This weekend at the movies

A guide to all the movies that released this weekend. Read the reviews and take your pick!

Irudhi Suttru: A heart-warming boxing drama

The film isn’t just about sports. It isn’t just Million Rupee Baby. It’s also a story about sibling rivalry. We see a lot of red in boxing dramas, but here we also see bits of grey. Prabhu himself is no saint. In his very first scene, he’s sinning with another man’s wife. Read Baradwaj Rangan's full review > here .

Also read the Hindi version of the movie: > Saala Khadoos: unable to rise above predictability

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Aranmanai-2 : More navel than novel

The emphasis is not so much on making a horror story that is novel, than it is on fixating on the heroine’s navel. There is no sense of dread, unless of course, you take into account the palpable nervousness that hits you when you realise that the next terrible song (Hip Hop Thamizha) or the next boring comedy scene is incoming. Full review > here.

Also read the Telegu version of the movie here - > Kalavathi: Bound by formula

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Mastizaade: Would you call this a film?

having watched Mastizaade a week after Kya Kool Hain Hum 3, I must confess that I am still unable to tell where last week’s film ended and this week’s began. The déjà vu has been frightening, right down to Tusshar Kapoor in the lead, Milap Zaveri wielding the pen (also occupying the director’s chair in Mastizaade), Thailand for location and a lot more. Read the review by Namrata Joshi > here.

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Room: Inside out

In another kind of a story, Room would have been about a young woman and her five-year-old kept captive in a shed by an unassuming guy who turns out to be a psychopath. But Lenny Abrahamsons’s drama, written by Emma Donoghue — whose novel it is based on — almost sidesteps the rapist. Room is a superbly made movie about the bleakness that accompanies the loss of childhood. Full review > here .

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Joy: A Joyless journey

The film’s focus is Joy. I liked Lawrence’s performance. She doesn’t miss a beat, playing the woman stuck between her family and her personal ambitions. But despite her best efforts, the film feels utterly devoid of energy. Read Sankhayan Ghosh's review > here .

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The Boy review: a hollow dollhouse

A young American woman Greta (Lauren Cohan) gets a job as a nanny in an isolated estate in England. Her employers: the elderly couple are wealthy and generous. But the boy we meet isn’t a boy but a life-size porcelain doll of an eight-year-old named Brahms. The classic horror genre trappings – the haunted house, the creepy doll – are all in place. And for a good part of the first hour, The Boy manages to keep us hooked as long as the horror is psychological. > More....

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Asterix: The Mansions of the Gods

What is not to like about the indomitable Gauls and their constant skirmishes with the long-suffering Romans? The French-Belgian 3D film follows the general plot of The Mansions of the Gods , the 17th comic book by Goscinny and Uderzo, which was published in 1971. The movie comes to Indian screens more than a year after its French release (November 2014). A happy, colourful 3D trip to ancient Gaul thankfully has no expiry date, by Toutatis! > More...>