‘The Nun’ review: Fearless and hammy in Romania
After being frightened by The Conjuring 2 , we’ve been haunted by the brief glimpses of the demon Nun Valak from the film. Now, there’s an entire film dedicated to the origins of the evil spirit in The Nun , a prequel to 2016 film and the fifth in The Conjuring universe.
‘Laila Majnu’ review: Madness wins over love
Sajid Ali, in his directorial debut, Laila Majnu, takes the classic drama of Layla and Majnun and situates it in modern-day Kashmir, where very little of the region’s volatility plays havoc in their lives but the root cause of melancholy and tragedy remains the age-old elusiveness of love.
‘Gali Guleiyan’ review: enter the manic maze
Irrespective of whether you foresee the twist in the tale early on in the film or not, Gali Guleiyan is compelling for several reasons. The film is a journey into the labyrinthine mind of a tortured soul played with a profound, heartbreaking urgency by Bajpayee. He makes the anxieties and anger leap out at you as he goes about searching for a child next door who is losing his childhood at the hands of an abusive, violent adult.
‘Vanjagar Ulagam’ review: Experiment gone wrong
Manoj Beedha’s Vanjagar Ulagam is clearly an experiment in terms of making. The cinematography has extensive Western influences (think dark, moody lighting) and the music is offbeat (a Carnatic dubstep plays in the background when a police encounter is taking place) but lengthy dialogue-driven sequences kill the film.
'C/o Kancharapalem' review: Small film with a large heart
Care of Kancharapalem is a rare Telugu film that takes us beyond the habitual cinematic settings to familiarise us with the sights, sounds and lives of people of a locality. In those narrow lanes of Kancharapalem in Vizag, there’s no place for secrets.
‘Ranam’ review: A graft work without novelty
In his debut film Ranam , Nirmal Sahadev makes a conscious attempt to place the film firmly in Detroit, beginning with a narration on the city’s rise as an automobile hub of the world, economic distress of recent years, rise of the city’s mafia and role of Asians, especially Sri Lankans and Indians, in that mafia.
‘Manu’ is a mixed bag of riddles
Director Phanindra Narsetti presents Manu like a bag of riddles. When you break it down to its bare minimum, the story is simple — of love, longing and family ties, topped with generous taste for art and revenge. It unfolds at a languid pace, revealing the fantasy-like world of Neela (Chandini Chowdary) and Manu (Raja Goutham).
‘Halkaa’ review: a laboured, unimaginative attempt
Its lofty, socially important aim notwithstanding, Halkaa is a laboured and unimaginative attempt at supposed documentary realism. In an effort to offer a gritty, realistic picture of life on the urban margins, director Neela Madhab Panda gets overly obsessed with shit and gets irritatingly gratuitous in the potty portrayal.
‘Paltan’ review: It’s all about loving your soldiers
J.P. Dutta’s brand of war films has a set recipe: take a stale base of background stories, layer it with some moments of valour, sprinkle some sappy songs and toss it all up with a healthy serving of heavy-duty dialogues. We’ve seen him do this before with Border and LOC Kargil . The formula remains the same with his third attempt at war cinema, Paltan.
