Screen Test

Rarely do you come across thrillers that have you hooked from the first scene to the last. The potential that the genre offers is often underutilised and many times compromised, with add-ons like songs killing the joy of unravelling a mystery (You’d relate to this if you’ve had the misfortune of watching Jagga Jasoos earlier this year). Thankfully, Faster Fene avoids all this and ends up becoming a racy adventure thriller. Banesh Fene travels to Pune to appear for a medical entrance examination and lives with an aged writer-uncle (Dilip Prabhavalkar) there. At the exam centre, he briefly encounters another aspiring doctor and gets chatting with him. When he reads in the newspapers the following day that the boy has committed suicide, he finds it hard to believe that a certain topper would end his life abruptly. The inquisitive Fene then sets out on a mission to unearth the truth with the help of a sidekick, a lady journalist, an autorickshaw driver and guidance from his uncle...

Secret Superstar is one of the better films of 2017 because of its solid content, intriguing storytelling and top performances. What makes it particularly watchable is that a simple premise of a girl wanting to become a singer is woven around several issues plaguing our society. However, these points are so blatant and yet so understated that they are bound to move the viewers while ensuring they contemplate on the reality surrounding us. Zaira Wasim, a schoolgirl in Vadodara, is blessed with a beautiful voice that is suppressed by her authoritarian and dominating father (Raj Arun). It is her mother, fantastically essayed by Meher Vij, who gives wings to her dreams and supports her in every way that she can, even if that means risking being beaten black and blue by her husband. With a guitar and laptop, both gifted by her mother, Zaira decides to put her talent up for show on the internet. The fear of her father, however, looms large and so, she decides to hide her identit...

Conjoined twins separated at birth due to unfortunate circumstances come together after they have grown up to create a series of misadventures for each other. One's grown up poor, bold and strong and the other as a polished, harmless and weak boy in a rich family. It's a formula that has been tried in several films before. In  Judwaa 2 , the difference is that when the twins are in close proximity to each other, one reacts in the same way as the other. For instance, if one slaps a guy on his right cheek, the other will repeat the act with whoever he is with, however harmless that person is. That in essence is the premise of  Judwaa 2  and jokes are created around this for the audience to have a hearty laugh. The problem, however, is that a majority of them are so pathetic that they fail to evoke even a yawn from you. Like, Sa Re Ga Ma Amitabh Bachchan because the legend played the title role in  Paa . Besides, while the original  Judwaa  worked...

Newton , India’s entry to the Oscars, is a satirical take on the country’s electoral system. Rajkummar Rao is an upright polling officer who is deployed in a Maoist-infested territory of Chhattisgarh during the Lok Sabha elections, his maiden assignment. His ideals and principles compel him to set up a polling booth in a remote village although there are only 76 citizens who are eligible to exercise their fundamental right. Others around him unfailingly persuade him against entering a dangerous territory, but he sticks to his ground despite the odds. He believes he can change the system and mindsets even though he is told on his face that change does not happen overnight. The less-than-two-hour film makes a fine commentary on the farce surrounding the elections in some parts of the country, in this case Chhattisgarh, where people haven’t even seen an electronic voting machine before. Many are dragged to the voting centre and told about the various symbols belonging to...

To call Simran an attempt just to showcase Kangana Ranaut's acting calibre would be grossly unfair. She, of course, stands tall and elevates the film with an outstanding performance. But Simran is also a fresh, breezy tale about a headstrong woman and her quest to build an identity of her own. What works is the treatment, the relatable characters and most importantly, Kangana. A Gujarati NRI working as a housekeeping staff with a reputed hotel in Atlanta, Kangana wants to buy a house of her own mainly to distance herself from her nagging parents. They want their divorced daughter to remarry, but she is happy with the freedom she enjoys, including the joy of flirting with cute men.  A chance trip takes her to Las Vegas where the 'sin' of gambling that she commits earns her lots of money, enough to buy a house and a lot more, including fancy dresses whose price tags kept her away from them till then. It soon turns into an addiction, but the results are not alway...

Bhumi Pednekar aspires to be the runaway bride like they show in Bollywood movies. But the guy chasing her, Ayushmann Khurrana, does not muster enough courage to approach her. When he finally does, he first runs into a bear and then a peculiar problem, that of performance anxiety. Shubh Mangal Saavdhan is set during an interesting period - between engagement and marriage - during which Bhumi and Ayushmann are trying to discover their love for each other. There's plenty of that, but the lack of intimacy stands out and adds to the pressure. While Bhumi accepts Ayushmann the way he is, he feels guilty at not being able to rise to the occasion. That obviously leads to a strain in their relationship. What complicates matters is when the two families involved get to know of his problem. The film tackles an unusual subject in a hilarious way and offers several laughs with its witty and often more-than-one-meaning dialogues. Despite dealing with a peculiar issue, not once doe...

From Sidharth Malhotra posing in front of a posh mansion that he’s purchased in Miami to Sidharth Malhotra chasing hardened criminals on the streets of Bangkok and Mumbai, A Gentleman: Sundar, Susheel, Risky is all about Sidharth Malhotra whose imperfect past plays havoc in his life. The two Sidharths live contrasting lives and the film pieces together a connection between the two in a rather engaging way. While the former is suave, polite and apologetic, the latter is rugged, macho and guilt-ridden despite working for a ‘Colonel’ who isn’t averse to killing innocent people.  Trouble starts when the ‘bad Malhotra’ decides to leave the ugly world he’s found himself stuck in after getting to know of a hard disk which nails his Colonel’s nefarious activities. A wild goose chase ensues in pursuit of the disk which results in high-octane actions sequences, including Malhotra dangling from the terrace of a skyscraper and making his way into a secured server room in one of the ...