Analysing films

Spoiler alert: If you have read the book, don't bother watching the film. White Tiger is the definitive movie (as through the book as well) that brings out the class divide in the country. And the man of the moment for this is Adarsh Gourav. It's a tell all format of narration where the protagonist is writing to the Chinese Premier about what and how he looks at things. The film belongs to Adarsh out and out. Its a role that he plays to brilliance. The body language, diction, the screen presence all are spotless and leaves you yearning for more.  The years of honing himself in acting, singing (there is a small moment where he sings and that is so so good) and numerous workshops possibly has shaped Adarsh in to a splendid actor and he holds forth his space so well. Amongst the so called heavy weights like Priyanka Chopra, Rajkumar Rao, Mahesh Manjrekar and Vijay Maurya, Adarsh is brilliant and the fact that his character is all about owning center stage makes it all the more abo...

Today we revisit the delightful 2017 gem from Amit Masrurkar, Newton. Upon it's release then, the film garnered a lot of critical acclaim and it was indeed a delight to watch this film then and now. The context was topical, an extremely well thought of casting (even characters with 2-3 lines had so much depth) and finally it falls into the genre of black comedy, that makes Newton so enjoyable to watch. Newton to me is an out and out Pankaj Tripathi film, followed by Raghubir Yadav and then Rajkumar Rao. A lot of people might rank it the other way round but to me its Pankaj right at the top. He is spot on and every bit of his moment and presence are gilt edged. Infact, he complements the sullenness of Rajkumar' character so well. His opening lines where he enquires the visiting entourage about their preference for eggs is awesome. There are several such moments in the film which are so well cut out. Raghubir Yadav being the genius and such an underrated character comes out with ...

Chaalaang is the classic feel good movie to be watched on a Sunday evening with the family around. Clean and largely expletive free, it works for an extremely strong cast to boot and a storyline though wobbly in some places makes up with the right screen time and good editing. A little over 2 hours the run time is just enough to keep you glued to the seat. Anything more than this it would have been like the other recent release; Ludo; where the extra 20-30 minutes from the middle drags the film down.  Chaalang has an array of talent to boot. There is Saurabh Shukla, Satish Kaushik, Illa Arun, Jatin Sarna and of course Zeeshan Ayub Quadri (who cowrites the film too). Then there is a running chemistry of Hansal Mehta and Rajkumar Rao who have had an history of Omerta, Aligarh, Citylights... together. The weight of these actors and their chemistry wears down heavily on the frames of Nushrat Bharucha for whom after a time carrying it gets difficult and she seems to pale out. Chaalang h...

  At the start while reviewing Ludo; mandatory disclosure; Catch and Snatch kind of movies usually have a max viewing time of 90 minutes and anything above that it starts to get a tad iffy and "lost" even. And that is where the problem of Ludo run time is and  they could have done away with the middle 30-40  minutes of the film. Those were times when the film actually lost the plot and meandered into finding answers to every plot lines it had introduced. A film that starts well with a modern day Chitragupt and Yama (Anurag Basu looking impressive) looking for answers to life and gradually builds the plot of four different tracks (A la blue, red, yellow and green ludo dots) and each one with a back story that typically collides at different times of life and moments. There is an Abhishek Bachchan plot, a Rajkumar Rao plot, an Aditya Roy Kapur plot and finally the impressive Rahul Saraf plot. The plots all converge to Sattu Bhaiyya (Pankaj Tripathi) in some way or the other...