has a stellar film resumé comprising of  Sanju, PK,  and  3 Idiots,  the audience expects excellence of the same standard whenever they walk into theatres to watch a movie directed by that particular director. With Dunki being Rajkumar Hirani’s much-awaited collaboration with Shah Rukh Khan, the expectations were set sky-high, and the movie is a curious case for deciding whether the expectations were met or not.    In short, the film centers around a group of five friends who aspire to go to London in a bid to earn money and acquire a wealthy lifestyle to come out of the clutches of poverty and financial despair.    The film’s initial half, which is focused on primarily being comical, turns out to be quite hit or miss. The humor doesn’t land quite a few times and comes off as cringe. Some completely avoidable scenes could’ve been removed to cut down on the run time of the movie, which does start to feel like a drag towards the business en...

With Animal being Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s third directorial venture following the highly idiotic Kabir Singh and Arjun Reddy, I was skeptical Vanga would again resort to taking the route of displaying unnecessarily controversial stuff on the big screen as a tactic to take a satirical whip at his critics, or the ‘woke batch’ – 3 hours of the protagonist doing the most nonsensical things being made to look epic by the background music which blasts at full force at any random time of the movie without regard to the circumstances (Kabir Singh summed up). But boy was I proved wrong. Animal is a well directed film which delivers everything it promised – a violent, gory and disturbing presentation of a toxic father – son relationship, albeit not free from its shortcomings.   The first half of the movie is its better half, although it has it flaws. After the opening half an hour, the film transitions into a slightly puzzling delineation of past and present events which makes it somewhat diff...

  Breathe: Into the Shadows draws viewers in from the very first moment with its enigmatic intro theme and from that moment on, it is an endlessly thrilling ride to the very final episode. The backbone of the series is marvellous performances by each and every member of the cast and a stunning plot . Abhishek Bachchan and Amit Sadh are the stone pillars of this series, with Abhishek effortlessly nailing the role of Dr. Avinash Sabarwal, a psychiatrist. He simply brings out his best and delivers a performance to remember for the audience. On the other hand, Amit Sadh plays an unsmiling and short tempered cop Kabir Sawant. Amit doesn’t have many dialogues, and masterfully displays a wide array of emotions while at the same time amazingly maintaining a stern expression throughout the series. I must say this is Abhishek Bachchan’s best performance till date - he is nearly flawless while at the same time, there is an unspoken ‘fight’ between him and Amit Sadh about who will im...

Lootcase packs the sheer brilliance of Kunal Khemu, Ranveer Shorey, Vijay Raaz, Rasika Duggal and Gajraj Rao into one. Perhaps this astounding and incomparable cast is what makes this movie so spectacular, and that too in a genre in which Bollywood regularly struggles with, and is almost always abysmal, be it Total Dhamaal or Golmaal Again . The movie is one of the rare gems in comedy genre and proudly stands tall in front of all its competitors. Often, comedy movies lack a good plot in a bid to increase the humour segment, but Lootcase wonderfully manages both the plot and the humour. It succeeds effortlessly on these two counts. The movie is so beautifully made that you won’t realize how time passes, and stay engrossed in all of the casts’ antics. Although everyone in this movie is marvellous, Kunal Khemu delivers an absolutely eye catching performance which places him a notch above the others and makes this movie undoubtedly the best performance of his career yet. The fact that he...

Dil Bechara encompasses the love story of 2 cancer patients Kizzie and Manny, and the many highs and lows they face in their lives. Although the movie is not that great, it is much too good for a directorial debut, and Mukesh Chabbra does an applaudable job in directing this movie. The movie also marks the debut of Sanjana Sanghi, and she also does quite a remarkable job as Kizzie, and looks set for an impactful career in bollywood. She knows her game fairly well, and there are next to no flaws in her acting. Sushant Singh Rajput plays Manny, and as always effortlessly fits into his role, his last appearance on the big screen being his usual self, elegant and graceful. Although this certainly isn’t Sushant’s best performance, (Chichhore still remains the most gleaming trophy in his cabinet) his priceless expressions and his ebullient face are things that will take quite some time to deregister from our minds and hearts. He delivers a yet another standout performance and is the anchor t...