Recent Reviews by Sukanya Verma
rediff.com
Mumbai-born and based Sukanya Verma is a senior film critic, music critic, columnist, features writer, quiz maker and columnist with rediff.com since 1999. She has contributed cinema columns to The Hindu as well.
Films reviewed on this Page
The Sabarmati Report
Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3
Do Patti
Jigra
Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video
CTRL
The Sabarmati Report
Poorly Crafted Propaganda
The Sabarmati Report is so flimsy in its execution, taking offence to it would be dignifying its existence.
News is the truth that you choose to bring out, a cunning television journalist tells her artless subordinate early on in The Sabarmati Report. She’s the villain of the piece for concealing inconvenient realities and conveying only what suits her purpose and politics. Funny how The Sabarmati Report’s poorly crafted propaganda masquerading as a crusade for justice is nothing but a blatant embodiment of these very ideals.
All 3 reviews of The Sabarmati Report here
Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3
Horror, Hamming And Heart
A gleefully hammy Madhuri and Vidya's volley of death stares and evil laughs engage in a ruthless glamorous tug of war in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3bhool-bhulaiyaa
Just like the earlier two Bhool Bhulaiyaa movies, kickstarted by Priyadarshan in 2007, the third of the horror comedy series by Director Anees Bazmee revolves around a phony psychic caught in the family drama of a haunted haveli. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 opens like one of those The Mummy preludes unfolding a dark history from 200 years ago only to cut to the present, signalling at the wicked all the wrongdoing has unleashed, which Ruhaan aka Rooh Baba’s (Kartik Aaryan) goofball ghostbuster must put an end to by hook or crook.
All 12 reviews of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 here
Do Patti
One By Two
Do Patti collapses like a house of cards when it aims to be clever.
Dressed in the exact same attire as her newly wedded sister at her reception, the lookalike twin poses right next to the bride and groom as if fulfilling Bollywood’s bawdy fantasy of saali aadhi gharwali in a tasteless, thunder-stealing move.
All 17 reviews of Do Patti here
Jigra
My Name Is Bachchan. Alia Bachchan
Vasan Bala's ability to jolt our Bollywood conditioned brains into experiencing new forms of menace, showcasing Alia in a savage new light, wins Sukanya Verma's dil and jigra.
Vasan Bala creates worlds that may appear deceptively similar to the ones you and I inhabit but run entirely on their own terms and whimsy. It’s a part of the film-maker’s charm and cinephile influences, which made the likes of Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota and Monica O My Darling such a treat. Jigra, probably his most big-ticket project so far, is also his most sombre.
All 18 reviews of Jigra here
Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video
Stree, Lies & Videotape
Between tons of sexual innuendo and Kapil Sharma brand of slapstick gags characterised in loud caricatures, moronic behaviour, flimsy wigs and cartoonish rhythm, Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video's jarring notions of exuberance have nothing novel to offer.
Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video has the eagerness of a standup comic. It is the sort of movie that feels obliged to make a joke before a sentence, between a sentence and after a sentence. Problem is the humour is not just pedestrian, it’s also plain unfunny. It’s a joke, Manjot Singh in a cameo points out early on in Director Raaj Shaandilyaa’s first comedy outside the Dream Girl franchise, as though embarrassingly aware of how unamusing the whole shtick is.
All 9 reviews of Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video here
CTRL
Masterful Thriller
Sukanya Verma recommends watching CTRL on a computer for an eerie, immersive, real-time experience.
Unsettling, isn’t it? Our most reliable source of information and communication can be programmed to keep tabs on our mind and movement across the multiple devices that have become indispensable crutches of modern living. But then the Internet has always been a seductive, if not secure, space where all its gifts come with its share of dangers.