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Napad (2024)
A police car drives up on a remote road. The driver stops to ask a passerby for directions to a Tadeusz Gadacz’s residence. The car comes to a stop and a serious-looking woman steps out and walks on a muddy pathway and across a tiny…
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Killer Heat (2024)
Killer Heat opens with private detective Nick Bali (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) arriving on a picturesque Greek island to investigate the accidental death of a wealthy resident Leo Vardakis in a freak climbing accident. He has come at the behest of the deceased man’s sister-in-law Penelope (Shailene…
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Meiyazhagan (2024)
Meiyazhagan is an emotional rollercoaster in the best ways. It tugs at your heartstrings, squeezing out the essence of everything good in relationships, family, and the goodness of people—in the best of times, and at the worst. Does it succeed? Very well. The movie sets…
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Do Patti (2024)
DO PATTI, BUT EK NA CHALI!Do Patti scores top marks for me as one of the worst A-lister Hindi films I have seen in recent times. I like both Kriti Sanon and Kajol as very capable actors, but Do Patti is that one film that…
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Venom: the Last Dance (2024)
VENOMENAL? NOT QUITE. I rarely watch movies on the first day of its release. Yes, I do sometimes; usually Superstar Rajini’s movies (not all of them!), or something I got super-hyped waiting for—like The Batman (the new one). This time was a fluke thanks once…
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Boston Strangler (2023)
STRANGLER DANGLER For those who don’t know about the infamous string of killings that shook Boston in the 1960s — 13 women killed in near-identical circumstances, all strangled to death with the bodies left decorated with a stocking bow tie around the neck — this…
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Kill Boksoon (2023)
KILLING TIME WITH KILLERS ‘Kill Boksoon’ builds promise right from the opening scene where two famous assassins face off near a railway track for a stylish yet anti-climatic (dark humour?) fight unto death. It then develops into a full-blown action melodrama that, well, somehow works.…
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Bheed (2023)
TO BHEED OR NOT TO BHEED As a person of so-called Dalit origins, I can’t help view movies that deal with the issue of caste and caste empowerment without a vicarious sense of representation. “Bheed” too was one such story. It depicts the omnipresent shroud…
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Thankam (2023)
ALL THAT GLITTERS “Thankam” is a good movie — a mix of a thriller a police procedural — that stops short of being excellent. It grips you enough to keep you guessing what might happen next throughout, until the somewhat tame albeit surprising end to…
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The Whale (2022)
A WHALE OF A MOVIE ‘The Whale’ is a movie that leaves you heartbroken but satisfied. You root for the protagonist so much that you wish the story had ended differently, because you desperately want him to find redemption, and the happiness that he seeks,…
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Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)
ABLE ELBA For fans of the original BBC series, “Luther: The Fallen Sun” picks up where it left us, in a movie sequel. It has all the key elements of the series absolutely intact, on a slightly larger scale. Idris Elba once again plays the…
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Everything Everywhere All at Once(2022)
YEOHVERYTHING YEOHRYWHERE ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ (EEAAO) is a difficult movie to classify. It blends genres in an unusual way. It is an intense family drama, a love story, a comedy, a science-fiction movie, an action movie and epic adventure with the now done-to-death…
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Christopher (2023)
CHRISTOPHER, WITH LITTLE TO OFFER What can you say about a movie that is an endless parade of predictable clichés right from the word go? Watching it till the end was like watching a train derail on a bridge — you know what to expect,…
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The Romantics (2023) & Cinema… Marte Dum Tak (2023)
FOR THE LOVE OF CINEMA If you are a diehard fan like me, and love cinema in all its many-splendoured glory from the biggest blockbuster extravaganzas to the most measly productions, the duds delivered by the biggest stars to the runaway hits served by rank…
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Iratta (2023)
TWIN TREAT ‘Iratta’ is that Sunday afternoon kind of movie that keeps you riveted from start to finish, through every twist and turn, while you burn brain cells trying to second-guess what is to come next. The movie starts at a police station where a…
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Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam (2022)
MORE NIGHTMARE THAN DREAM Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam is a strange movie. Reminiscent of the style of films like Elippathayam (1982), it is deliberately slow to the point of ennui. There are cinematic devices strewn around in the narrative ostensibly to evoke a “how clever” from…
