Talaash starts off with a delectably picturised opening credit sequence that shows Mumbai in the dead of the night, set to the jazzy Muskaanein jhoothi hai. The sequence is captured beautifully by KU Mohanan (whose work on Aushim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely was among its redeeming qualities) in an attractive dark tint, a feature that remains admirably consistent throughout the film. Talaash, by and large, is an atmosphere-driven movie...full review

English is a phunny language', Amitabh Bachchan told us in Namak Halal. English Vinglish starts with a title card that says, "100 years of Indian cinema. 70 years of Amitabh Bachchan." The film's producer, R Balki, has been a self-confessed Bachchan fan, who gave the veteran two of his most challenging roles in the post-Mohabbatein phase - a proud, arrogant, unmarried chef in Cheeni Kum, and a progeria patient in Paa. The attractive quality of both...full review

Mahi Arora is a superstar whose career hasn't exactly been going great guns lately. After having refused to sleep with a superstar actor on the outdoor shoot of her last film, she is left out from the film's publicity campaign, which instead focuses on the actor and another actress who has an item song in the film. In spite of it being declared a blockbuster (“150-crore ki film hai,” a trade analyst announces at its premiere), Mahi gets no credit for its success...full review

A movie like Barfi! comes along rarely. It's a film that engages you at a personal level, playfully nudging you to experience various emotions without really resorting to overt manipulation, one that makes you laugh and cry at the same time, and reminds you of what Roberto Benigni told us sometime ago: Life is beautiful. At heart, Anurag Basu's laboriously put together film is a conventional love triangle: Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they separate...full review

The best thing I can say about Joker is that it’s better than Tees Maar Khan. That gem — the benchmark of all that is mind-numbingly terrible about Hindi films — was written, edited, given music to and produced by Shirish Kunder but directed by wife Farah Khan, who had two blockbusters to her name before she took on the onus of executing her husband’s vision, and which resulted in a humongous flop. Kunder, then, takes matters in his own hands...full review

Ek Tha Tiger (ETT) is probably Hindi cinema’s best action film yet. Conrad Palmisano, who’s been stunt co-ordinator on films like the Rush Hour series, the Robocop series, Batman Forever and Romeo Must Die, directs four brilliantly put together action set-pieces. They are all lavishly mounted, shot at breathtaking locales, and executed with skilled precision. In the midst of it all is Salman Khan, Hindi cinema’s poster boy...full review

Jism 2 is hybrid cinema. A sort of B-grade sex thriller meets patriotic drama meets intense love story meets spoof. The film is all of the above and none of them. It also falls under a category much cherished by film lovers – the So Bad It’s Good variety. In the past few years, Prince, Haunted 3D and Players have made it to the illustrious list of films that are terrible, yet terribly entertaining. Jism 2 is a fitting addition...full review

If you are mildly offended by the headline of this review, chances are you will find Kya Super Kool Hai Hum (KSKHH) to be an assault to your senses. Racial slurs, double entendres, homosexual references; even albinos aren’t spared. Nor are those suffering from progeria (blame it on Paa). Director Sachin Yardi’s KSKHH revels in its ability to present one stereotype after another in a long orgy of sex jokes, private parts’ references...full review

The first half of Cocktail is cracking. The humour flows freely; there are genuinely warm moments and a novelty to the drama. Two girls – wild child Veronica (Padukone) and Plain Jane Meera (Penty) – live together, their contrasting personalities grounding each other and bringing them closer as friends. Enter guy (Khan) – goofy, flirtatious, fun. Guy and wild child have a fling, Plain Jane is wary of guy but eventually falls in love with him, guy loves Plain Jane too...full review

There are four outrageously funny sequences in Bol Bachchan, all of them having their genesis in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s delectable Golmaal. Archana Puran Singh takes over from Dina Pathak, and before you express outrage, you must brace for the fact that she plays a naachne-gaanewali as opposed to Pathak’s struggling actor. Dressed in vidhwa costume, a grey wig to go with it, she greets Prithvi Raj Raghuvanshi (Devgn, Shetty’s Utpal Dutt) with an aadab...full review

Kabeer Kaushik’s Maximum, oscillating between docu-drama and action thriller, lands up somewhere between the two and nowhere in particular. The story is predictable, the screenplay lacklustre and the characters undercooked. There was potential for the film to be a taut cop drama -- despite the seen-before encounter specialist angle -- but it ends up as a cop-out. You’ll be counting the minutes before the film reaches culmination, one that’s far from satisfying...full review

There’s an obnoxiously ambitious moment in The Avengers: a single shot that lasts over a minute, with the camera following each of the six Avengers engaged in battle, one by one. You hold your breath in awe, taken in by the relentless action that cuts across the screen like Hanzo’s sword, waiting for some respite, only to be bombarded with more breathtaking action. This is blockbuster entertainment at its best — a thrill-a-minute ride...full review

Sriram Raghavan’s Agent Vinod is brilliant in bits, and incredibly asinine in others. It’s probably the most inconsistently good film I’ve watched lately, and a massive letdown. Which is a pity. It could have made for a rare, looked-forward-to franchise....full review

"You are perfectly average," she tells him. "And that's the best thing about you." He's happy. It's something he's been yearning for - a friendly pat on the back; reassurance. And he gets it from her. “I’m perfectly average,” he repeats with a smile on his face. “That actually makes me feel good.” Director Shakun Batra shows rare deftness for a first-time filmmaker in Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu (EMAET). It is full of honest, warm moments that - to their credit...full review

Mukul S Anand's Agneepath(1990) has an iconic shot - Amitabh Bachchan on a speed boat, the Mauritian sea shining as he hurtles towards his nemesis, played by Danny. It's the first time the grown-up Vijay Dinanath Chauhan is meeting Kancha Cheena, and is a major turning point in the story. In Karan Malhotra's Agneepath, Vijay travels to Mandwa, a small island where Kancha resides. The water isn't sparkling, the mode of transport is a ferry...full review

Ever since Farhan Akhtar gave us the delectable Dil Chahta Hai (smartly written, well acted, a trendsetter of sorts), he has failed to better, or even get close to, his debut effort. His production company may have churned out some pretty memorable films since (Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, Rock On, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara), but his own directorial ventures have been mediocre. Lakshya suffered from a Dil Chahta Hai-wannabe first half fused with a JP Dutta-styled second...full review

It’s the mid-1980s. An ageing, vain superstar is surrounded by his cronies as a script writer narrates to him a story about an orphan. 'This orphan hero angle is so '60s,' cuts in the star. 'Let’s give the hero a family for a change. Let’s give him a sister too. Then let’s get her raped.' Everyone around can’t stop marveling at the idea. The writer is impressed too. 'Let’s make this movie,' he says. The ’80s was probably the lowest point in our cinema...full review

“Raavan kabhi marta nahi. Issi liye tum har saal usse jalate ho.” The bad guy gets the best line in the film. Sadly, his screen time is minimal. Ra.One comes alive every time the good (G.One, Khan) and the evil (Ra.One, Rampal) face-off. But they hardly do. Ra.One carries the burden of being Hindi cinema’s costliest film, and stars one of our biggest superstars. The film has almost everything going for it: The SFX is up-to-mark, the concept interesting, the scale mammoth...full review

Nagesh Kukunoor, who has followed the 'simple story, simple treatment' formula in his films throughout his career, does so in Mod too. The film has a seemingly complex plot -- that of a girl falling in love with a man with a Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), but Kukunoor stays away from the temptation to go down the thriller route, or even make the film over dramatic. Instead, he lays out his cards right upfront -- you know the boy has the disorder early...full review