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Recent Reviews by Priyanka Roy
The Telegraph

Priyanka Roy heads the screen beat at The Telegraph t2. Based in Kolkata, she has 18 years of experience in film writing, which includes reviews, interviews, trend stories and opinion pieces. She writes on Hindi, English, regional Indian films and world cinema. When she isn’t watching something to review, she relaxes by watching true-crime documentaries.

Films reviewed on this Page

Freedom at Midnight
Vijay 69
Citadel: Honey Bunny
Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare
Longlegs
Singham Again
Do Patti
Raat Jawaan Hai
Jigra
Joker

Freedom at Midnight
Fashions a high-stakes drama built on one of the most tumultuous chapters in our history

“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom”. This momentous line from Jawaharlal Nehru’s Tryst with Destiny speech, delivered on the eve of India’s Independence on August 15, 1947, remains etched in the annals of history. What also remains an indelible part of our country’s birth into freedom after 200 years of colonial rule is the bloodied, agonising, gut-wrenching division of one nation into two.

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All 11 reviews of Freedom at Midnight here

Vijay 69
Predictable but feel-good watch

The never-say-die mantra of its 69-year-old protagonist is what forms the crux of Vijay 69. This is a story of spirit, spunk and resilience which is birthed within Vijay Mathew when he, ironically, is given up for dead. Played by Anupam Kher with the kind of chameleonic ease that has seen the actor make 500-plus films in 40-odd years, Vijay Mathew’s moment of epiphany arrives in the film’s initial moments when he lands up at his own ‘funeral’. When former swimming coach Vijay is spotted ‘diving’ into the sea in the middle of the night and not turning up till the morning, his friends and family assume the worst. The truth is that Vijay was spending the night at a drunken sesh and when he stumbles on to his coffin the next morning, it is a wake-up call for him.

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All 4 reviews of Vijay 69 here

Citadel: Honey Bunny
Citadel: Honey Bunny - Fails to soar.

A man, holding a gun, chases a woman through the nooks and crannies of Belgrade. Finding himself in a cul-de-sac of sorts, he sees her pointing a gun back at him. “Put your gun down,” she barks at him. He, a seasoned special agent, lets go of his gun and promptly gets shot. The law of probability points to the fact that if he had held on to the gun, there would be a 50 per cent chance of him being shot and a 50 per cent chance of him being able to shoot the woman in front of him. When he drops the gun, for no explainable reason, he makes that probability convert to a 100 per cent chance against him.

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All 10 reviews of Citadel: Honey Bunny here

Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare
Sweet Bobby exposes chilling catfish deception.

Even seasoned true-crime documentary aficionados will be left perplexed and very, very uncomfortable by what unfolds in this recently released watch on Netflix. A large part of that has to do with the fact that Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare feels both relatable and ridiculous at the same time and brings to the fore the dark abyss that is the Internet as well as exposes the shocking depths that human apathy can plunge to.

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Longlegs
Nicolas Cage builds dread and darkness in Longlegs.

As is the norm in promoting any product these days, in the run-up to its theatrical release, Longlegs fell back on social media influencers to market it as the ‘scariest film of the year’. A far more interesting promotional campaign, which quickly went viral, included cryptic ads in newspapers, billboards across Los Angeles comprising nothing but a phone number which, when called, had actor Nicolas Cage, who plays the titular character, whisper ‘threats’ to listeners. A true-crime website was specially designed to detail the antecedents of Longlegs’ long list of victims. A modestly budgeted horror film was turned into an event, which made everyone ask: is Longlegs the most terrifying film in recent times?

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Singham Again
Packed with action and star power but very little else.

There is not a single subtle bone in Singham Again’s action-packed, slo-mo loving body. While over-the-top has always been the signature of not only the Singham films but also of director Rohit Shetty’s cinema as a whole, Singham Again takes it to level next. Which really isn’t a good thing from the point of view of the art and craft of cinema but perhaps works in giving fans of this kind of filmmaking ample bang for their buck.

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All 13 reviews of Singham Again here

Do Patti
Do Patti has its heart in the right place but is otherwise all over the place.

The growing worry about lack of quality control in the OTT space now has a physical embodiment. Do Patti. A film which may have its heart in the right place but is otherwise all over the place. Do Patti aims to be a sensitive and scathing film on domestic abuse. The other tags it wants to earn for itself are a noir thriller, a police procedural, a film on sibling rivalry, a blistering criticism of privilege and a racy romance laced with sex, lies and videotape (or rather, mobile phone footage). It ends up being neither.

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All 17 reviews of Do Patti here

Raat Jawaan Hai
A breezy watch which scores for being relatable

The millennial attempting to retain individuality and identity, while holding on to old friendships and coping with being a new parent, is a demographic that has hardly, if ever, been represented on the Indian screen. Even if it has been, it has been reduced to a strand or a subplot in a coming-of-age story. The fact that it even goes down this route immediately sets Raat Jawaan Hai apart. That it does it well, making its eight episodes a breezy watch which you want to hold on to and hope it doesn’t end, is a huge feather in its cap. This is a definite clutter-breaker in the Indian streaming space. One which has been long overdue.

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All 5 reviews of Raat Jawaan Hai here

Jigra
Jigra is a rich cinematic experience powered by Alia Bhatt

Agneepath plays on the aircraft entertainment system, that telling scene of a young Vijay Dinanath Chauhan burning down a petrol pump being a visual allegory of a similar incident perpetrated by the protagonist in Jigra a few moments ago. This is just one instance. Throughout the runtime of Jigra, Amitabh Bachchan pops up as idea and inspiration, set-up and syntax. When Satya (Alia Bhatt), caught in a situation which may end in violence, is gently warned: “Abhi Bachchan nahin bann na hain… sirf bachke nikalna hain”, she rolls up her sleeves and says matter-of-factly: “Ab toh Bachchan hi bann na hain”.

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All 18 reviews of Jigra here

Joker
Folie a Deux doesn’t submit to formula but fails to hit any high notes

After a haul of $1 billion at the box office, 11 Academy Award nominations and the first-ever Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix, director Todd Phillips knew it would be carte blanche for him when it came to the inevitable sequel to 2019’s intriguing if ultimately superficial Joker

“Let’s give the people what they want,” Lady Gaga’s Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn) declares at a key moment in Joker: Folie a Deux. That seems odd coming from a film that is committed to giving audiences quite the opposite.

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All 4 reviews of Joker here